Italy

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rizzo is a Rome-born author, speaker and advisor who has built a global professional footprint across every continent.

He is a visionary futurist and an enthusiastic innovator. He is currently NATO world-class expert (“Member at Large1 ”) for Strategic Foresight and Futures Studies; professional futurist advisor for European Defense Agency (EDA), United Nations (UN), and both NATO Strategic Commands; Emerging Science & Technology counselor and Principal Futurist advisor for one of the top 10 Aerospace, Defense & Security companies globally; and NATO expert for Cyberspace and Cyber Defence. He is renown in EDA’s TechWatch and NATO Allied Command Transformation’s (ACT) Futures Work, where he is editor and co-author of NATO Technology Trends, co-author of Strategic Foresight Analysis and Framework for Future Alliance Operations, chairman of their Future Technology tracks, and full contributor to Longer-Term Aspects – this oeuvre framing deep futures out to 2040–2060, to inform $1T worth of Defense planning.

He holds an MSc in Theoretical Physics honored with a national award for excellence, and a Ph.D. in Physics – String Theory and Astrophysics – graded as top 1%. He held multiple positions over more than ten years in Engineering Research, Development & Innovation before moving to Strategy, winning the Innovation Award in 2017 and 2018, with an international, multinational, and multicultural scope within NATO and outside (Russia, Israel, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Singapore).

Gabriele has broad experience in land, air, sea, space and cyber assets, and vast, in-depth experience in Science & Technology complexes at different management levels, and is currently involved in several deep tech, high-value, long-term military programs in the EU, NATO, Italy and UK.

He planned technology roadmapping for strategy and innovation at top decision-makers’ level, advised industrial and Ministry of Defense representatives in multiple NATO Von Karman Horizon Scanning, and led the technological innovation in a €10M FP7 European project, managing 65 experts from 40 universities and industries across 15 countries – an endeavor nevertheless concluded with honors from the EU.