Jesse Marsh studied Fine Arts in the US before moving to Milan to work as an architect and industrial designer for a range of products from office furniture to artificial lungs. In the late 1980s his interest shifted to technology innovation, participating since then in over 45 EU research projects on both policy and concrete experimentation on themes ranging from teleworking to cultural diversity and Smart Cities. Moving to Palermo in 1995, his focus broadened to include regional policy and social innovation with a citizen-centred and territorial perspective. Starting in 2014, he put together and led a four-year Horizon 2020 project on business model innovation in the textile and clothing sector – “TCBL: Textile and Clothing Business Labs” – and is now Chair of the TCBL Association.