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Alberto Villarreal is a Senior Industrial Designer based in Mexico City, focused on product development and technological/cultural innovation.

With more than 30 international awards over the past decade, his work has been recognized with some of the most prestigious honors of the industry, including: Red Dot Luminary Award, Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award, iF Hannover Product Design Award and IDSA Industrial Design Excellence Award, among others.

Characterized by a diverse portfolio of projects and entrepreneurial drive, his work spans a variety of industries and products such as: sports equipment, transportation, consumer electronics, furniture, toys, high-tech medical devices, and appropriate technology.

His clients vary from Fortune 500 companies to small start-ups as well as non-profit organizations. Throughout his career, he's worked with companies such as: Volkswagen, Nike, LeapFrog, Volvo Trucks, Mabe, Fila, SanDisk, Adidas, Grupo Industrial Saltillo, Konica-Minolta, Hewlett-Packard, and Johnson Controls (to name a few).

Some of his recent speaking engagements include: Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts (China), Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain), California College of the Arts (San Francisco, USA), United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Sustainable Transportation (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and TEDx ITESM (Mexico City).

He was included in the list of 11 Most Influential Mexican Entrepreneurs of 2011 by Milenio Press Group. Read Less

Alberto's work has been published in books and magazines worldwide as well as in the global leading design web portals. His work has been exhibited in Asia, Europe, North and South America. Nowadays he is one of the Mexican young designers with more international recognition.

Alberto started his career at automotive-design studios such as Pininfarina (Italy), Johnson Controls Advanced Design (Germany) and Volkswagen Design (Mexico). In 2004 Alberto joined LUNAR where he worked as Senior Lead Designer in San Francisco (USA) for four years and gained major experience leading projects with clients internationally. At LUNAR, he was also a founding member of the LUNAR Elements team (internal sustainability group).

In 2009, Alberto partnered with architect Michel Rojkind to start AGENT, a Strategic Intelligence Embassy with a disruptive approach to the product development process, where he currently leads the design team and company strategy.

Through his experience in Europe and North America, Alberto has learned different methodologies that now help him tackle projects that vary in scale and scope, from large vehicles or precise medical tools to performance equipment for the sports industry or educational toys.

Although Alberto's work reflects a high charge of technology, he believes the cultural aspects are key in the design process and consequently in the success of a product or service.

He obtained a Bachelor Degree in Industrial Design from UNAM (Mexico) and a Masters Degree in Transportation Design from Umeå University (Sweden). He is fluent in Spanish, English and Italian, and has a basic understanding of Swedish, Portuguese and French. In 2000 he received the Medal “Gabino Barreda“, given to the best student of each major at UNAM, Mexico. Read Less

Alberto has been teaching industrial design courses at various universities since 2003 (UNAM, UIA, Centro, and ITESM in Mexico) and has been invited lecturer in several ones, including the Haas MBA course at University of California Berkeley. In the summer 2012, Alberto started as invited professor at the DeTao Masters Academy in China.

He's also participated as external adviser at California College of the Arts, Stanford University Engineering School, and Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Besides his academic activities, he has been a Juror in several design competitions.

Through his work, lectures, and as a pioneer promoting industrial design on the web, Alberto has inspired hundreds of young designers around the world. Some of his former students hold positions at companies such as Royal Philips and Sony Ericsson. In 2002 he was awarded as Honorary Member of the National Association of Research in Didactics, of Spain. Read Less