Luca Colombo is an architect from Milan, an italian city strongly related to industrial design. After several years of activity in italy as interior and exibit designer, in September 2006 Luca Colombo moved to Ethiopia where he started focusing on Product Design. He started analysing the traditional Ethiopian products and the locally available materials, in order to link western industrial design and local handicraft. He turned most of his interest to bamboo, a natural, ecologic, sustainable and versatile material. Bamboo is a traditional Ethiopian product, but it is usually used for a limited adn repetitive number of items. Luca Colombo Design's target is to find out new applications for bamboo, also combined with other materials present in the local market, in order to create innovative items, suitable for new lifestyles.

The ethic target is also important. In order to this, Luca Colombo's projects are made by local craftmen that can improve their situation. The production is carried on both by existing workshops, that can maximise their knowledge, and by new workshops, created for this specific porpouse in cooperation with NGOs, offering skill and job to economically and socially disadvantaged people.

From this background new lines of products are coming out, with the target of renewing the local market but also trying an international diffusion of Ethiopian production, according to the Eastern Africa Bamboo Project, carried on by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and United Nation Industrial Development Organization.