THE CREATORS
A father instrumentalist and IT Executive and his son instrumentalist, graduated in bio-technology and software developer
Gianfranco de Nicolo
Creator
Infatuated by electronics, in love with IT and seduced by music: the founder of Mawip has a multifaceted past! First as a technical expert, then as a conservatory student, and finally as a manager in large multinationals, such as Olivetti and Gartner.
As soon as he started to retire, he picked up the bassoon again, rediscovering all its joys... and pains. Having begun to wonder if it was possible to simplify the positions of the hands and devoutly believing in technology and robotics, the idea of the densoon began to take hold... and shape, also thanks to the irreplaceable contribution of his second-born son.
Noting the interest aroused by his instrument in the jazz and multi-instrumental field, the facilitation of bassoon fingering and the diffusion of one of the woods most exposed to the danger of extinction became a real mission for him.
Fabio de Nicolo
Software developer
As a child he dreamed of finding a way to turn desert sand into water, thus solving the thirst problem in Africa! He studied biotechnology at university, with the prospect of dedicating himself to the research of new drugs. Things went differently and, after his thesis in Paris related to nanotechnologies against Alzheimer’s disease, he returned to Italy and began working in the world of health IT, learning to program in Pascal, Delphi, PHP and finally Python .
Thanks to this knowledge and the enthusiasm shown for his father’s ideas, he was able to develop the operational logic of the densoon, creating software capable of interpreting the positions of the fingers on the keyboard, consequently controlling the servomechanisms to open or close the right holes. When we say: family tradition!
OTHER COLLABORATIONS
Chiara Corti, Samuele Mengarelli, Jacopo Pacioni, Paolo Giancarlo Sesana
The "Fantastic four"
This team of lively minds, drawn from the faculties of Integrated Product Design, Design & Engineering and Product Service System Design, was composed in the most spontaneous, natural and playful way possible: the inventor of the densoon and the creator of Mawip, Gianfranco de Nicolo, went to the university at the invitation of Professor Mario Covarrubias Rodriguez, teacher of the CAD Modeling course at the Milan Bovisa Polytechnic, to talk about his creations and find collaborators who could concretely help him bring his projects to life. At the conclusion of de Nicolo‘s speech, when he asked who was interested in embarking on that extraordinary adventure with him, the hands of four pioneers were raised without hesitation: Chiara Corti (25 years old), Samuele Mengarelli (22), Jacopo Pacioni (21) and Paolo Giancarlo Sesana (22). Guided by the designer’s directives, these four courageous musketeers created the 3D parametric modeling of new keys for the instrument, as well as the related supports on mobile armatures, starting from a base, also of their own production, of a three-dimensional model of the bassoon.
Hemargroup
Swiss engineering company
The prestigious engineering company Hemargroup from Switzerland, oversaw the industrial re-engineering of the Italian densoon project by Mawip and is responsible for the production of the kit for transforming the bassoon.