Nature based solutions in the fight against climate change

The conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems is among our most effective strategies we have to help in the fight against biodiversity loss and climate change. But managing ecosystems effectively requires an intricate knowledge of the organisms that regulate our climate. By using machine learning to pair satellite imagery with the biggest set of ground-sourced data, containing over 30 million tree and 400’000 soil data point, the Crowther Lab is able to generate a holistic understanding of Earth’s ecosystems. In this keynote we learn how technologies such as Artificial Intelligence can transform our ability to understand climate change, and identify effective strategies to address it. Thomas Crowther talks about the Earth’s restoration potential and how we can have a positive impact with new (digital) technologies on our carbon household.

About Thomas Crowther

Thomas Crowther is a British scientist specializing in ecosystem ecology and the chief scientific advisor to the UN's Trillion Tree Campaign. He is a tenure-track professor of Global Ecosystem Ecology at ETH Zurich where he formed the Crowther Lab. His work aims to generate a holistic understanding of the global scale ecological systems which regulate the Earth's climate.

After his PhD, Thomas received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Yale Climate and Energy Institute, to pursue his postgraduate research at Yale University. In 2015, Thomas was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship to research the impact of carbon cycle feedbacks on climate change at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO).
In 2017, Thomas started a tenure track professorship at ETH Zürich. His ongoing research is supported through a unique partnership with DOB Ecology – a private foundation focused on supporting projects which protect and restore threatened ecosystems across the globe. A holistic global understanding of ecological systems is necessary for us to understand and address climate change and biodiversity loss.

Event language: ENG

Passive Machines: Powered by Digital Design and Fabrication

Passive machines use energy in the environment to power their movement, similar to a young sunflower turning to face the sun. They offer the potential to create a new future for energy saving machines since they do not require energy storage, e.g. batteries, and traditional motors, actuators and software. Digital design and fabrication inspired us to re-think the current mechatronic approach to creating movement and replace common components with heat activated materials that can be 3D printed, also known as 4D printing. The potential of passive machines is illustrated through reconfigurable structures that self-assemble into multiple forms, a swimming robot that has no motor or tether and a self-deploying solar panel that expands 10x in less than a minute. The power is in the design.

About Kristina Shea

Kristina Shea is Professor for Engineering Design and Computing in Mechanical and Processing Engineering at ETH Zurich since 2012. Her group’s research focuses on designing innovative and optimized engineered systems, e.g. through 3D and 4D printing, as well as developing cutting-edge computational design methods. They investigate a wide variety of application areas across a number of industries including consumer products, robotics, space, and healthcare. Currently, she is also excited about designing high quality technical products with purposeful design that can make a social impact in developing countries. In 1997, she completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. She has held academic positions at EPFL, University of Cambridge, UK, and the Technical University of Munich, Germany. She also worked as a senior engineer at Arup in London, UK. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Event language: ENG

The three biggest challenges we solved at MuleSoft, and how these led to multi-billion dollar growth

MuleSoft Founder Ross Mason discusses the major hurdles he and his team encountered in taking MuleSoft to market in the 2008 financial crisis, and the measures they took to solve them, which ultimately led to MuleSoft undergoing one of the largest SaaS acquisitions in history

About Ross Mason

Ross Mason is one of the UK’s most successful technology entrepreneurs. He founded MuleSoft in 2006; in 2017 he took it public (NYSE:MULE) and in 2018 he sold it to Salesforce for $6.5Bn, one of the largest technology acquisitions in history. Whilst in San Francisco Ross invested in (and continues to advise) entrepreneurs solving the world’s largest problems. More recently, he launched his family office, ‘Dig Ventures’, backing exceptional founders in Enterprise SaaS in Europe and the US.

Event language: ENG

The Global AI Supercomputer

The number of computers in the world is still growing at an exponential rate. For instance, there are 9 Billion new micro-controllers shipped every year and that is on top of other devices such as mobile phones and servers in the cloud and on-premise. This talk takes a different perspective on this trend and argues that it makes sense to look at all these micro-controllers, devices, and servers as one big supercomputer. The talk gives examples that illustrate how to make this supercomputer sustainable, secure, programable, and useful.

About Donald Kossmann

Donald Kossmann is the director of the Microsoft Research Lab in Redmond, which researches in all core areas of computer science, works closely with business groups throughout the company and collaborates openly with universities and the scientific communities, to cover the whole spectrum from fundamental, basic research to technology transfer as part of high-risk and high-potential projects.

Donald’s research on data management aims to make data in the cloud cheaper, more valuable, and more secure. He is part of the Cipherbase project, which has led to Microsoft’s SQL Always Encrypted product, and involved in the Socrates project (SQL Hyperscale). Donald is a strong believer in decomposing the traditional monolithic database architecture. He has spent many years of his career in academia, co-founded several small and middle-sized companies such as 28msec Inc. and Teralytics, and is currently working on a book that explains basic concepts of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence to teenager.

Event Language: ENG

Mathias Wellig grew up in Fiesch (VS) and studied computer science at ETH Zurich, specializing in information security. Ten years ago, Mathias founded Ubique Innovation AG in Zurich. Today the company has around 40 employees and is one of the largest developers of smartphone apps in Switzerland. There is a good chance that you have installed at least one of his apps: The SwissCovid app, the app for the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), Meteo Switzerland or Alertswiss all bear the signature of Mathias and his team, which recently worked under high speed with the ETH, EPFL and other partners on the development of the official Swiss Contact Tracing app. The prototype of the app was built during the 72-hour online hackathon #CodeVSCOVID19 by HackZurich, where the project was among 25 best solutions out of 300 projects.

Event language: DE

Dr. Charity Wayua is a senior research manager at IBM research Africa, an organization whose mission is to develop innovative and commercially viable technologies that impact people’s lives. In her role today, she spends her time developing her team's research strategy and driving execution in the team's areas of focus: applications of cloud and artificial intelligence technologies in healthcare, climate and agriculture. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Xavier University, (Ohio, US) and a PhD in Chemistry at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana, US) where her research was focused on developing targeted therapeutics and imaging agents for lung, pancreatic and colon cancers.

A Tale of Two Startups

How difficult is the transfer of technology from Academia, and how can it be facilitated? This is a question that Amin has been asked countless times over the last two decades. The question is seemingly simple in its statement but extremely hard to answer.

Rather than answering it, Amin's Keynote will focus on two attempts at commercializing top notch research in the form of startups. The first startup is “Digital Fountain,” which operated in Silicon Valley, and was acquired by Qualcomm in 2009. The second example is “Kandou”, a Swiss company he is currently running. The companies operate(d) in two entirely different markets and two geographies that are as dissimilar as they come. The talk attempts to highlight not only the difficulties of bringing technology to market, but also highlights a very personal view of challenges and the advantages of starting a technology company in Switzerland, rather than in Silicon Valley.

About Amin Shokrollahi

Amin Shokrollahi finished his PhD at the University of Bonn in 1991 where he was an assistant professor until 1995. From 1995 to 1998 he was at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley. In 1998 he joined the Bell Laboratories as a Member of the Technical Staff. From 2000 to 2009 he was the Chief Scientist of Digital Fountain. In 2003 he joined EPFL as a full professor of Mathematics and Computer Science. In 2011 he founded the company Kandou Bus which designs fast and energy efficient chip-to-chip links. The company has raised 100 million US Dollars to date.

Dr. Shokrollahi’s research covers a wide range of topics from pure mathematics to electronics. He has 200+ publications, and 150+ pending and granted patent applications. An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Shokrollahi’s honors include several IEEE Paper Awards, the IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award, the Advanced Research Grant of the ERC, the IEEE Hamming Medal, the Mustafa Prize, and the ISSCC Jan van Vessem Award for outstanding European paper.

Event language: ENG

Karin has many years of management experience as CEO and currently holds various positions on various boards of directors, such as the gastronomy company SV Group. She is also the president of the Zurich Chamber of Commerce, a member of Economiesuisse and is involved in various associations and organizations. Karin is committed to concrete actions regarding sustainability and social responsibility in Swiss entrepreneurship, e.g. through B-Lab-Switzerland or as an investor.
Respectfulness, curiosity and responsibility have always been the guidelines in all the ventures in Karin's career. Be it a student, teacher, researcher, family woman, entrepreneur, however particularly as an experienced leader and CEO, as well as Member or President of different boards either associations or SME companies, i.e. Lenzlinger Söhne AG, SV Group or the Chamber of Commerce of Zurich and Economiesuisse. Having also had the chance to gain experience in different countries she now intends to help foster actions of sustainability and social responsibility in swiss entrepreneurship, also as an investor.

Event Language: GER

Shaping Digital Products for Success

Designing a digital product is hard. Designing a successful digital product is even harder. Before launching it, we always want it to be perfect—and of course, we can always make it more perfect. When do we stop? In other words, when is it good enough to be shipped? In his talk, Patrick will share what successful products have in common and based on his experience at Nexthink, he’ll explain a framework he’s defined to help taking the right product design decisions.

About Patrick Hertzog

Patrick is an expert in product design, user experience and data visualization. He is the author of several papers published on well-known platforms and has been awarded several patents. He holds a Master in Computer Science from EPFL.

Patrick is the Co-Founder and User Experience Officer of Nexthink, the global leader in digital employee experience management software. Founded in 2004, Nexthink enables its more than 1000 customers to make their 10 million employees happier at work. It has raised more than 150 Million Dollars in funding to date and has more than 600 employees located in 11 offices worldwide.

Event language: ENG

Proximity to Customers Rocks!

Countless home visits, video interviews and phone calls - close contact to its customers has been an important part of day-to-day work at Jimdo for the last 15 years. Ever since founding the company, deeply understanding the target audience has been a strong need for Matthias as the founder and CEO. In his talk, he shows how Jimdo develops its product for and with its customers - and why he finds focusing on their needs so satisfying (sure to include some emotional stories!).

About Matthias Henze

The digital platform for website, shop and logo creation supports entrepreneurs, small businesses and teams to succeed online. Jimdo was founded in 2007 and currently employs over 200 people in Hamburg and Tokyo. To date, more than 25 million websites worldwide are built with Jimdo.
Matthias was born in 1977, grew up in Göttingen, lived in Oman and the USA, and studied in Kiel and Gothenburg. When he's not working for Jimdo, he loves to spend time with his family, enjoys sky-sailing, tours in the snow, and running.

Event Language: GER

Annalise Eggimann, CEO of Innosuisse — the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion — was born in 1960 in Eriswil near Bern. She was admitted to the bar at the University of Bern in 1987 and completed an Executive MBA at the University of Zurich in 2003. After a few years working for companies as a legal assistant, she took on senior positions at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) before becoming CEO of the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI), the predecessor organisation of Innosuisse, in 2015. Annalise Eggimann is married and likes to spend her free time reading, hiking and travelling.

Moustapha Cisse is a research scientist at Google and head of the Google AI center in Accra, Ghana, where he leads research efforts in foundational machine learning and its applications to solving complex societal challenges. Moustapha is also a professor of machine learning at the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, where where he is the founder and director of the African Master’s of Machine Intelligence program. He was previously a research scientist at Facebook AI Research. Before that, he completed his PhD at University Pierre and Marie Curie in France.

Marc Gläser is an expert when it comes to international marketing of high-quality Swiss products. Since 2014, he has been managing Stöckli, Switzerland's largest ski manufacturer. As the first CEO who is not a member of the Stöckli family, Marc modernized the company and greatly expanded sales in Switzerland and abroad.
Before this, Marc worked for the Swiss watch manufacturer Maurice Lacroix for 12 years, where he was promoted to CEO in 2012. It was up to Marc and his team to reposition the brand, bring the management closer to the market and customers and increase profitability. Other career highlights included his own Swiss family business Wogg, known for high-quality design furniture, as well as Feldschlösschen and the consumer goods group Unilever. Marc is married, father of two children and acquired his skills at the HSG.

Event Language: GER

Dr. Yen is the Founder and CEO of Proton, the company behind ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email service, and ProtonVPN, one of the world’s most widely used VPN services. While ProtonMail was originally developed to help dissidents, activists, and journalists combat mass surveillance, it has also achieved mainstream popularity in recent years and is now used by over 20 million people from around the world. Today, Dr. Yen, along with 200 other scientists, researchers, and engineers, continue to develop ProtonMail as free and open-source software, to realize a vision of an Internet that protects the privacy and defends digital freedom.
Before creating ProtonMail, Dr. Yen was a particle physicist at CERN where his research focus was on supersymmetry and scientific computing. He received his PhD in Physics from Harvard University and also has degrees in Physics and Economics from Caltech.

Event Language: ENG

Dr. Dominika Blonski has been Data Protection Commissioner of the Canton of Zurich since May 2020. She graduated in Law at the University of Fribourg with a focus on State, Constitution and Public Administration as well as European and International Affairs. She obtained her PhD from the University of Berne on the subject of "Biometric data as an object of informational self-determination". She broadened her interdisciplinary skills in the areas of information security management and technology with the CAS in Information Security at the University of Lucerne. She is a member of the privatim office, the conference of Swiss data protection officers.

Event Language: GER

Fireside Chat with Kai Renchen

In 2004, while finishing his high school studies, Kai Renchen started the brand parfumdreams from within his parent's family company. In 2018, having grown to over 400 employees, an 80% majority stake in the company was successfully sold to the German perfume company Parfümerie Douglas GmbH. But parfumdreams is not just a financial success story - only very few startups manage to cultivate well-functioning teams with equally low employee turnover and as strong a sense of community.

In our fireside chat, Kai talks to moderator Lukas Schleuniger about how to integrate digitalisation as part of a company's DNA right from the beginning, and how long-term thinking, humility, and equitable leadership foster successful teams and partnerships.

About Kai Renchen

In 2004, during his community service, Kai founded parfumdreams as another brand of Parfümerie Akzente GmbH, an SME founded by his parents, which until then was mainly operating in stationary retail. Since 2012, Kai has been the spokesman for the management of the family-owned company parfumdreams, of which 80% was successfully sold to Perfumery Douglas GmbH in 2018. Today, parfumdreams has over 400 employees who are united by a strong community spirit. To be prepared for the future, the company is actively committed to team building, continuing education and vocational training, as well as new digital and smart ways of working and thinking. Today, Kai is managing partner of several companies, family entrepreneur, digital junkie and pioneer. Although Kai is madly in love with technology and digital management, he also likes to forget about it and put people at the forefront of his actions.

Event Language: GER

Antoinette Weibel is Professor of Human Resources Management and Director of the Research Institute for Work and Workplaces at the University of St. Gallen. Previously, she researched and taught at the Universities of Konstanz and Speyer as well as at the Hochschule Liechtenstein. She completed her doctorate and habilitation at the University of Zurich. Her research areas are the influence of institutions on employee motivation, trust in the company, stakeholder trust and well-being at work. She is President of the First International Network of Trust Researchers, a member of the Steering Committee of the European Group for Organizational Studies and on the Board of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Event language: GER

Monika has been a managing partner of the Manufaktur de Sede AG since 2014. Born in Aargau, she began her career with an educational training as an haute couture dressmaker, followed by a Master of Science in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, an Executive Master in Management Communication and Leadership, an Executive Master in Telecommunications and Change Management, and an Executive MBA in Leadership and Ethics.
She started her first position as a managing director and owner in 1994 at Cassiopeia Trend AG. From 2000 to 2004 she worked as Chief Communication Officer at the newly founded telecommunications company diAx and, after its sale, at TDC Switzerland AG/sunrise. From 2005 to 2009, she was CCO and HR manager and deputy managing director at ETRANS AG and founded swissgrid AG, in which the assets of ETRANS AG were merged. During this time she was elected UCTE (umbrella organisation of all operators of high-voltage grids in Europe in Brussels) responsible for communication and political issues.
Based on these projects she founded the WAEGA-Group AG in Zurich in 2009 with two partners. She still handles the mandates of Sanitas Krankenversicherungs AG, Orior AG and Zurich Zoo within this company. From 2009 to 2014 Monika was CEO of the Swiss bag and accessories manufacturer FREITAG lab ag. Since 2016 she has been CEO and delegate of the board of directors of de Ligno AG.

Event Language: GER

Marc-Remo is the Managing Director of Kündig Nahrungsmittel GmbH & Co KG since 2015 and responsible for the Marketing and Communication division of the Kündig Group since 2016. Previously, the graduate marketing and SME management expert (SAWI/HSG) worked in quality leading companies in the dental and automotive industries, where he was able to further develop his passion for brand management in four languages as a product manager.

Event Language: GER

DIGITALISIERUNG UND INNOVATION IN KMU

Manche Veränderungen sind unaufhaltsam, manche sind zwingend nötig. Die Digitalisierung und der technologische Wandel treffen die KMU unmittelbar und führen dazu, dass unternehmerische Ressourcen neu gedacht und zielführend eingesetzt werden müssen. Bei der Digitalisierung handelt es sich nicht um eine Modeerscheinung, sondern um ein Thema, welches über den Fortbestand und den Wettbewerbsvorteil eines Unternehmens entscheiden wird.

• Wie erkennen Entscheidungsträger_innen in KMU, welche Innovationen für ihr Kerngeschäft entscheidend sind, welche produktiv genutzt und monetarisiert werden können?
• Wie gelingt dabei die Balance zwischen bewährten Methoden und agilem Innovationsmanagement im KMU?
• Wie unterhält man eine traditionsorientierte und innovative Unternehmenskultur, die Mitarbeitende täglich motiviert am selben Strang zu ziehen?
  
  
  Diesen und weiteren Fragen aus dem Publikum stellen sich vier Unternehmer*innen und Führungskräfte aus global agierenden KMU unterschiedlicher Branchen während einer Diskussionsrunde zu Technologie, Digitaler Transformation, Kultur und Innovationsmanagement im KMU.

Eventsprache: DE