swissnex China organized an informal gathering for alumni from all Swiss universities at the Swiss Week 2015.
Read MoreEuropean Day at Fudan 2015, May 8
The year of 2015 marks the 40th anniversary of EU-China relations and the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relation between Switzerland and China.
Against this backdrop, swissnex China and the Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai, along with the Consulate General of Austria, France, Finland in Shanghai and some educational institutions (EMA, OEAD, Campus France, DAAD, Alliance Francaise de Shanghai, CIMO and Balassi Institute) jointly held the activity of the European Day at Fudan University.
Read More“Insight China” 2015
For the 5th time since 2009, the Science, Technology and Education Section of the Embassy of Switzerland and swissnex China welcomed a delegation from the University of Applied Sciences and Art Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). The FHNW actively fosters collaboration with China, including the foundation of a Swiss SME Research Center in Harbin in 2013 that provides Swiss SMEs with valuable information to gain a foothold in the Chinese market. This year, the delegation consisted of 29 students and professors of the business school, who organized a two-week study trip to China as part of a project called “Insight China”.
“Insight China” is an initiative by senior students of the FHNW with the mission to make graduating students ready for successfully doing business in China. Prior to their study trip, the students attended a preparatory seminar in Switzerland. For many FHNW business students, it is the first time to travel in China. After their arrival on March 28th, the delegation organized a joint together with the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) on “Non State & State Owned Enterprises as Economic Drivers in China/Switzerland”. Both universities presented insightful views on the role, attractiveness and profitability of Swiss and Chinese non-state owned enterprises (non-SOE) and state owned enterprises (SOE). Prof. Zhonglin XU from the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) further elaborated on the issue of non-SOE and SOE as well as future challenges that need to be met in a presentation entitled “Chinese Dream: Opportunities and Challenges - SOE reform in China Past, Present and Future”. To conclude the event, appetizers and drinks were served at the Residence of the Embassy, which was a great networking opportunity to promote cultural exchange.
“Swiss Made” in Beijing: the Untold Story Behind Switzerland’s Success
During last week’s annual Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE) and in the presence of various Swiss institutions of higher education, swissnex China and the Embassy of Switzerland in Beijing organized four lectures on Switzerland’s exceptional success story. Switzerland, as a country that puts great emphasis on higher education, research and commitment to international partnership, is splendidly portrayed in Mr. R. James Breiding’s book Swiss Made: The Untold Story Behind Switzerland’s Success. Mr. Breiding was welcomed by the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), Tsinghua University, Newhuadu Business School (NBS) and the Yale, Harvard and IMD alumni clubs in Beijing, where he held talks with students and young professionals.
The first lecture about “The Success Story Behind Switzerland’s Strong Positioning in Finance & Banking” took place on March 25th and was hosted by Prof. Huayong NIU, Dean of the International Business School at BFSU. H.E. Jean-Jacques de Dardel, Ambassador of Switzerland to China, and Mr. Guohua YAN, Vice President of the BFSU, also attended the lecture, during which Mr. Breiding offered a comprehensive introduction into the fascinating world of Swiss finance and banking industries. He explained the reasons behind their success, and how they eventually became the backbones of Switzerland’s economic landscape.
Prof. Wei ZHANG, Academic Director of Tsinghua x-lab, hosted another lecture called “Swiss Innovation versus Innovation from Silicon Valley”. In the course of this event, Mr. Breiding and Prof. Steven White, Deputy Director of Tsinghua x-lab, shared their viewpoints on Swiss innovation and engaged in lively discussions with the audience. The discussion revealed how Swiss visionaries and entrepreneurs rose to success, step-by-step paving the way for ground breaking innovations and “Swiss Made” excellence.
At the premise of the Newhuadu Business School, a leading private business school with a newly established campus in Zurich, Mr. Breiding gave another talk and joined a roundtable discussion in front of over 80 business executives including APAIE and SwissCham representatives. Together with Mr. Chijiang (Star) WANG, General Manager of hampoo, he elaborated on the topic “When Made in China Meets Swiss Made”. According to Mr. Wang, “Made in China” stands partly for “copycat behavior” and low quality at low market prices, while “Swiss Made” is a labeling that exemplifies the commitment to produce not only high-end products, but also the continuous effort to provide the employees with market-oriented educational programs and state-of-the-art equipment. In taking Switzerland’s success and openness to immigrant workers as an example, Mr. Wang is confident that a similar book to Swiss Made, but with reference to Chinese companies and entrepreneurs, will appear under the title Made in China soon.
The last lecture in this series, “Innovation in Switzerland vs. Innovation in Silicon Valley”, was held on March 26th in collaboration with the Yale, Harvard and IMD alumni clubs in Beijing. A dynamic group of young business professionals addressed questions like “What are the similarities and differences between innovation in Switzerland and innovation in Silicon Valley?” or “How come Switzerland is home to high-tech SMEs without owning even one single national innovation park?”. In doing so, they became aware of the forces that keep the motors of innovation and entrepreneurship in Switzerland moving.
To sum up, the “Swiss Made” lectures and roundtable discussions perfectly fitted the context of the 65 years anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and People’s Republic of China. Swissnex China and the Embassy of Switzerland in Beijing could witness that Swiss Made was very well received by the audience and offers useful insights into the remarkable story of Swiss entrepreneurship, craftsmanship and innovation.
- Contributed by Marcel Schneider, Attaché of Science, Technology and Education Section, Embassy of Switzerland in Beijing
Building a Human Brain
swissnex China had the pleasure to welcome two experts in the field of neuroscience, to share with us their knowledge about the human brain and the progress of human brain projects in Switzerland and China. Dr. Sean Hill presented the possibilities, challenges and current status of these projects in Switzerland, while Prof. Feng Jianfeng presented them from the Chinese point of view.
Read MoreSwiss Alumni Event in Taipei
On March 12, 2015 the first-ever Swiss Alumni Networking Event was held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel’s M.O. Bar in Taipei, Taiwan. The idea of such an event - which was originally brought up by the Trade Office of Swiss Industries (TOSI) and Alumni UZH Taipei (University of Zurich) and quickly supported by swissnex China - was to find as many Swiss alumni in Taiwan as possible and to hold an initial event in order to put the spotlight on Swiss schooling and to give the alumni a platform to network and meet other alumni.
The event was a huge success with almost 100 graduates (75 percent of which were Taiwan citizens) from Swiss universities, hotel schools, business schools and boarding schools joining. Nearly half of the participants (48 percent) graduated from one of the 11 hotel schools that were represented that evening, 43 percent were graduates from 12 different universities and universities of applied science, six guests graduated from two different business schools, and three from two Swiss boarding schools.
The event was opened with speeches from Rolf Frei, director of TOSI, and Pascal Marmier, CEO of swissnex China. The alumni then had plenty of time to network, meet people from their alma mater and mingle, all while drinking a chilled glass of red wine and enjoying finger foods provided by the M.O. Bar.
“It was a real pleasure to get to know so many young and young at heart and learn about the amazing careers they made after graduating in Switzerland” says Rolf Frei, Co-Host of the event.
The organization committee was very happy to see such a high number of participants and would like to thank all the guests for participating. We can only be glad to have given such an opportunity to our Swiss alumni to gather here in Taipei and we are looking forward to preparing the next event for this newly created network.
- Contributed by Gianna Abegg, Associate at EIGER and Gaétan Franzini, Academic Intern, Trade Office of Swiss Industries
Semaine de la langue française et de la francophonie: Workshop on innovation and Design Thinking
Jointly organized by ParisTech JiaoTong University, swissnex China, The Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai, and the Consulate General of France in Shanghai, the workshop on innovation and Design Thinking attracted many students as well as seasoned experts from various companies. Fully conducted in French to celebrate the Semaine de la langue française et de la francophonie —an annual celebration of French language and francophone cultures— the event was attended by a balanced mix of enthusiastic native and non-native French-speakers. To this effect, Chinese students were especially motivated in speaking French throughout the event.
With innovation as the theme, the main feature of the day was a workshop on Design Thinking, including a competition among the students. First inaugurated by a speech from Cédric Denis-Rémis (Dean of ParisTech Shanghai Jiao Tong) and Pascal Marmier (CEO of swissnex China), the participants were then informed on the format of the competition where they were randomly grouped into teams, asked to think about different problems or issues within an industry, and come up with creative solutions.
Students, assisted by mentors whose role was to guide the group through the Design Thinking process, could experience the importance of collaboration and discussion when working in the field of innovation. Supplied with a large variety of tools, including adhesive notes, blank wallpapers, markers, or even computers, creativity was highly stimulated without any compromise on entertainment.
In the end, each team presented their idea and a jury formed of several industry experts provided feedback in addition to a rating to determine the winner. It should be noted that students were very resourceful concerning the format of the presentations, with some even entirely miming their inventions!
Attendees largely contributed to the success of the event, the commitment and creativity from the participants as well as the insights from industry professionals were particularly appreciated. With over 60 participating students – from SJTU-ParisTech Elite Institute of Technology, ParisTech, Institut Franco-Chinois de l'université Renmin de Chine, French School of Shanghai and Ecole Polytechnique , 10 experts – such as Sanofi's Head of Business Development Asia , the CEO of Pixolabs, Pernod Ricard's Strategic Planning Director or Lyonbiopôle's China Project Manager, and numerous members from the organizing parties and their friends, the event was also a fantastic opportunity to network and meet people from different backgrounds.
- Contributed by Jean-Pierre Trang, Junior Project Leader in cooperation with HEC Lausanne
XI JINPING'S CHINA DREAM
Andrea Riemenschnitter, Chair Professor of Modern Chinese Studies at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University Zurich was surprised when she received an invitation for a four week scholarship entitled “Understanding China” at Fudan University, considering that she has already “been in the business” for some years. Strolling through the streets of Shanghai and seeing the Chinese New Year’s posters, with illustrations that were familiar to her, Professor Riemenschnitter started to dig deeper. She learned that a whole campaign promoting “Zhongguo Meng” was based on the illustrations of Feng Zikai, and was surprised that the campaign already started in 2013. Even after several recent visits to Beijing, she hasn’t heard about that before. Therefore Professor Riemenschnitter really had to come to Shanghai to understand China and received a lot of inputs for her project about environmental modernization, and how it is represented in cultural production.
Thanks to the Professor’s initiative to meet the local Alumni during her stay, we could organize a lecture that attracted a lot of interest and therefore was very well attended. The big audience received an insight into Prof Riemenschnitter’s research project, on which she is already working since 2011, as well as some funny anecdotes as the one mentioned before. Rather unfamiliar with the aspects of cultural studies, many were surprised by the broad variety of topics Andrea Riemenschnitter brought up, and the different media she worked with. All the official propaganda materials, literary sources and unofficial web cartoons presented triggered different interpretations from the audience, and the question about a Swiss Dream, lead to long and lively discussions between Swiss and Chinese Alumni.
- contributed by Isabel Bolliger, Junior Project Leader in cooperation with UZH
Workshop on Global Cities, Emerging Markets and SME Internationalization, 28 January
Professor Philippe Régnier, Political Economist specialized in Asian entrepreneurship and development studies, presented his current research project on Global Cities and Internationalization of Small and medium sized Enterprises (SME). The workshop was held at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and attracted a mixed audience consisting of academia from various fields and business representatives. Professor Régnier aimed at receiving inputs and finding possible cooperation partners for his research. The results of the project, what is supposed to be finished in 2016, will be fed into the next issue of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report, which is issued by the trilingual School of Management Fribourg in Switzerland.
SMEs are considered as one of the two pillars of the global competitiveness of the OECD economies. This applies especially for the case of Switzerland, which is ranked first in the World Competitiveness Ranking, although it is a very small economy without a significant domestic market. 99.7% of Swiss firms are SMEs, with 28% of them are “international”, which means they are selling abroad. Therefore the interest in factors for successful internationalization strategies is very high, in order to remain at the top. The fast growing markets in East Asia are more and more attractive to foreign SMEs. The vast emerging markets offer a lot of potential for especially specialized SMEs. But they are hesitant to internationalize as they face many difficulties in accessing distant and risky emerging markets.
The research project of Philippe Régnier therefore aims at learning more about the different internationalization strategies of SMEs to feed the results in policy advice and enhancing internationalization. A point of interest in this research is Global Cities (GC), like New York, London and Tokyo, which are the hubs of assembled services and facilities, manifesting a very high quality and well performing entrepreneurial eco-system. As major hubs GCs cannot only provide Business Development Services (BDS) to Multi National Companis (MNC), but also to SMEs especially in their process of internationalization. Many foreign (Swiss) perceive GCs as very costly business hubs and therefore don’t make use of the excellent network and services they provide. Professor Régnier’s project should proof that the quality and specialization offered by their network and services considerably reduce business costs and risks to be faced by SMEs. They provide trustworthy partnerships and therefore needed insider ship, contributing to a successful access and market entry to East Asia.
The matrix of SMEs and GCs, the starting point of Prof. Régnier’s research
So far Singapore has been considered to be the major hub for foreign companies to enter into the East Asian market, but it is losing ranks to other GCs in Asia, like Tokyo and Hong Kong, and not to forget Shanghai. Thanks to the fast development of Shanghai, it has to be taken into account as a very important hub for the Chinese market. The good location, the biggest cargo port of the world and the Free Trade Zone contribute a lot to its locational advantage. As a result the exchange with local experts was highly appreciated by Prof Régnier and revealed the most difficult problem in doing research about the Chinese market, the unbelievable speed of development and changes.
- Contributed by Isabel Bolliger, Junior Project Leader
ETH Alumni Event on December 5, 2014
Friday, 5 December 2014, The Embassy had the honor of welcoming the President of the ETH Zurich, Prof. Dr. Ralph Eichler in visit in Beijing. For this unique occasion, the Ambassador hosted an ETH Alumni Event to acknowledge the arrival of his esteemed guest. The event gathers around 30 former students of the institutes of technology. Prof. Christian Wolfrum, ETH and Prof. Quiting Huang, ETH, who both delivered a speech at the residence, escorted Professor Eichler on his Beijing tour which took him to the newly-built Peking University International Hospital, the biggest non-profit hospital with social capital in Beijing.
6th St. Gallen Symposium Beijing Reception
In the light of the 45th St. Gallen Symposium (SGS) in 2015, the Ambassador hosted the 6th St. Gallen Symposium Beijing Reception on December 3rd 2014 at his residence on December 3rd 2014. Mr. Philip Erzinger, Chief Executive Officer, St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies (SGFIS) and the International Students’ Committee (ISC) at the University of St. Gallen coordinated the conference together with the STE team at the Embassy. Prior to the main event, selected graduate students from top Chinese universities were invited to attend a pre-gathering held by Nektarios Palaskas and Rolf Bachmann, Head of Leaders of Tomorrow at SGFIS. The two speakers exposed the role of the Embassy in the bilateral relation with China and the essay competition of the SGS respectively. For the latter, Mr. Bachman invited them to take part in the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award, an essay competition intended for graduate students. For next year, the topic of the essay is «Proudly small» and the contestants are to return their unique perspective to convince a renowned jury. The authors of the best 100 contributions will be invited to join the next St. Gallen Symposium, while the three best are bestowed with the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award.
Subsequent to the pre-gathering, the students and many more distinguished guests from business and academia attended a panel discussion and reception at the residence. A panel of influential persons in China moderated by the well-known CCTV Anchor James Chau, debated the topic “Urbanization in China – Beyond Human Scale”. We had the honor to welcome Dr. Urs BUCHMANN, Head Corporate & Institutional Clients Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse, Mr. Alex CAMPRUBI, Studio Director at China State Construction Engineer Company, Mrs. Kathy GONG, Founder and Chairwoman at KG Inc., Prof. TAO Ran, Director of the China Center for Public Economics and Governance at Renmin University of China, and Jonathan Woetzel, Director of MicKinsey & Company and Founder of Urban China Initiative, to converse on this challenging and burning topic together with the audience.
The number of cars and public transportation, the sustainable degree of density of population and the role of sky scrapers were among the subjects being debated. More details of the debate could be found on the blog page of the St. Gallen Symposium: http://www.symposium.org/en/Blog
Executive MBA of University of Zurich discovers Shanghai
In October 2014, the 10th batch of the Executive MBA Program of the University of Zurich had the privilege to visit Shanghai on the occasion of a week-long study trip. Getting an “on the ground” impression of this vibrant city, as well as a first glimpse into the Chinese market was the aim of the study trip.
Various forms of teaching allowed the group led by Professor Xinhua Wittmann and Dr. Matthias Schaub to get a unique insight into this growth market. While participants attended lectures on strategic management in China at Fudan University in the morning, they had the opportunity to take part in inspiring company visits at Sulzer and Sika in the afternoon.
Together with swissnex China, the Alumni of University of Zurich in Shanghai organized interactive workshops on current topics of utmost relevance to everyone keen on “doing business in and with China”. After an introduction on the various activities performed by swissnex China and a presentation on the Swiss presence in the Yangzte River Delta by Isabel Götz and the Consul General of Switzerland, Alexander Hoffet, the workshops were led by experts with profound knowledge about China: Marc Finsterlin, Managing Director at Aquarius Asia introduced our participants to the world of social media and online marketing in China, whereby the various marketing strategies were derived from the online behavior of Chinese consumers. In the area of intellectual property protection, Denis F. Berger, Swiss Attorney-at-Law/ LLM at Eiger provided an overview on the characteristics of Chinese law in the field of trademark protection, focussing on strategies allowing for protection, commercialization, management and enforcement of intangible property rights in China. The concluding presentation was given by Andrea Nessi, Managing Partner at Unitouch China on the topic of "Approaching the 1.4 Billion Market". He developed and described the triangle "Market-Government-Culture".
The participants of the study trip were given the opportunity to network and exchange experiences with alumni of the Executive MBA of Fudan University and other businessmen from Shanghai on the occasion of an aperitif, generously sponsored by swissnex China, Aquarius Asia, Eiger, Unitouch China as well as the Executive MBA Program.
The study trip to Shanghai was once again peppered with highlights, and we are already looking forward to the visit in 2015!
- Contributed by Dr. Matthias Schaub, Managing Director, Executive MBA University of Zürich
Education and Research Delegation from Switzerland in Beijing
Visit 3D printing lab at Beijing City University
A delegation led by Ambassador Mauro Moruzzi, Head of International Relations Department of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, along with representatives of different Swiss higher education and research institutions embarked on a 4-day tour to attend meetings with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology and others from November 18 to 21. Their trip was organized by the Swiss Embassy Science and Education Section, part of swissnex China.
The focus of the first two days was vocational and professional education as well as applied research. The delegation was invited by the Ministry of Education to a visit at the Beijing City University and the Beijing Information Management School, both models of promising Chinese schools. A first milestone took place at the MoE in the morning of the Wednesday 19th with the 1st Joint Working Group on vocational education and professional training. The objective was to facilitate the partnership between Chinese and Swiss schools and universities of applied sciences.
The delegation with officials from Beijing Information Management School
The second half of the visit was dedicated to the Sino-Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation (SSSTC). Meetings at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China Scholarship Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Natural Science Foundation of China, aimed to expand cooperation between these institutions and their Swiss counterparts. In the focus of this part of the visit was the 7th Joint Working Group with the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Alumni gathering at the Swiss Residence
A highlight of the delegation visit was the evening of Wednesday, when the Ambassador of Switzerland in China, Jean-Jacques de Dardel, hosted the annual “All Swiss University Alumni” event at his residence. More than one hundred graduates from numerous Swiss institutions attended the reception and enjoyed interesting presentations from delegation members as well as a dinner while listening to the performance of a saxophone quartet from the Dun Shan Symphony Orchestra.
A warm Welcome to the Swiss & a fond Farewell to the Chinese
On Tuesday evening, the Ambassador hosted the 1st Sino-Swiss exchange student event at the residence. A great number of Swiss students exchanging in Beijing and Chinese students previously or in the future in Switzerland were invited to meet their counterpart in order to share experiences and views on their university, Chinese or Swiss.
The time for discussion and exchange was preceded by a fascinating conference held by Lars Ulrik Thom from Beijing Postcards. His wide knowledge and research on Beijing provided us with a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the modern Chinese society He depicted the continuously transformation of the city and its landmark through the insight of its history, culture and revolutions.
The embassy treated then its guests with a tasty Raclette and students from wide horizon engaged in passionate talk until late at night.
A Swiss solar cell in Shanghai industry
On Oct. 31st 2014, we received Michael Graetzel for an evening conference, co-organized by swissnex China and Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS). The eminent EPFL Swiss professor exposed to a numerous attentive crowd mostly composed of local students and researchers the whereabouts of his invention: the Dye Sensitized Solar (DSC) Cell. This technology, also called Graetzel cell, has triggered a worldwide interest in the past 30 years, with almost every top university of the world contributing to the advances of this revolutionary invention that mimics natural photosynthesis to generate electricity in a cost effective fashion. Prof. Graetzel and his eponymous cell are now celebrities in the science world and several companies and institutions (including SICCAS) already manufacture this product around the globe. But there is more... The understanding of the physic-chemical mechanisms and the advance materials making know-how acquired in the process have allowed the scientific community to come up with a new solar cell, almost twice as efficient and even cheaper than Graetzel's first child (to use his own words): the Perovskite solar cell. This new born cousin of the DSC still has a long road before complying to market requirements, but there is no doubt it will soon power our grid and decorate our consumer electronics!
- Contributed by Jérémie Brillet, PhD, Group leader at SICCAS
Asia-Pacific Briefing 2014 at EPFL, 22 October
The Asia-Pacific Briefing was organized for the purpose to discover the latest trends in science and technology in Asia-Pacific countries and share ideas for collaboration between Switzerland and these countries among speakers and audiences. This year, the Briefing was held on 22 October in EPFL, the ERI network, especially the Asia-Pacific-based Science and Technology counselors and swissnex CEOs had the chance to present the latest developments in their region regarding education, research and innovation to a group of researchers and entrepreneurs with various backgrounds.
Pascal Marmier, CEO of swissnex China was the moderator for the session. The speakers were:
- INDIA: Indraneel Ghose, ST office New Delhi
- SOUTH KOREA: Christian Schneider, ST Office Seoul
- JAPAN: Matthias Frey, ST Office Tokyo
- CHINA: Nektarios Palaskas, ST Office Beijing
- SINGAPORE: Suzanne Hraba-Renevey, swissnex Singapore
- AUSTRALIA: Mark Engler, ST Office Canberra
The session ended up with a networking part to make sure the audience could connect with the speakers and extend their network in China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia.
University of Zurich EMBA Workshop
Also this year's UZH EMBA class continued the tradition of a study trip to China, during which they attend lectures at the Fudan University in Shanghai. Therefore swissnex China together with the UZH Alumni organized a workshop and a gathering with the locally present UZH Alumni. The group, which was accompanied by the Managing Director Dr. Matthias Schaub, was welcomed and introduced to the activities of swissnex China by Isabel Goetz. Afterwards the group had the privilege to enjoy the first presentation of the recently arrived Consul General Alexander Hoffet. Following Marc Finsterlin, Managing Director and Partner at Aquarius Asia, revealed the enormous importance of e-commerce in the Chinese market during his presentation on Digital China. Afterwards Andrea Nessi, Managing Director at Unitouch, presented the challenges and opportunities that result from doing business in China. The last speaker was Denis F. Berger, Attorney-at-Law at Eiger and Chair of the UZH Alumni Chapter China, who talked about IP in China and showed the participants a slightly different perspective, than they had thanks to western media.
After some intensive and fruitful group work on more specific case studies the UZH EMBA course moved to a cozy courtyard in the French Concession, where they had the possibility to exchange more with “locals” at a gathering with Alumni from UZH and the Fudan University.
We hope also this year’s class enjoyed their study trip to China and that they can return back to Switzerland with a lot of new experiences and knowledge and maybe even want to come back to China for longer.
- Contributed by Isabel Bolliger, Academic Intern in cooperation with UZH
Lecture on “New Frontiers in Brain Research" by Prof. Pierre Magistretti
Fun facts: The brain accounts for only 2% of the entire body mass but 20% of its energy consumption and contains 600km of blood vessels (capillaries). And did you know that while you are dreaming, your brain is as active or even more than when you are awake? Scientists call that the “paradoxical sleep”.
Last night, Professor Magistretti, eminent Professor of neuroscience at EPFL and KAUST and one of the principal investigators in the Human Brain Project, honored us with a lecture on Brain Research at the residence of the Embassy. Professor Magistretti shared his comprehensive knowledge of neuroscience with an audience from different backgrounds.
The conference focused on what the next frontiers in brain research would be. The neuroscientific world mainly focused their research on the 100 billion neurons in our brain but they are not the only stars in our head. The astrocytes, a star-shaped cell, outnumber them by 5 times. In recent years, thanks to new technology, it became clear that this cell plays a central role in brain energy metabolism. Astrocytes are sort of gatekeepers for glucose entry into the brain. They sense neuronal activity and increase the delivery of glucose where and when neurons are active. These exchanges of energy showed the first implication of the astrocytes in the memory. Lactate produced by the astrocytes from the glucose accelerates the memorization process. “In vivo, when the transfer of lactate from astrocytes to neurons is blocked, we found that the memorization process was also blocked,” explains EPFL professor Pierre Magistretti. Could we take lactate supplements to develop encyclopedic memory or reduce the effect of Alzheimer or Parkinson ? Magistretti’s lab has just received a grant to study the effects of artificial lactate supplementation.
Chinese Future Innovators learn about Swiss innovation, 9 October
The big lecture hall was completely full during Pascal Marmier’s (CEO of swissnex China) presentation on the Innovation Landscape of Switzerland at the Jiao Tong University on Thursday, 9 October. The audience, a group of "special" students, who are considered to become the future Innovators from China - they are the students of all three years from the SJTU-ParisTech Elite Institute of Technology (SPEIT), which is established under the cooperation of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Paris Tech. Their demanding curriculum at the Institute starts with 6 months of intensive language classes before the rest of the classes continue to be held in French or English. The studies at SPEIT also include a compulsory stay in France, which should be at least three months.
After learning more about Swiss Innovation, the reasons for its success and differences to the situation in China, the students then showed a lot of interest in the expertise of Pascal Marmier as well as in possible opportunities to study or work in Switzerland - where they could also make use of their already very impressing command of French!
We wish the students a lot of success for their studies and hope to see one starting as promising entrepreneurs pursuing their own projects in China or even in Switzerland!
- Contributed by Isabel Bolliger, Academic Intern
For Chinese version, go to here.
The Nano-satellite now lives with the Ambassador!
The Ambassador with the nano-satellite and a Chinese ancient palanquin！
The Ambassador and the STE section are glad to welcome a new member at the Embassy. The Professor Gass, following up on the meeting at the Embassy, kindly offered the Ambassador a model 1:1 of a Nano-satellite, the 6U CubeSat from CubETH; an ambitious project carrying out by the Swiss Space Center in partnership with ETHZ.
The 6U CubaSat, as its name indicates, is built from six unit (10 x 10 x 10 cm) modules. Each unit contains an essential instrument for the use and control of the satellite. This small six unit satellite is very cheap in launching compared to bigger models because of its standardized size. Moreover, half of the 6U CubaSat is 3D printed.
The Nano-satellite is currently at the residence of the Ambassador.