Next Step, A Care Robot

By Aijing Cao, Junior Project Manager - Art-Science

According to China’s latest national population census, the size of the Chinese elderly population has grown prominently and the birth rate continues to fall. In the meantime, the mounting shortage of caregivers for the aging populations has put the elderly care industry in a situation with enormous demand and unprecedented potential as well.

Therefore, the 28th Café des Sciences is pleased to invite two speakers Michael Früh, CEO of F&P Robotics, an innovative robotics company headquartered in Glattbrugg, Switzerland and with a subsidiary in China, and Monica Zhang, Director of the Business Development of F&P Robotics’s APAC region, to share their expertise and insights about the robotics industry in elderly care, current developments and user cases from Switzerland to China.

First, Michael reaffirmed the indisputable elderly wave in certain countries and the solution of using robots to ease the challenge of shrinking labor force. The market potential in Europe is estimated to be more than 250,000 robots (1 robot per 20 nursing beds). As one of the three main product units of F&P, Lio, the mobile robotic assistant can help increase the quality of life and independence for the elderly while relieving care personnel from routine tasks, reducing infections, and improving health with an outstanding maximum of 16 working hours per day. Michael elaborated the user cases of Lio at care institutions in Switzerland and Germany to further present the versatility and intelligence of Lio with a list of activities, such as activation, delivery, disinfection, reminding, interaction, entertainment, and physical support at home.

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According to Michael, relying on the support of the AI lab of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, F&P Robotics can be considered as the pioneer of this niche market, which aims to blend smart and safe robots into human’s daily life with the utilization of Robotic arm technology, Applied AI and self-developed own Robot Operating System, together with the specialization on safety and personality for an improved user experience.

Michael also pointed out the importance of market knowledge to achieve constant optimization. Their efforts in this regard include experiencing unique projects in healthcare, hiring in-house interdisciplinary talents in neurobiology, medicine, AI, psychology, and health economics, co-authoring books on healthcare robotics, and establishing and maintaining connections to top Swiss institutions in the healthcare industry. In addition, F&P has been trying to increase robot technology acceptance through improvements in their function, social capability, appearance and autonomy level, and local culture adaption.

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In the end, Michael summarized critical success factors for F&P to have grown from a startup to an SME: product development to cater customers’ needs, providing helpful services, education and training, involving various stakeholders from the beginning, taking concerns seriously, networking to facilitate the first contact, offering USPs based on needs, managing production and logistics and securing sufficient capital.

Following Michael’s overview in Europe, Monica gave an analysis of the care industry in China, challenges of the care robots in the local market and potential solutions. China’s aging population is foreseen to grow up to 27.9% of the entire Chinese population by 2050. The smart care industry size has also soared from CNY1.41 billion to CNY3.76 billion in 2020, almost taking up 42.9% of the global care industry. At the current phase, China’s elderly care mode has formed a “9073 ” structure; namely, 90% of the elderly would live at home and be supported by families and social forces, 7% of the older people are taken care by the communities, and 3% of the aging population live in care institutions. The lack of skilled caregivers and the digitization in the healthcare industry accelerated by the pandemic, have been driving the demand for care robots.

Furthermore, Monica touched upon the existing challenges in introducing care robots into the China market. First, the long-rooted mentality of saving money has made the Chinese elderly groups less willing to pay for care robots even though they have the capability. Second, data collection and data security need more clear and explicit guidance. Despite the strong support from the government policy, technical feasibility, interdisciplinary cooperation, low expectation, and fear against the care robots are still impeding the acceptance of the care robot. As Monica stated, China is still in the stage of market and consumer education, but she is positve about the market prospect in China.

During the Q&A session, both onsite and online audiences were curious about limitations of current robot technologies and the potential of care robots. Due to time constraints, we could only take a limited number of questions. If you have further questions for our speakers regarding robot technology in elderly care, please email us at artscience@swissnexchina.org. We will try our best to forward them to the speakers.

Click here to watch the recording of the event.

Discover the exceptional performance of 18 Swiss startups at swisstech China series 2021

By Delta Yu Yan, Junior Project Manager – Innovation & Entrepreneurship

With the new swisstech China series opening the doors to the entire tech ecosystem, swisstech pavilion stood out with outstanding performance in a hybrid format at the Consumer Technology & Innovation Show (CTIS) at Shanghai New International Expo Centre. Starting from June 9, this three-day expo hosted more than 3,000 exhibiting booths with over 80,000 visitors, offering a groundbreaking platform that includes speeches from 130+ speakers, themed summits, industry forums and awards.

Primely located at the entrance to the Global Startup Launchpad, the 72 m² swisstech pavilion offered a premier hub to spotlight 18 leading Swiss startups both physically and virtually, in the fields of robotics, AI, software, autonomous navigation, biometry, AR, quality control system, lifestyle technology, EnergyTech, HealthTech, FoodTech, Edtech and TravelTech.

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“Swiss innovation enjoys an excellent reputation abroad as Switzerland has been consistently ranked as the world's most innovative country for the past decade" said Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of Swissnex in China.

Due to the restricted international traveling policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, five startups joined the pavilion physically at CTIS 2021: Flyability, Fixposition, holo|one, Scantrust, and STOR-H Technologies; while 13 startups participated virtually: Aitonomi, Animatico, collectID, farmer connect, FlavorWiki, GlobalID, IDUN Technologies, Kemiex, LocalBini, QUBS, Scientific Visual, SKEO and TravelerFirst by Smartorus. «gotthard», the driverless electric racing car from the family of world record-breaking EVs, built by the ETH Zurich AMZ Formula Student team was also showcased at the pavilion.

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On June 9, 2021, a specially curated Global Startup Launchpad Demo Day spotlighted 10 startups from the swisstech pavilion at CTIS N5 Zone, which gathered startups, top tech committee members, incubators, investors, media and offered a game-changing platform to showcase Swiss excellence in innovation.

Another highlight of the day was the Best of CTIS Innovation Award Ceremony, which honored groundbreaking products, services, and technologies that define the future of the consumer technology industry. The Award was bestowed upon three out of the five on-site Swiss startups. Fixposition, holo|one and STOR-H were recognized for their breakthroughs in Innovation, AR/VR and Green Technology respectively.

On June 30, following the success of swisstech pavilion at CTIS and in continuation of swisstech China series, Swissnex in China hosted swisstech pitchinar 2021 to form potential partnerships and facilitate their market entry ambitions in China’s innovation ecosystem. Moderated by Tanya König, the pitchinar adopted a webinar format and featured 16 startups pitching their products and services. Along with a welcome speech by Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of Swissnex in China, a video message delivered by Ambassador Nicolas Bideau, Head of Presence Switzerland, as well as an impressively active Q&A session between the startups and audiences, the event hosted more than 230+ registered experts and investors in an engaged and interactive setting.

The swisstech pitchinar is organized by Swissnex in China and swisstech in close partnership with ETH Zürich, EPFL, Greater Zurich Area, Innovaud, Switzerland Innovation and swisstech campaign partners Presence Switzerland, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Innosuisse, digitalswitzerland, Swissnex.

The swisstech pavilion at CTIS and the pitchinar have brought a considerable impact and established business connections for participating startups, more exciting events from swisstech China series 2021 are ready to be explored, including Tech-G Shanghai International Consumer Electronics Show from October 14 - 16, and at China Hi-Tech Fair from November 17 - 21 in Shenzhen.

About Consumer Technology & Innovation Show (CTIS)

CTIS integrates consumer technology, innovation and trade to drive industrial innovation and development. It is organized by Global Sources and co-organized by the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce and Zhongguancun Overseas Science Park, and supported by the China Audio Industry Association and Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association.

About swisstech China series

As the Science Consulate of Switzerland in China, Swissnex in China has been supporting and hosting Swiss startups at tech expos and trade shows in China since 2018. These country pavilions provide an excellent platform for these world-class startups to showcase their technologies to a broad Chinese audience, while establishing connections with a network of potential local partners, investors, mentors, experts, and potential business partners to facilitate market entry ambitions.

Starting in 2021, the new swisstech China series aims to raise Switzerland's profile as an innovative location and to promote the visibility of Swiss startups across China's hottest tech expos and highlight Switzerland as a world champion in innovation.

Swiss Pavilion with Superlatives at InnoMatch

By Lefei Chen, Junior Project Manager - Academic Relations

Swissnex in China had the pleasure to participate in InnoMatch in the framework of the Pujiang Innovation Forum from May 31 to June 2 2021. The three-day event, also known as the Global Tech-Matching Fair in Shanghai, gathered global frontier technologies in various industries, presented the latest innovations from the world, and integrated the global needs for innovation.

Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO, Swissnex in China, together with consular officials from Canada, France, Germany, and UK joined the Roundtable Discussion on “Transnational Innovation Exchanges Under COVID-19” and shared best practice in connecting Switzerland and China in research, education and innovation during and after the pandemic.

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On the same isle with Belgium, France & UAE, the Swiss Pavilion showcased inspiring achievements driven by the aim for a climate neutral Switzerland by 2050 and China by 2060 with the intention to spark future collaborations towards a more sustinable world. The most eye-catching exhibit is “gotthard,” a driverless electricity-powered race car built by AMZ Racing from ETH. This car is loaded with LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and optical velocity sensors with autonomous capabilities, cameras and a GPS system, featuring for its 0-100km/h acceleration capacity within just 1.9 seconds, faster than F1 race cars. This showcase demonstrated the huge potential of clean-tech to permeate in every situation of life and be applied in a wide range of instruments.

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Several superlatives from world-renowned Swiss universities and research insitutions were also presented, namely the Guinness World Records most fuel efficient car PAC-Car II by ETH Zurich, the Guinness World Records long-range solar-powered aircraft SOLAR IMPULSE by EPFL and the next generation lithium-ion batteries developed by Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology).

Founded in 2008, Pujiang Innovation Forum is organized by the Chinese Ministry of Science & Technology and Shanghai Municipal Government to build a platform for high-level exchanges on emerging global S&T innovation and trends. As one of its core events, InnoMatch presented 200+ innovative products by small and medium-sized enterprises, 200 solutions for common demands, and more than 500 international and domestic achievements to be transformed, covering Carbon Neutrality technologies, Life Science, Semiconductor, IoT, IP and AI etc.

Impressed by the high demand for technology and the huge potential for the development of the Chinese domestic technology market, Swissnex in China appreciated this opportunity to connect with people and companies from China and all over the world to match the needs of innovation and help to land Swiss innovative products in China.

Green Finance, ESG and Beyond

By Aijing Cao, Junior Project Manager - Art-Science

Following last year’s success, Swissnex in China was delighted to host another edition of Café des Sciences Lecture in Chengdu again, collaborating with the Consulate General of Switzerland in Chengdu. As the birthplace of the world’s first paper currency Jiaozi, Chengdu continues her accelerating role in the financial industry and leads the FinTech and innovation scenes in Western China.

First and foremost, we would like to express our appreciation to our speakers Prof. Jingmei Zhao, Executive Dean of the School of Finance at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and Mr. Shan Jiang, Senior Researcher at the Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability of University Zurich, Founder of SUSFINTEQ for delivering two insightful presentations on China’s green finance and feasible solutions in sustainable finance respectively.

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Bearing the aspiring goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 in mind, Prof. Jingmei Zhao analyzed the present status of Green Finance with pros and cons, and pointed out sharply that “Go Green” needs more innovative, efficient and sustainable solutions. She also underlined the People’s Bank of China’s active policy stance towards Green Finance, the ambitious preparation of the Carbon Emission Market, along with the consensus of potential market value.

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After Pro. Jingmei Zhao’s holistic view of China’s Green Finance, Mr. Shan Jiang zoomed in on the challenges and viable solutions in Sustainable Finance and ESG investment through the angle of corporate level. He walked us through the basics of sustainable finance and the strategy of leveraging ESG to add market value. Moreover, he shared the case study of SUSFINTEQ, the Swiss Fintech start-up, focusing on monitoring, analyzing and disclosing ESG records through AI application. In addition, he touched upon the importance of Sino-Swiss cooperative research and project partnership to access more reliable data and develop an integrated investment approach.

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Due to the time constraint, we could only take a limited number of questions. If you have further questions for our speakers regarding green finance and ESG, please email us at artscience@swissnexchina.org. We will try our best to forward them to the speakers.

Finally, we would like to thank Conny Camenzind, the Consul General of Switzerland in Chengdu, and Yingxue Gong for her great support, as well as Jiaozi Fintech Dreamwork for providing the excellent venue!

Click here to watch the recording of the event.

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Reaching New Heights with Sino-Swiss Exchanges on Energy Innovation

By Nils Feldmann, Project Coordinator - Science Outreach & Diplomacy

Driven by the aim for a climate-neutral Switzerland by 2050 and China by 2060, Swissnex in China, together with several partners, launched the first Sino-Swiss Energy Innovation Forum, which brought together more than 330 Swiss and Chinese experts for a mutual dialogue on the future of energy innovation. The two-day virtual forum was concluded on May 17 with an exclusive networking reception on the Shanghai Tower, which showcased the best of Swiss energy and cleantech projects.

Thanks to its world-class research institutions, an active startup ecosystem and ability to attract top talent, Switzerland consistently ranks among the most innovative countries in the world and is therefore uniquely positioned to offer cutting-edge solutions for a sustainable future. Similarly, China’s Climate Change Special Envoy recently estimated that China needs to invest US$ 21 trillion over the next 30 years to achieve carbon neutral by 2060, thereby leading the country to enter the largest investment boom in achieving its green future. Already today, China is the world's largest renewable energy producer, having established itself as the global leader in the production of hydroelectricity, solar power and wind power, as well as in the construction of ultra-high voltage power lines, which are crucial to a greener future.

Recognizing these potentials, Swissnex in China – the Science Consulate of Switzerland – took the initiative in partnership with the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, Swiss Engineering, the Shanghai Energy Research Society and Presence Switzerland to organize the first Sino-Swiss Energy Innovation Forum, which aims to create a collaborative platform that connects Switzerland and China through research, technology, business exchanges and partnership. China’s immense scale and high-speed technological development across all fields of research offers many exciting opportunities for Switzerland, the world leader in ground-breaking innovation executed at the highest international quality standards. As such, this inaugural forum strived to plant the seeds for connecting some of the brightest minds in energy innovation for further fostering bilateral partnerships.

The 4-hour fast-paced forum, which, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, was held in digital format from May 6-7, 2021, hosted 27 high-caliber energy innovation experts from academia & industry in Switzerland & China, as well as 8 game-changing Swiss startups in the fields "power grid" and "renewables". A broad audience with 333+ registrants showed strong interest in the future of energy innovation, potential collaborations and partnerships.

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The forum was subsequently concluded at the Sino-Swiss Energy Innovation Reception on May 17, which showcased numerous Swiss energy and cleantech champions in spectacular fashion on the world’s second tallest building – the Shanghai Tower – to an exceptional audience of diplomats, C-levels, opinion leaders, media and representatives from government, academic institutions, and industry.

The reception in particular featured the China premiere of “gotthard” – the driverless electric racing car from the family of world record-breaking EVs built by the ETH Zurich AMZ Formula Student team…

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… as well as two exhibitions on the “Can Tech save the World?” initiative and the “Watt d’Or” - Swiss Energy Prize Projects, respectively.

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The guests also enjoyed live jazz performance by renowned artists Li Xiaochuan and Wang Wenwei, who especially composed sustainability-inspired pieces for the evening.

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Following the successful conclusion of the forum and reception, the real work now begins – leveraging the newly created cooperation and synergies between Switzerland and China to help advance the transition towards a greener, more sustainable energy system of the future. This inaugural forum will be followed by a workshop led by Dr. Christian Schaffner, Executive Director of the ETH Zurich Energy Science Center, and nicely laid the foundation for an in-person Sino-Swiss Energy Innovation Forum in 2022.

Seven Swiss AgriTech and FoodTech Startups Showcasing Top-notch Technologies to China

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

In the aim of introducing Swiss AgriTech and FoodTech startups to the China market, Swissnex in China and Innosuisse has organized the China Agri-Food-Tech Bootcamp 2021. The program provides tailored support to participating startups via virtual workshops, exclusive pitch sessions to investors, IP & regulation consulting, as well as market research reporting, connecting them with investors, industry experts and potential partners while maximizing their exposure to a broad audience in China.

Seven startups are selected to join the bootcamp based on evaluation of their market potential in China: AgroSustain, aikemy, Cormo, Embion Technologies, Nectariss, SUIND and SwissDeCode.

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From March 22 to 31, the startups joined a series of intensive training and consulting workshop sessions with speakers from investment platform, food tech VC, law firm, online marketplace, innovation platform and corporation. Topics including China’s agriculture industry, Agri-food tech investment trend in China, legal guidelines for doing business in China, the impact of e-commerce on Chinese Agri-Food industry, tips for overseas startups to enter to the China market and China’s innovation. Great appreciation to our workshop partners who have provided valuable insights into the fast-growing Agri-Food scene in China: 8 Hours Ahead, Bits x Bites, Rui Bai Law Firm, Pinduoduo, Plug and Play China and Bühler Group.

Snapshot of the workshop scene

Snapshot of the workshop scene

On April 22, as part of the bootcamp, the seven participating startups pitched their projects virtually at the Swiss Agri-Food-Tech Startups Demo Day with investors, mentors, experts, potential business partners and highly engaged audiences.

After opening talk from Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO, Swissnex in China and Liang Jieyi, Chairman, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Henan Sub-council, we have invited keynote speakers Ocean Zhou, City Innovation Platform Director, Plug and Play China to present on policy opportunities for startups to enter the China market, and Dr. Fabian Wahl, Head of Strategic Research Division and Member of the Executive Board of Agroscope to give an overview of the Swiss AgroFood Innovation Ecosystem with a focus on sustainable food.

Swiss Agro-Food Innovation EcosystemBy Dr. Fabian Wahl, Head of Strategic Research Division and Member of the Executive Board of Agroscope

Swiss Agro-Food Innovation Ecosystem

By Dr. Fabian Wahl, Head of Strategic Research Division and Member of the Executive Board of Agroscope

During the pitching sessions, the startups presented their products and cutting-edge solutions including biological plant protection, real-time analytics of food and materials, sustainable raw materials, plant-based nutrition technologies, natural flavors, safety and autonomy solutions for drones and DNA detection for food quality and authentication.

Snapshot of Online Demo day

Snapshot of Online Demo day

After the presentations, the startups exchanged with our expert panel of Wilfred Feng, Senior Counsel, Dentons, Li Li, Investment Director, BASF Venture Capital, and Steven Zhang, Director of Strategy, Agriculture & Food Vertical, Plug and Play China around product validation, technical advantages, market potential, legal perspectives and etc.

Snapshot of Online Demo day

Snapshot of Online Demo day

The demo day has been broadcasted via three channels of Zoom, Yike and Bilibili with a total viewership of 39,000+. We are glad to receive positive feedback below from the startups, the expert panel and the audiences.

 “Very impressed by your panel event yesterday, we will have a look at the market potential for the other attending companies and come back to you.”

                                                                                               – Sam Priestman, 8 Hours Ahead.

 “Thank you very much for organizing this event! We much appreciated your dedication and professionalism to make everything work well and to choose and instruct good people for the Q&A part.   It was a very positive experience for us and we are looking forward to any contact that may develop as a result of our presentation.”

–Stefan Grass, CEO of Cormo AG

“I will be following this up in the next few weeks to sort out a business plan.”

—Steven Zhang, PnP China.

For the seven startups, this is only a start of their China journey. In the upcoming months, Swissnex in China will continue to support them in their market exploration in China. When international business travel resumes, the participating startups are also encouraged to travel to China to further develop and implement their local market entry.

Please find a link to the startup brochure and demo day recording below:

  • Recording: view here

  • Startup brochure (EN&CN): download here

Réaliser un avenir durable pour tous

Contribué par Aijing Cao, Junior Project Manager - Art-Science

Afin de célébrer le mois de la francophonie, une édition spéciale Café des Sciences a été coorganisée avec d’autres pays et régions francophones le vendredi, 18 mars 2021. Cinq scientifiques et startups de Belgique, du Canada, de France, du Luxembourg et de Suisse ont été convoqués à présenter leurs projets et de partager leur expertise sur le thème de l’innovation durable. 

Nous avons eu l'honneur d'accueillir Mme. Marie-Adélaïde Matheï, Consul de Belgique à Shanghai, M. Jose Sia, Consul des affaires politiques, économiques et publiques du consulat général du Canada à Shanghai, M. Xavier Assfeld, Attaché pour la science et la technologie du consulat général de France à Shanghai et M. David Storne, Consul du consulat général du Luxembourg à Shanghai pour présenter leurs intervenants. Ce fut une excellente opportunité pour les francophones d'échanger des idées et des expériences en matière d'innovation et d’encourager des coopérations potentielles.

M. David Storne, M. Felix Moesner, M.Laurent Meffre, M. Xavier Assfeld, Mme. Marie-Adélaïde Matheï, Mme. Alizée Buysschaert, M. Didier Vuarnoz, M. Jose Sia, Mme. Cissy Sun

M. David Storne, M. Felix Moesner, M.Laurent Meffre, M. Xavier Assfeld, Mme. Marie-Adélaïde Matheï, Mme. Alizée Buysschaert, M. Didier Vuarnoz, M. Jose Sia, Mme. Cissy Sun

Dr. Felix Moesner, consul scientifique de Suisse et directeur de swissnex China, a commencé l’événement en prononçant quelques mots de bienvenue. Ensuite, notre modérateur Dr. Didier Vuarnoz, Chef adjoint de la science, l'éducation et la technologie de l’Ambassade de Suisse à Pékin a présenté le programme et donnait la parole à notre première intervenante – Alizée Buysschaert de Belgique, Fondatrice de Zero Waste Shanghai. Zero Waste Shanghai propose des workshops, des formations en entreprise et des conseils sur le développement durable afin de populariser le concept du développement durable. Alizée a tracé sa propre voie pour co-créer un avenir durable en Chine avec le lancement du P.A.C.E., qui est le premier programme en ligne et pratique pour les responsables du développement durable au sein des entreprises. 

Alizée Buysschaert, “Ouvrir une nouvelle voie”

Alizée Buysschaert, “Ouvrir une nouvelle voie”

La deuxième intervenante, Shadi Meshkat, Associé de recherche principal chez erthos ™ nous a rejoint en ligne depuis Canada. Shadi a présenté l'histoire des bioplastiques et a abordé la condition difficile actuelle selon laquelle la vitesse et la quantité de recyclage sont relativement lentes et faibles, comparées à la consommation. Par conséquent, erthos™ cherche à s'attaquer au problème mondial des plastiques à usage unique en proposant des alternatives écologiques à base de résine et à promouvoir un nouveau standard pour une meilleure planète, avec de meilleurs matériaux. Les plastiques à usage unique fabriqués avec les solutions erthos™ sont compostables et compatibles avec la technologie plastique existante, ce qui fait des plastiques d’origine végétale le choix naturel. 

Mme Shadi Meshkat, “erthos ™ - De la Terre à la Terre”

Mme Shadi Meshkat, “erthos ™ - De la Terre à la Terre”

M. Laurent Meffre, “Blue Sun”

M. Laurent Meffre, “Blue Sun”

Notre troisième conférencier était Laurent Meffre de France. Il est co-fondateur de Blue Sun, une startup créée pour fournir une solution au retail physique en perte de confiance durant la pandémie et rassurer les clients pour un retour apaisé vers les magasins. Laurent a déclaré que les UVC sont plus efficaces et durables que les produits chimiques et la température pour neutraliser les micro-organismes responsables des infections et maladies. Il nous a présenté le dernier prototype de BLUE ZONE, le premier appareil autonome de désinfection de l'air et des surfaces, capable de désinfecter un espace à 99,99% en 3 minutes, et AIRPROP, qui fonctionne en continu même quand l’espace est occupé. 

Prof. Dr. Radu State de Luxembourg prit ensuite la parole. Radu a abordé la grave menace économique, près de 10% du budget de l'UE autour de 15 milliards d'euros, causée par l'industrie de la contrefaçon en termes de produits pharmaceutiques et cosmétiques, de cigarettes, de nourriture et de boissons. Par conséquent, le professeur Radu a proposé NIR-Watchdog, un moyen simple et évolutif de détecter la qualité des produits en quelques secondes, en utilisant la blockchain et de l’IA. 

Prof. Dr. Radu State, “Quand la blockchain rencontre l'IA”

Prof. Dr. Radu State, “Quand la blockchain rencontre l'IA”

Et pour conclure, notre dernier intervenant, Prof. Steivan Defilla de Suisse, Président adjoint au Centre d’énergie durable de l’APEC a partagé son expérience très dans le secteur de l'énergie. Il nous a donné une image complète du Centre de l'APEC pour l'énergie durable (APSEC) dans les aspects des déficits et de la durabilité et de la résilience dans l'APEC, le suivi des principes de base des ODD (objectifs ou cibles) et des instruments pour améliorer la résilience aux catastrophes. Trois niveaux d'engagement pour les villes donnent également une direction claire avec une vision ambitieuse à relever les défis mondiaux pressants.

Prof. Steivan Defilla, “Vers un outil de suivi des Objectifs de développement durable pour les villes APEC”

Prof. Steivan Defilla, “Vers un outil de suivi des Objectifs de développement durable pour les villes APEC”

A la fin de la présentation, une session questions-réponses était mise en place afin de permettre l’interaction entre le public et les intervenants. Les participants sur place ont pu profiter d'un petit apéro de réseautage.

Cet événement était organisé en partenariat avec le consulat général de Belgique, le consulat général du Canada, le consulat général de France et le consulat général du Luxembourg à Shanghai et l’ambassade de Suisse à Pékin. Nous tenons à exprimer nos remerciements et notre appréciation pour leur grand soutient dans la coorganisation de cet événement. Nous remercions aussi notre modérateur et les cinq intervenants d’avoir partagé leurs expertises de grande valeur à l’occasion de fêter la langue française. 

Veuillez cliquer ici pour télécharger et récouter le replay.

Contribute to Sustainability by Re-examining Your Clothes

By Zhangtong Cheng, Junior Project Manager of Art-Science

In 2021, our Café des Sciences will focus on innovation and sustainability. In the first edition of the new year, we started with the basic needs in our daily life - the clothes. Our topic focused on sustainable fabrics that is closely related to everyone in the society.

We can view sustainable fabrics from both the industrial aspect and the consumption perspective. When digging into the industrial chain of fabrics, we can discover that the topic is more complicated than belting out slogans of environmental protection. The born and application of a piece of sustainable fabric requires an enormous effort from research to production and then to distribution. At the same time, consumers’ decisions also play an important role in the development of sustainable fabrics.

For this hybrid event, we have invited two experienced fashion designers Jeanne von Segesser, Founder and Designer at apesigned and Head of the Romandie Region at Fashion Revolution (joining online from Switzerland) and Miranda Chen, General Manager and Co-Founder, LangerChen (joining onsite at swssinex China office). They brought us inspirational presentations from the insider’s perspectives.

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Jeanne took the floor first with the topic of “Sustainable Fashion: Why it Matters!”. Jeanne began by stating pollution and energy consumption in the fashion industry with data and proposed the circular economy. The circulation is centered around use value. Besides recycling and reuse, it also emphasizes return and repair as well as the relationship between them.

Another interesting issue raised by Jeanne was the buyerarchy of needs which we can easily understand from the picture below. It emphasized the importance of the consumption concept and encouraged us to rethink our decision-making styles and switch to a sustainable way by reusing, borrowing or swapping. Meanwhile, we should respect the decisions we have made and cherish the clothes we bought. If everyone starts taking action, it would make a huge difference in the environment.

Jeanne also introduced the slow fashion spirit of her brand apesigned, which attaches importance to design and quality in order to produce timeless styles and prolong the life circle of fashion.

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Then Miranda led the topic onto a more practical direction. With over 20 years’ experience in the fashion industry and more than 10 years’ experience in managing her sustainable brand, LangerChen, Miranda began by introducing the concept of industrial sustainable fashion which includes sustainable products, sustainable supply chain, and sustainable concept for customers. In her perspective, achieving a sustainable supply chain requires every single part of the fabric production to be eco-friendly and ethical. Besides minimizing the environmental effect, producers also need to ensure the rights of workers.

On top of that, she shared with us her understanding of sustainable fabrics. She categorized the production methods of sustainable fabrics into four categories: upcycled and recycled fabrics, organic and new materials, eco-friendly produced fabrics, as well as the low consumption.

Then Miranda pointed out some key issues in developing sustainable fabrics. Her principle is never to develop a non-sustainable product from sustainable materials. The rule is to create useful products and maximize their value. There are many difficulties in the application of sustainable fabrics such as low ready-fabric source in the market, limit raw materials, lack of professional knowledge, long lead-time as well as difficulty in getting across the message and financial challenges.

Finally, she said that: “We might have completely different ideas about fashion and trends, but sustainable is the only way to stay alive.”

During the Q&A session, the audiences and our two speakers have had intriguing discussions around topics such as the sanitation of the swapped clothing, how to balance between the idea of “Buy only what you need” and business growth and etc.

Fashion is not simply related to aesthetics or trendy styles; it is also an attitude towards life. By introducing sustainable fabrics and their role in sustainable fashion, we hope to raise public awareness of sustainability.

Please view and download the recording here.

Future of Work: Unleashing the Human Potential

By Mianmian Fei, Junior Project Manager - Academic Relations

Twenty years ago, the first swissnex office was founded in Cambridge, USA. Today, swissnex has grown into a global network dedicated to unlocking the imagination needed to create a different world through the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and talent. The 20th anniversary campaign of the swissnex Network, named “nex20”, imagines the role of Switzerland on the global stage in 2040, which consist of various activities in different formats across five themes: #ConnectingTomorrow, #WorkingTomorrow, #LivingTomorrow, #MeetingTomorrow and #LearningTomorrow. On December 9, swissnex China convened top representatives of the Swiss academic and business landscape, top level panelists from China, India, Singapore, South Africa, and Switzerland, as well as top entrepreneurs from Swiss Deeptech startups on a virtual event to discuss the future of work with a focus on human skills in a tech-empowered future.

Working Tomorrow virtual event as part of the nex20 campaign by swissnex Network.

Working Tomorrow virtual event as part of the nex20 campaign by swissnex Network.

Patrick Warnking, Country Director of Google Switzerland, set the tone for the event with a keynote speech on the topic “People First”. The first half of his speech was on the purpose, responsibility and culture of Google in which he showed us some concrete examples of Google’s initiatives to help people with technology. The second half of his speech was on growing and learning at Google with a focus on its company culture of personal development. He concluded his speech by emphasizing that in an age of technology and innovation, people first is still the most relevant topic for the success of a company. Patrick’s speech indeed highlights the importance of people in the future of work and the importance of technology to elevate people and bring out the very human abilities.

Google Zurich is the largest Google development center outside of the U.S.

Google Zurich is the largest Google development center outside of the U.S.

Following Patrick’s speech was the first round of startup pitching moderated by Lijun Zhang, Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at swissnex China. Four Swiss startups in the area of automation, namely ecoRobotix, ROVENSO, Voliro, and Wingtra, each gave a two-minute pitch on their core technology. From autonomous weeding machines, to agile robots for security and safety monitoring, to flying robots that can fly, see, and touch, and to vertical take-off and landing mapping drones, these four startups presented to our audience their innovative solutions to enable the future of work.

Likewise, the second round of startup pitching demonstrated how work would be like in the near future with the help of artificial intelligence and virtual reality. It was moderated by Dominique Gruhl-Bégin, Head of Startups and Next Generation Innovators at Innosuisse. The four startups, including holo|one with its standardized augmented reality platform, Neural Concept which creates deep learning algorithms for enhanced engineering, Seervision that develops video analysis algorithms for object recognition and scene segmentation, and Vima whose behavioral intelligence tools can understand human behavior in different contexts, again showed how Swiss innovation may bring a difference to our professional world.

While technologies hold great promise and are expected to afford considerable benefits to humanity, their far-reaching impact have also seen the emergence of challenges. A significant portion of the event was dedicated towards two panel discussions in which the panelists re-examined new paradigms for work in order to envision a better world for all of us.

The first panel focused on the future of human-machine collaboration to elevate – and not replace – human work. In this panel we gained insights from Professor Vanessa Wood, Incoming Vice President at ETH Zurich, Professor Nadia Thalmann, Director of MIRALab at University of Geneva and Director of the Institute for Media Innovation at Nanyang Technological University, and Winnie Qiu, Founder and CEO of Haalthy. Led by Sirpa Tsimal, Director of Investment Promotion at Switzerland Global Enterprise, the three panelists shared how their institutes or projects strive to unleash human potential through better collaboration with machines. Specifically, Professor Wood talked about the ETH AI Center with faculty coming from a diverse range of departments; Professor Thalmann described the social robot Nadine which she and her team was working on; Winnie gave an overview of how Haalthy, the largest lung cancer patient’s reported data platform, is making an impact. At the end of the panel, Professor Thalmann pointed out that although robots can work as actors, they can never replace us as people. Indeed, if there is something that is left for us, it is who we are as people, what boils down to emotional touch, and the connections we can forge. These make us special and they will never be replaced by robots.

First panel discussion on “the Future of Human-Machine Collaboration”.

First panel discussion on “the Future of Human-Machine Collaboration”.

In the subsequent panel discussion, the panelists dug further into how we can unleash these “most human of human skills” in the future of work that distinguish us from robots. Professor Gisou van der Goot, Incoming Vice President at EPFL, Dr. Samia Chasi, Strategic Advisor at International Education Association of South Africa, and Sairee Chahal, Founder & CEO of SHEROES together engaged in a dynamic discussion led by Dr. Inez von Weitershausen, Head of Learning and Outreach of Center for Leadership in the Future of Work at University of Zurich. Indeed, while we need to invest on the skill side with respect to technology and invest in the STEM field, we also need to invest in soft skills that actually do not expire. For Sairee, some of these core skills include what she called “entrepreneur skills” like adaptability and leadership. Professor van der Goot believes risk-taking, creativity and the ability to be yourself and care about people are especially crucial to people in the academic field. Coming from a culturally and racially diverse background herself, Dr. Chasi talked about diversity literacy, which would allow one to think critically about complex social issues such as identity, power and difference. These skills would be with us for a lifetime, and the more opportunities we have to practice those and to apply those, the better they are.

Second panel discussion on “Bridging the Skill Gap”.

Second panel discussion on “Bridging the Skill Gap”.

The event was concluded by Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges, Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership at the Department of Business Administration of the University of Zurich. He brought up two points when summarizing this event. One is the combination of technical skills and people skills, which he referred to as “STEMpathy”. He believes this combination is what distinguishes successful startups, what distinguishes Google, and what needs to distinguish the next generation of the workforce. Another is the collaboration among people to co-create solutions for the future. He stated that this event was evidence that it was not just one brain that changed the world, but many brains. It is these many brains that make us as humans, as humanity, amazing.

This event organized as part of the nex20 anniversary campaign by swissnex Network would not have been successful without the support of our partners. We would like to sincerely thank the Embassy of Switzerland in India, Singapore and South Africa, swisstech campaign powered by Presence Switzerland, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Innosuisse, digitalswitzerland and swissnex Network for their great help on this event. We also want to express our appreciation for all the speakers, panelists, and startup representatives for their informative contribution. We hope this Working Tomorrow event has provided our audience with interesting perspectives on the future of work, especially about our roles as humans.  

Thank all the speakers, panelists, and startup representatives for their informative contribution!

Thank all the speakers, panelists, and startup representatives for their informative contribution!

At last, we want to invite you to follow the 46th WorldSkills Competition which will take place in Shanghai for the first time in 2022. You may be able to find an answer in this competition which aims to exemplify the gold standard of skills excellence and improve our future with the power of human skills. Both Switzerland and China have been active members in this global competition and we look forward to their performance in Shanghai soon!  

Please view and download the webinar recording here.

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Human Skills in Shaping the Future of Work

By Zhangtong Cheng, Junior Project Manager of Art-Science

On 3rd November, swissnex China successfully held a «tell» event with the topic of “The Future of Work: AI shifts in Critical Skills”. As part of the Swiss Digital Days 2020 and the #nex20 campaign, the event was in close collaboration with digitalswitzerland, swissnex Network, Tencent Research Institute, and the University of Zurich.

Besides two keynote speakers – Dr. Siyan Xu from Tencent Research Institute and Ms. Iris Long from Central Academy of Fine Arts, we have also invited Dr. Inez von Weitershausen, Head of Learning & Outreach – Center for Leadership in the Future of Work, University of Zurich to moderate the discussion session with the participation of both online and on-site audience. After three rounds of in-depth discussion, Prof. Jochen Menges, Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership, University of Zurich delivered a concluding remark emphasizing human skills.

We would like to express our appreciation to our moderator and speakers: Dr. Inez von Weitershausen, Dr. Siyan Xu, Ms. Iris Long and Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges. Due to time constraints, we could only present a limited discussion. If you have further questions for our speakers, please email us at artscience@swissnexchina.org. We will try our best to forward them to the speakers.

The video recording of the webinar is here.

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Human beings have been discussing and exploring the future of artificial intelligence since its creation. The relationship between humanity and artificial intelligence is at the center of discussion. Various possibilities have been discussed not only in the technical fields but also in literary works. On one hand, artificial intelligence has the potential to reshape the future of human society. On the other hand, the uncertainty of it can also cause concerns among people.

The different attitudes by Jack Ma and Elon Musk on the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference towards how the future of work will be influenced by artificial intelligence set the tone for our discussion.

Structural Changes of Work Skills by AI

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Dr. Siyan Xu started her speech with some common scenarios of AI’s application in our daily life. Various kinds of automation and self-service machines enabled by AI are becoming increasingly common. She pointed out that we need to understand what exactly AI is capable of in order to reveal how AI will shift the future of work.

According to Dr. Xu, AI’s core technology is deep learning consisted of four parts: sensing capability, recognizing capability, computing intelligence, and decision making. It is a process that transforms the input of structured or unstructured data into the output of classification, prediction or automation.

She pointed out structural changes to work skills brought about by AI with a Task Classification Matrix: AI will replace some routine and procedural jobs and empower jobs that require strong problem-solving and interpersonal skills.

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Then it came to the essential question: How do we differentiate ourselves from our “silicon counterparts”? Dr. Siyan Xu emphasized human sensibilities with example of several unique characteristics of human, like subjective judgment and insights (politician, CEO…), complex emotions, empathy (education, psychologist…), people management, collaboration (Managers, HR), innovation (scientists, research), creativity (art, performance…), and complex physical jobs (babysitting, massage). She concluded that 60% of occupations have at least 1/3 or more tasks that can be automated but less than 5% of jobs can be entirely automated. Therefore, the key for the future of work is to collaborate with AI.

"Thinking Machines": Automation and Complexity of Creative Work

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Ms. Iris Long focused more on the art and culture perspective. She elaborated on Jack Ma and Elon Musk discussion with the example of Sophia and Alexa.

Continuing on Dr. Siyan Xu’s analysis, she proposed that instead of standing aside thinking AI as the “other”, human beings should work together with AI since AI is never the philosophical “other”, as long as the models still rely on input data from human behavior.

Ms. Iris Long later dug deeper into data and algorithms based on her research and curatorial experiences. She talked about the vulnerability of algorithms which was barely noticed before the outbreak of Covid-19. Taking the radical change to purchase model resulted from panic buying of toilet paper as an example, she explained that algorithms became ineffective in this case, because the machine-learning models trained on normal human behavior are now faced with abnormal situations. Machine-learning models are designed to respond to changes. But most are also fragile; they perform badly when input data differs too much from the data that they have been trained on. It is a mistake to assume that people can just set up an AI system and walk away. Rajeev Sharma, global vice president at Pactera Edge said: “AI is a living, breathing engine.”

Then she came to the creative industry which is also facing the huge “AI paradigm shifts”. Nowadays, artists also start diving into data science. Many of them are working with AI.

She mentioned that for artists, the focus is not on the simple fear of getting replaced by AI, but that AI is challenging the underlying value of creativity. According to Vladan Joler and Matteo Pasquinelli, authors of The Nooscope Manifested: AI as Instrument of Knowledge Extractivism, the hackneyed question “Can AI be creative?” should be reformulated in technical terms on whether machine learning is able to create works that are not imitations of the past, to extrapolate beyond the stylistic boundaries of its training data, and to go beyond the detection of styles from the training data and then random improvisation within these styles.

Artists are not only using AI as tools but also investigating into the backstage of the creative industry.

In Ms. Iris Long’s conclusion, she proposed a “vibration solution” by taking elements from different models. She stated that instead of going for one-off solutions, we should decompose the requirements into small ones. And hopefully, we can make the osculation between human beings and AI.

Discussion

After the keynote speeches, three rounds of discussions were moderated by Dr. Inez von Weitershausen. For each round of discussion, on-site audiences shift their seats and online audiences by raising their hand on Zoom in order to participate in the discussion. People from different backgrounds shared their personal experiences on how AI has influenced their work.

Discussion Round 1: Thinking about your day-to-day life, when and how do you engage with or experience AI?

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Mr. Percy Chen, freelancer and swissnex China alumni, started the discussion with his job-hunting experience. He argued we should preserve the decision power for humans instead of AI to select candidates, because the potential of a person is very abstract, and it is irrational to let AI decide on human’s capability.

While Professor Maggie Guo from Renmin University showed an optimistic attitude. She referred to the image of AI in films and animations, saying that AI is a mirror of the humankind. The images of AI fabricated in films reflect our understanding of human beings. These changing images over the years have built up an archive for human autognosis.

Ms. Sophie Fan and Mr. Huanzhi Xu both expressed their fear of being analyzed by AI with examples of smart replies in emails and the driving navigation system and Spotify music recommendation function.

Discussion Round 2: Taking into account the information you have access to, how do you expect AI to impact your work going forward?

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Mr. Stanm Yi, an Architect, acknowledged the positive role of AI for improving work efficiency and enabling more creativity in the architecture industry. He said that in practice, the control of time and budget was crucial to real estate businesses. AI could speed up the process of decision making and implementation. Therefore, he was looking forward to further development of the application of AI in his future work.

Then Mr. Xin Zhang, colleague of Mr. Stanm Yi added that, since AI helps reduce the burden of monotonous manual work, architects are able to invest more time in the creative part. Besides, he wished that AI could be utilized in exploring new forms or shapes in architecture to bring architects more inspirations.

Professor Lihua Wang from Shanghai University working on librarian science suggested that we should expand AI’s capacity of analyzing data in helping people to search for information in the published literature and discover the relations between them.

Our online audience also joined for discussion. Mr. Dante Larini from swissnex headquarters shared his experience of working with AI on social campaigns. He pointed out that in short term, he was glad for AI’s support in collecting and analyzing data on social media. While thinking in long term, he was concerned that AI would replace him with the development of technology.

Ms. Rachel Zhao, a fundraiser, also talked about the application of AI in social campaigns from a fund-raising perspective. She shared with us the efficiency of applying AI in screening information for relationship building. Nevertheless, she stated that AI was not able to replace humans in terms of connecting people. She thought the essence of social relationship relies on ongoing personal interaction. Besides, she also attached importance to the balance between the use of data and privacy protection.

Discussion Round 3: Considering the impact that AI could have on your job, how do you feel about the future?

Ms. Yi Chen, a journalist, shared her feelings towards working with AI. On the one hand, she felt that the journalists are greatly challenged by AI, since AI has been increasingly used to write news, especially in big data-related areas like financial news. On the other hand, she was also positive about adopting AI in work like recording or translating to save more time for journalists to focus on investigating and creating better content.

Mr. Andre Gisiger, an entrepreneur in virtual coaching, expressed his excitement about AI. He is working closely with AI, and he thought that in terms of training, AI provides access to people who didn’t have the access before. However, it will not replace human interaction but serve as a supplement. The key is how AI will be used by people.

Ms. Krithika Ragunathan, another online guest pointed out that AI could help handle repetitive tasks to enable people for more challenging and exciting work.

Expert Conclusion

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Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges pointed out that this «tell» event was enabled by technology but brought out the best of us as humans by conversing, discussing and debating viewpoints. He emphasized that we are living in a time of change, and how we interpret that change will influence how we feel. In turn, how we feel will tell us, to some extent, how we will prepare and behave towards that future. The core issue is that we need to become better people: we need to invest in our human skills, not just our technological skills. We need to make more of what it is that makes us human, and less of what we used to do and what now machines can do.

He summarized that when we think of the kind of skills that we invest in, we also need to invest in becoming better people. The history of humans is much about toolmaking and improving technologies. But what has really brought us forward as humanity was cooperation, the fact that we can work with one another. He encourages us all to think not just about what the future of work will be like, but also what we want the future of work to be. What would you wish the future of work to be? Because the future hasn't arrived yet, it is for us to shape it, and we can shape it together.

10 Swiss Fintech Startups Ready to Accelerate Their Growth in Asia

By Yifan Li, Junior Project Manager - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Venture Leaders Fintech 2020, co-organized by swissnex China and Venturelab, offers the Swiss national startup team composed of ten world-class fintech startups an exclusive opportunity to showcase their technology, products and solutions to potential partners and investors in the Greater Bay Area and explore the fintech ecosystem of the Greater Bay Area. This year marks the second edition of Venture Leaders Fintech in Hong Kong attending the Hong Kong FinTech Week, and the first-ever Virtual Demo Day launching this special edition in consideration of the global pandemic.

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On October 27th, swissnex China together with Venturelab, held a virtual roadshow with the ten Swiss fintech startups pitching in front of over 180 registered fintech experts and investors. The ten startups in an alphabetical order are CurioInvest, cybera. Global, eCollect, flovtec, SIBEX, SwissBorg, Teylor AG, Vima, Wecan Tokenize and Yova Impact Investing. Opened by Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of swissnex China, and moderated by Stefan Steiner, co-managing partner of Venturelab, Venture Leaders Fintech 2020 Virtual Demo Day began at 4:00 pm Hong Kong time / 9:00 am Switzerland time.

The first presentation was given by Rey Fernando Verboonen, co-founder and CEO of CurioInvest, aiming to build a technology platform bringing collectibles to people’s investment portfolio. Fernando started the presentation by pointing out the current challenges for investing in lucrative collectibles and continued with the market information and CurioInvest’s smart real asset tokenization solution. CurioInvest is currently seeking for investors for their seed round fundraising which will take place within the next six months.

Nicola Staub, co-founder and CEO of cybera.global, was the second presenter. As an ex cybercrime prosecutor whose work was to investigate and capture cybercriminals, Nicola is aimed at building a fintech platform to prevent cybercrime and online fraud, such as CEO fraud where criminals pretend to be CEOs and ask victims to help them cash out their money. cybera.global is trying to change this situation with their real-time and real-world global database to effectively prevent these illegal transactions.

eCollect was the third startup presented in the virtual demo day. Currently as a Europe’s leading receivables management platform, Marc Schillinger, the CEO, and his team have been working diligently in the collection industry for six years. Headquartered in Switzerland, eCollect has had operating hubs around the central Europe and eastern Europe and plans to expand by promoting their AI-and-Machine-Learning-driven tailor-made solutions. In 2020 Q4 and 2021 Q1, eCollect desires to raise four million euros ideally from fintech investors, family offices and industry investors.

The fourth presentation was about flov technologies - a liquidity provider for digital assets. Its co-founder and CEO, Anton Golub, opened the pitch by emphasizing their market making solutions to digital asset exchanges and token issuers to create a liquid and efficient market. He further introduced the deadlock problem caused by the bond between no liquidity and no users, and how flovtec could break this vicious cycle by adding liquidity. After addressing the role that flovtec could play and show their software and business model, Anton closed the pitch with the path that flovtec has taken and would take in the future.

Next startup SIBEX is presented by its co-founder and CEO, Daniel Haudenschild, whose aim is to make the Over-The-Counter (OTC) orders simple and safe. Daniel did the calculation for us that a transaction of 100 BTC could cost 35,000 USD for the escrow fee, arranger fee and legal fee etc. SIBEX, however, could offer a solution to this pain thanks to blockchain and smart contracts. Daniel also pointed out that SIBEX was a live protocol with revenue in the early growth stage and has gained key partners and investors in the blockchain and finance industries.

A short video about the last year’s Venture Leaders Fintech in Hongkong was played afterwards to give the the audience a short break and to give an overview of last year’s offline program.

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After a short halftime, Cyrus Fazel, founder & CEO of SwissBorg, shared his vision of bringing Swiss wealth management to the world. Cyrus stated that there was no way backwards from the crypto era and showed that a total worth of 52 million USD token was transferred in the SwissBorg APP in January 2018 with 23,872 participants from 149 countries. SwissBorg currently has a team of 72 engineers, entrepreneurs and financial experts with five offices around the world and plans to do their IPO in 2024.

The seventh startup presenter was teylor who envisions the future of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) lending. Its CEO, Patrick Stäuble, firstly pointed out that traditional banks tended to neglect SME customers which resulted in the slow, expensive and inefficient SME lending processes, and then discussed teylor’s solution - fully digital and automated loan for SMEs with offer generated within 10 minutes and paid out within 48 hours. Patrick also showed how teylor monetized through its own loan and licensing technology as well as its internationalization ambition.

Raphaël Héraïef, founder and CEO of Vima – a spin-off from the IDIAP research center, introduced their revolutionary technology for credit lending. Raphaël opened his pitch by addressing the revenue and risks brought to the banks by credit loan, and followed with the Vima way of credit scoring – behaviour assessment based on a 1-3 minutes video presentation by the borrower applicant.

Wecan Tokenize, the nineth startup demonstrating in the demo day, aims to bridge the gap between traditional finance and the new complex world of digital assets. Mathieu Saint-Cyr, managing partner of Wecan Tokenize, showed us a well-designed video illustrating how the team leveraged the blockchain technology to help lower the general public’s investment threshold. Wecan Tokenize does not sell a platform, but sells a fully integrated process for the issuance, distribution, custody and exchange of digital assets through core banking systems or APIs and the best marketplace solutions.

The final presentation was given by Cristian von Angerer, CFO of Yova about how Yova transformed investing into an emotional and personally meaningful experience by helping people invest for a better world. Cristian listed that 80% of the 30-50-year-olds have over 50,000 USD in cash, which in total would be a huge investment market, and introduced how Yova could help people become impact investors in three simple steps. Currently, Yova is seeing a 7.6x growth year-on-year and hundreds of new investors every month, and meanwhile looking for global partners to expand geographically.

During the presentations, many questions were asked by our active audience and answered diligently by our startup entrepreneurs during the Q&A session.

With the virtual demo day wrapped up nicely, we are looking forward to the moment when all ten startup entrepreneurs are able to come to China physically for the onsite roadshows to exchange with local industry players, and potentially enter the Chinese market in the future.

Special thanks to our program partners, IMMOMIG, PostFinance, TX Group, Walder Wyss Attorneys at Law, Presence Switzerland, Canton of Zurich, EPFL and ETH Zurich, and our promotional partners, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks and Hong Kong Business Angel Network, for making this possible.

We would also like to express our gratitude to the startups for sharing us with the technologies and products, as well as the audiences for the time and interests. Please do not hesitate to contact us or the startups directly should you have any questions.

Watch recording here

A Glimpse of Interdisciplinary Applications of Blockchain

By Zhangtong Cheng, Junior Project Manager - Art-Science

On 17th September, our 21st edition of Café des Sciences Lecture – Blockchain, unchain the future was successfully held at the event space of swissnex China and live broadcasted via Zoom. We have invited experts Dr. Siyan Xu from Tencent Research Institute, Prof. Claudio Tessone from University of Zurich and Luisa Kinzius from Sinolytics GmbH, who have different research interests to share their insights on this topic. The moderator David Chang from Shanghai Blockchain Association raised in-depth questions for the speakers and the audiences are also actively engaged.

Due to time constraints, we could only present a limited number of questions. If you have further questions for our speakers, please email us at artscience@swissnexchina.org. We will try our best to forward them to the speakers.              

We would like to express our appreciation to our moderator David Chang and speakers Dr. Siyan Xu, Prof. Claudio Tessone, and Luisa Kinzius for sharing their research achievements and valuable insights. Meanwhile, we were also grateful for the support from SwissCham and Future of Money series for this event.

The video recording of the webinar is here.

The presentation slides are available to download here.

 

“The Concept and Opportunities of Industrial Blockchain”

Dr. Siyan is a Ph.D. in STS from Tsinghua University and a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently the Deputy Director of the Smart Industry Research Center in the Tencent Research Institute. Her main research area is the innovative economic model of strategic emerging technologies such as blockchain and AI. She is also the author of the “2019 Tencent Blockchain White Paper”, “AI: the Starting Point of National AI Strategic Action”, “Platform Era”, “2017 Internet Technology Innovation White Paper”.

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Driven by the development of technology, especially the payment system in China, nowadays, China’s internet giants have already started to transform their business model. A high level of digitalization has ignited their passion to industrialize technologies, which is doubly true for the emerging blockchain technology.

Focused on the development of industrial blockchain, Dr. Siyan Xu defined blockchain as the combination of tool, ecology, and concept. She categorized the participants of the blockchain market into four types: IT leader, traditional finance, consulting company, and startup. With the technical and financial support plus policy solutions, the blockchain reform can be carried out through internal incubation of industrial blockchain projects and alliance forms. Then startups can be driven by the open-source community of blockchain developers.

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According to Dr. Siyan Xu, there are three main functions of blockchain in the industry:  Blockchain is to solve the disadvantages of the centralized system; the problem of multi trust cooperation; and more importantly it can potentially assist in asset digitization and digital capitalization.

As for the application of the blockchain, on the one hand, it can solve the difficulty of small and micro enterprises’ loans. The key point is that it will be possible trace necessary data on blockchain transparently and therefore master the financial status of target companies.

On the other hand, blockchain can provide electronic evidence for IP confirmation, copyright registration, rights inspection, and one-click litigation. Take the Tencent ZhiXin Chain as an example, through Zhixin’s circulation management of electronic evidence, organization of judicial ecology and multi-party cooperation as well as provision of innovative solutions for the whole process, it has protected over 10 million original works, initiated and removed 8 million infringing works from the shelves, with an average of more than 30,000 times a day.

In the last part of Dr. Siyan Xu’s presentation, she talked about digital technology integration and common development. Blockchain is never an isolated technology in the industry, it could further promote industrial development if it can be integrated with IoT, cloud computing, or AI.

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“An Interdisciplinary Approach to Blockchains” 

Prof. Claudio Tessone is the assistant professor for Network Science and the Academic Director of the UZH Blockchain Center at the University of Zurich. UZH Blockchain Center is an active initiative coordinating research, education, and acting as the articulation between the academia and industry. With highly skilled workforce and a solid and advanced regulation, Switzerland has become one of the most active countries worldwide in blockchain development.

He has an ongoing interest in the modeling of complex socio-economic and socio-technical systems through network science and complex systems approaches. This includes how the networks of interactions and intrinsic or acquired agent heterogeneity modify processes such as diffusion and assimilation of external influences. This kind of research encompasses a variety of contexts, ranging from advertisement adoption to social influence, and game-theoretic settings.

His primal focus of research is on diffusion and spreading on socio-economic and socio-technical systems. Intra- and inter-organizational knowledge flow, product adoption, etc. are studied through data analysis and parsimonious modeling. When required, it also includes the development of methodological tools.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are also a pillar of his research. The main focus is on the  incentive schemes placed while designing them (many times hidden). It also includes large scale data analysis of cryptocurrency economies and modeling of consensus in blockchain-based systems.

Prof. Claudio Tessone’s presentation emphasized an interdisciplinary approach to blockchain. He made the point that blockchain shall be studied and applied in combination with legal and economic factors. Therefore, the existing blockchain-based systems represent an opportunity to learn. According to his research, blockchain is trusted with immutable data repositories. Blockchain saves information about the economy or our society. However, it goes beyond the database with their data abilities and data intelligence. The economy and society are complex systems, and they cannot be controlled in a simple, rigid way. Thus, an adaptive design guided by interdisciplinary understanding is fundamental to unleash the potential of the technology for societal good.

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Panel Discussion and Q & A

In our panel discussion session, we were glad to have David Chang, Vice President of Shanghai Blockchain Association and CEO of Blocknology Digital Ventures as the moderator and Luisa Kinzius, project leader of Sinolytics GmbH as the panelist.

Luisa Kinzius shared her research result from policy perspectives to answer David Chang’s question about the attitude of the Chinese government towards blockchain in a global view. According to Sinolytics’ analysis, China is one of the leading countries in blockchain and the Chinese government is committed to set a global standard for the application of blockchain. The Chinese government has launched the blockchain-based service network which is the operating system for many blockchain applications. The service network provides basic infrastructure not only in China but also globally. However, there is one governance structure for the global network and one domestic system as well. There is still quite a long way to establish a global standard and global application.

Digging further about whether the Chinese government encourages to engage with more actors or not, Luisa Kinzius said in China, from a policy perspective, blockchain was not merely opportunities for big companies. The goal of blockchains is to have multiple parties involved and try to engage as many participants as possible. Therefore, everybody has the chance to participate in blockchains. Meanwhile, from an economic perspective, the Chinese government encourages the participation of blockchain for industrial use.

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Venture Leaders China 2020 Kicked off with Virtual Demo Days

By Yifan Li, Junior Project Manager - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Venture Leaders China 2020, the Swiss national startup team composed of ten Swiss deeptech startups, are selected with the chance to engage with Chinese investors, mentors, experts and potential business partners to pitch their ideas and raise funds. This year marks the seventh edition of Venture Leaders China and the first-ever Virtual Demo Days to launch this special edition in consideration of the global pandemic.

 On September 14th and 15th, swissnex China together with Venturelab held two virtual roadshows with startups divided into two groups under the themes of “Agritech, Foodtech, Cleantech” (Day 1) and “Biotech, Medtech, Instruments” (Day 2) respectively based on their industry. Ten Swiss startups attended this event - AgroSustain SA, Bluetector AG, Daphne Technology SA, NEMIS Technologies and SwissDeCode AG on Day 1, Elthera AG, Kemiex AG, PB&B SA, Positrigo AG and Scientific Visual SA on Day 2.

Opened by Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO of swissnex China, and moderated by Jordi Montserrat, co-founder and managing partner of Venturelab, Venture Leaders China 2020 Virtual Demo Days began at 3:00 pm China time / 9:00 am Switzerland time.

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Day 1: Agritech, Foodtech, Cleantech

The first presentation was given by Olga Dubey, CEO of AgroSustain SA, who first talked about the challenges and current solutions to provide freshness extension, and then introduced their products – biological coating and biological fungicides. They are currently calling for 5-7 million USD investment. 

David Din, founder and CEO of Bluetector AG was the second presenter. He listed the damages caused by excessive manure in a global level and provided their solution which is to turn manure into water. They are currently looking for a strategic partner in the Chinese market and are open for direct investment.

With the beautiful name from Greek mythology, Daphne Technology SA founded by Mario Michan is a startup focusing on air pollution control in the marine industry. Mario described the challenges and their decarbonization strategy plan for the next three decades. Currently, they are seeking 10 million CHF to take Daphne to the next level.

Arnaud Muller, CEO of NEMIS Technologies, shared his concerns about food safety problems caused by pathogenic bacteria and proposed their patented AquaSpark technology. He further introduced that their solution could be expanded from food safety testing to other fields, such as clinical diagnostics. They hope to collaborate with local partners to explore the Chinese market.

SwissDeCode AG also focuses on the food market. Gianpaolo Rando (Chinese name: 冉坚博), its co-founder and CTO wants to make the food product certification process faster. At this moment, they are looking for channel partners and hope to develop the market together with them. 

Besides the five startup entrepreneurs, six experienced juries also joined us on the first day of the roadshow – Xiaowen ZHU, Venture Director in Plug and Play China; Anqiang ZHANG, Deputy Director in the R&D Department in China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group; Dee ZHENG, Principle in Bits x Bites; Li LI, Investment Director in BASF Venture Capital; Nigel WONG, Consultancy and Head of Project Delivery in Rouse; Sam PRIESTMAN, Founder and Managing Partner in 8 Hours Ahead. With their expert knowledge and years of experience in the Chinese market, many in-depth questions were talked over in the Jury Q&A session after the presentation of each startup.

 

Day 2: Biotech, Medtech, Instruments

Anne Schmidt, CEO of Elthera AG, gave the first presentation of Day 2 about their novel efficacious immunotherapy for pancreatic and ovarian canter patients. Vivid pictures are used to illustrate the medical concept. They plan to initiate Series A financing round in early 2021 aiming at 15 million USD for the preclinical development.

Kemiex AG, a B2B trading and information platform for raw materials in the health and nutrition industries for humans and animals, regards itself as the ‘Bloomberg’ for life-science and chemical industries. Oriol Saludes, its co-founder and COO, said that their experienced team are looking for more world-class partners.

PB&B SA is a life-science startup focusing on aesthetics. Its CEO and co-founder, Anthony Aho, showed us that losing fat tissues could cause sagging and wrinkles, and introduced that their patented technology could be used to increase the adipose tissue volume. They would like to meet and partner with top Chinese dermatologists and/or plastic surgeons.

Positrigo AG is an ETH spinoff focusing on early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Jannis Fischer, CEO of the startup, first stressed that “Alzheimer’s disease affects everybody” and then showed their dedicated brain Positron Emission Tomography (PET) device. Currently they are looking for ventures to participate in their series A financing.

Frédéric Falise, COO of Scientific Visual SA, gave the last presentation of our roadshow about their quality control systems for raw semiconductor substrates. He emphasized the fact that China is the biggest producer of semiconductor substrates and claimed that their solution could detect defects in the early processing stage and thus save cost.

The jury panel of the second virtual demo day consists of Luna JI - Director of Search and Evaluation in MSD (Merck in North America) in Pacific Business Development and Licensing Hub, Alvin YAN – Executive Director in Highlight Capital, Carrie WU – Principal in 8 Hours Ahead, Nigel WONG - Consultancy and Head of Project Delivery in Rouse, and Bin SHENG – Senior Advisor in SDIC Fund. Same as the first day, great questions were discussed, and potential collaboration opportunities were developed.

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With the virtual demo days wrapped up nicely, we’re looking forward to the time when all the ten startup entrepreneurs are able to come to China physically for the onsite roadshows to exchange with local industry players, and potentially enter the Chinese market in the future.

Thanks to our program partners VISCHER, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Canton de Vaud, Canton of Zurich, EPFL and ETH Zurich for making this possible.

We would also like to express our thanks to the startups for sharing with us your technologies and products, to the juries for your expertise and insights, as well as the audiences for your time and interest. Please do not hesitate to contact us or the startups directly should you have any questions.

 

Brochures about the startups can be found as follows:

Day 1 - Agritech, Foodtech, Cleantech:

- Startup Brochure (English & 中文)

Day 2 - Biotech, Medtech, Instruments

- Startup Brochure (English & 中文)

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Insights into the Post-pandemic Intelligent Agriculture Scene in China

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Innovation in food and agriculture has gained the most traction than ever in China, due to China's status as a developing country and its shortage of arable land. Farming in China historically used to be very labor-intensive. To solve farming-relevant problems, technology has played a key role in enabling greater farming production and efficiency. On the other hand, the food and agriculture sector is a pillar of the Swiss economy. The match-making demand could potentially be huge between China and Switzerland.  To get a full glimpse of the development of intelligent agriculture in China, swissnex China participated in China (Nanjing) International Intelligent Agriculture Expo 2020, which was held at Nanjing International Expo Center during September 6 to 8, 2020. With the theme of “Innovation leads, Intelligence leads”, the expo exhibited several fields of Intelligent Agriculture (IA) including Agriculture IoT, Agricultural System Integration, Traceability of Agricultural Products, Agricultural Management Software and Information Technology, Agricultural Robots, Agricultural Intelligent Equipment, etc.

This expo provides a perfect platform for people who would like to gain insights into the development of the intelligent agriculture industry in China. 

There were multiple companies presenting their technologies and service in the expo, and the following four categories are particularly worth noticing.

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1. “How to grow plants”

About how to grow plants, mobile app is a popular form for farmer to acquire knowledge. For example Hui Zhi Nong Master app. It allows farmers to acquire knowledge about how to grow plants with pest disease recognition and treatment.

  • Hui Zhi Nong Master – APP

Hui Zhi Nong Master app is a platform for people to exchange their agricultural planting experiences, ask questions, and answer those of others. It covers almost everything that a farmer needs to grow plants. It is practical and helpful not only because it offers a hand when farmers need help regarding crop growth, but also because it serves as a knowledge learning and experience acquisition channel.

One feature of this app is image recognition. Users can take pictures of their plants and ask the app to check whether the plants suffer from any diseases. If so, the app would also provide basic information of the corresponding disease including disease cause and solution. If users need further support, they can reach to experts on the platform. Besides, all the disease pictures uploaded by the farmers can help the platform to further build up their database. 

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2. “Monitor agriculture environment”

Besides knowledge about how to grow plants, farmers also need to know the environment so that they can create the best environment for plants growing. Demand brings supply. Thus, there are also technologies and services around this area.

  • Sensors/drones for acquiring data about the environment

Seeed - Professional weather monitoring sensors

Seeed - Professional weather monitoring sensors

There are multiple sensors equipped on the pillar in the above picture. The sensors can detect the moisture, wind, raining and soil watering level of the environment, and the measurement parameters of gases such as CO, NO2, SO2, O3 pm, etc. The light box can trap pests so that farmers can later take the pests to do further pests-related disease analysis.

Sensors Sfor solid environment analysis. E.g. ammoniumion.

Sensors Sfor solid environment analysis. E.g. ammoniumion.

Drones, visual and spectral technology

Drones, visual and spectral technology

Maifei Technology has developed a visual/spectral technology, combined with remote sensing inversion model of crop parameters, to accurately monitor crop growth, pest and disease information.

Maifei Technology has developed a visual/spectral technology, combined with remote sensing inversion model of crop parameters, to accurately monitor crop growth, pest and disease information.

3. “Integrated systems and smart farms”

Some companies focus on IoT integration and build systems for compressive farm management. They provide the agricultural environment data acquired from the sensors to the system and the system accordingly control the facilities. For example, the sensor acquires the moisture data of the soil, the system finds it is in a low level and thus triggers the watering valve.

Agriculture IoT integration system of Suzhou Gao Shi Da Information Technology Ltd.Photo credit: Suzhou Gao Shi Da Information Technology Ltd.

Agriculture IoT integration system of Suzhou Gao Shi Da Information Technology Ltd.

Photo credit: Suzhou Gao Shi Da Information Technology Ltd.

4. “E-commerce live streaming”

These are not merely flash-in-the-pan fads, but long-lasting trends that reflect the changing preferences and habits of Chinese consumers. E-commerce live streaming is a new trend for business, which also covers the agriculture field. There are companies specialized in helping farmers manage their E-commerce live streaming channels.

Selling vegetables & fruits through e-commerce live streamingPhoto credit: Hunan Daily

Selling vegetables & fruits through e-commerce live streaming

Photo credit: Hunan Daily

According to the Report on Agricultural Development and Prospects in the Post-Epidemic Era of China 2020-2021 by iiMedia, we noted the following challenges faced by the Chinese agricultural industry:

1. Lack of infrastructure and network and logistics system in rural areas

2. Low efficiency of agricultural growing technology

3. Information asymmetry in agricultural sector

4. Strong impact of seasonal climate and pests on agricultural production

Working in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship sector of swissnex China, I hope to explore more chances to introduce Swiss Agritech startups to the Chinese market and to promote the exchanges between China and Switzerland in terms of agriculture.

Reference: iiMedia https://www.iimedia.cn/c1020/70605.html

Insights into the innovation platform that brings together “players” globally

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

From Aug 6 - 8, I had the pleasure to attend Plug and Play (PNP) China Day 2020 in Wuxi, Jiangsu. The event attracted more than 340 people and 80 startups, and the livestream of the event was watched by over 1 million people online. The Embassy of Switzerland in China and swissnex China joined the launching ceremony of Plug and Play International Innovation Cooperation Initiative, which aims to facilitating the exchanges of innovative technologies across the world and helping innovative talents to have access to more international resources.

Plug and Play China Day 2020

Plug and Play China Day 2020

Plug and Play’s Inno-ecosystem

Plug and Play provides an innovation platform that brings together startups, investors, and blue-chip corporations globally. It is active in over 20 locations including U.S., Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan. Founded in 2015, Plug and Play China has five main business sectors including investment, corporate innovation, startup incubation and acceleration, cross-border innovation and co-working space.

Plug and Play has built an innovation ecosystem involving corporation, startup, government & city, university, venture capital and mentor.

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Plug and Play International Innovation Cooperation Initiative launched

In collaboration with Embassy of Switzerland in China, as well as the Wuxi municipal government, the China-Britain Business Council, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Shanghai and others, PNP has launched an international innovation cooperation initiative. The initiative is to facilitate exchanges of innovative technologies across the world and help innovative talents to have access to more international resources.

Launch of Plug and Play International Innovation Cooperation Initiative

Launch of Plug and Play International Innovation Cooperation Initiative

William Wu, Liaison & Project Officer, Science, Technology, Education & Innovation Section, Embassy of Switzerland in the People’s Republic of China, joined the launching ceremony

William Wu, Liaison & Project Officer, Science, Technology, Education & Innovation Section, Embassy of Switzerland in the People’s Republic of China, joined the launching ceremony

Open innovation software "Playbook China"

Besides the international innovation cooperation initiative launched, the event also launched an open innovation software “Playbook China” which can be useful for Swiss startups to gain insights about the global innovation scene and to approach potential partners.

“Playbook China” is an open innovation software developed by PNP. In this interconnected global platform, users can see a real-time heat map of scientific innovations, track the latest technological development trends, as well as seek for global partners or other opportunities through online registration. It can be a good tool for big corporations looking for cutting-edge technology partners or startups looking to verify its products.

Playbook Interface (picture source: playbook website)

Playbook Interface (picture source: playbook website)

Playbook Interface (picture source: playbook website)

Playbook Interface (picture source: playbook website)

Sustainable Innovation Summit

A side event “Sustainable Innovation Summit” was also held. Entrepreneurs, experts, media, investors, engineers, designers, etc. attended the summit, and contributed their insights and opinions around sustainable fashion and circular economy, innovation in material and energy sector and sustainable food and beverage. The aim was to scaling sustainable innovation in energy efficiency, alternative materials, carbon-neutral supply chain management, circular economy, waste management, and other climate resilient areas.

Sustainable Innovation Summit (side event)

Sustainable Innovation Summit (side event)

It has been a good experience for me to participate in the PNP China Day, which offers me innovation insight from the industry and it’s also a good occasion to connect with innovation partners such as investors, government, enterprises, startups, venture capital etc.

Picture source: Plug and Play

An unexpected journey to China and back again

Having returned from my internship at the Embassy of Switzerland to China, I now look back on 12 exciting and very eventful months, marked by many unexpected turns. Even though I had been in China once before, it was a mind opening experience to live in a district of Beijing, which had about the same population size as Switzerland. Working in the section for Science, Technology and Education (STE) has allowed me to closely follow China’s technological development, which has been very fascinating regarding the fact, that these developments, for instance 5G, impact daily life very directly. Similarly interested in international affairs, it was a big privilege to get insight into the work of a Swiss Embassy on a mainstage of global politics.

As an intern at the STE section, my tasks included the reporting on subjects of technological relevance such as quantum computing or cyber security. Furthermore, I had the chance to help organizing events such as the Swiss Day at Tsinghua University, an event to promote Swiss universities which was the clear highlight of my first six months. Other great experiences were the attendance of an event in the Olympic Stadium, a dinner in the Great Hall of People at Tiananmen Square or the visit of our colleagues from swissnex in Shanghai.

The outbreak of COVID-19 marked a sudden and unexpected turn right after I signed for an extension of my internship. I remember having written in January a small report about the new virus in Wuhan, of which I had never heard before. It was only during my holidays right before Chinese New Year, when I realized, that the disease might be a bigger issue than expected. Luckily, I was able to continue my internship at the Embassy despite the difficult situation. Having had good roommates and friends in Beijing, it was a comparatively easy decision to stay. Due to the new situation, my work changed significantly, as suddenly all events, visits and expositions were cancelled or postponed. Instead, I had the opportunity to work closely with the political section and support them with the reporting on the virus and Chinese health policies.

It was a great experience to discover Beijing and China for the last 12 months. The city has incredibly much to offer in terms of food, entertainment, and culture. Especially aware of the Swiss prices for restaurants, I will miss the great choice of dining places and food courts in Beijing. Also, the city is so big, that you never finish discovering it. I loved to walk through the streets with my analogue camera and trying to capture the vibes of the city in pictures.

From small tasks like how to properly write an e-mail to engaging in complex topics such as 5G networks or space missions, I had the chance to learn a broad range of useful tools. It was a great experience to work together with Chinese as well as Swiss colleagues and to experience this intercultural exchange on a professional basis.  Working at the nexus of science, technology, and politics, I had the opportunity to explore China from a very future-oriented and relevant perspective.

I would recommend this internship to everybody who wants to broaden his or her horizon and is interested in current politics. The internship has helped me to build my own opinion about China, a fascinating country with a long and rich history. After one year in Beijing, I am pretty sure this won’t have been my last time in China.

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Mask Revolution with Swiss Technology

By Florian Moeri, Project Coordinator at swissnex China

Face masks are one of the most discussed topics in recent times. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the widespread use of face masks by the general public to prevent the transmission of the novel coronavirus. With this topic comes a broad field of further action: nation-wide projects to improve face mask technology or ventures by private companies to work on the technology and innovation of new masks. 

Last week, on June 18, we had the chance to get an exciting insight into all of these areas. The 18th edition of our Café des Sciences focused on MaskTech. This was also a special “first” for us: with on-site guests in our office and online viewers on Zoom, we hosted our first hybrid event.

Many thanks again to the speakers for their precious time and availability – their inputs on this complex topic are very much appreciated and well-received!

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On-site speaker:

  • Celine Huang (黄秀蔚)
    Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Greater China at HeiQ

Online speakers:

  • Prof. Dr. René Rossi
    Head of Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles at Empa

  • Carlo Centonze
    Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at HeiQ Group

  • Théo-Tim Denisart
    Co-Founder of Helvitek Labs


The first to give his presentation was Prof. Dr. René Rossi, Head of the Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles at Empa. Together with his team, he is developing new fiber technologies for applications in Health and MedTech. Prof. Dr. Rossi is also a member of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force, a scientific expert group that advises the government and political authorities in different questions around the pandemic. In the frame of this science taskforce it was asked by the government to create recommendations for so-called “community masks” (textile-based or clothe masks that have no specific protection). If they are outworn, they would have to fulfill some specifications:

The Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force compiled recommendations for so-called “community masks”.

The Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force compiled recommendations for so-called “community masks”.

Parallel to drafting these recommendations, the group – initiated by the Swiss Confederation – has started to advise different companies on how to produce community and surgical masks. These activities are being financed by the Swiss Innovation Agency, Innosuisse. Together with ETH Zurich, EPFL, and the Spiez Laboratory, already 47 companies are working on the new design of masks.

The strategy of the Innosuisse project ReMask:

  • Optimizing the balance between comfort and protection of a face mask (focus on sustainable solutions, i.e. washing or sterilizing)

  • Modeling and simulating filtration performance of face masks

  • Developing new analytical methods (virosomes) for test analysis (focus on harmless substances to look at the efficiency of antiviral coatings)

  • Developing new mask systems (using cutting-edge technologies like advanced manufacturing)

Concentrating on the first point, Prof. Dr. Rossi explained how electrospinning technology can be used to form single- or multi-fiber and thus produce membranes. In this versatile technology, many parameters can be changed during production and the mechanics of the structure can be formed to the best possible shape (breathable and protective). Besides, the mixture of different polymers allows to influence the diameter of the fiber and to work on a transparent mask (Project HelloMask). At the end of the cycle, the membrane is then placed on a normal woven mask to achieve the intended effect.


Next, we welcomed a speaker duo: Carlo Centonze, CEO at HeiQ Group and Celine Huang, CEO for Greater China at HeiQ, CEO at HeiQ Group. Carlo started with a brief outline of how he co-founded the company as an ETH Zurich spin-off in the Swiss Alps in 2015. The business is still strongly anchored in fundamental research but has also taken a big step out into becoming one of the leading manufacturers of specialty technologies for the textile industry.

Carlo further introduced HeiQ’s latest technology, Viroblock, as one of the leading antiviral functionalizations – especially for masks. The solution is rooted in HeiQs historical DNA as a specialty chemistry company: a silver technology with a very strong antibacterial but also antiviral effect thanks to its surface charge. Fatty vesical technology helps as a booster against the contamination of the mask itself. And that is how Viroblock is tested effective against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) with a virus reduction of 99.99%. Celine, speaking live in our office, added that this rate is achieved with an application of maximum 20% of the liquid chemical on the non-woven material. Two types of face masks have been produced with this manufacturing method since March: the HeiQ Viroblock FFP2 respirator (non-surgical use) and HeiQ Viroblock KN95 respirator (non-surgical use). In addition, the Viroblock technology stays effective on washable masks (up to 30 washes).

HeiQ Viroblock is one of the first textile technologies in the world to be proven effective against SARS-CoV-2 (by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne).

HeiQ Viroblock is one of the first textile technologies in the world to be proven effective against SARS-CoV-2 (by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne).

With this development idea at the end of last year, the company jumped on a problem that would later hit the world. The two speakers stated that they were particularly proud of the team, which developed and launched a product in 6 weeks that would otherwise have taken several months. Today, HEIQs technology supports healthcare professionals but also people returning to normal life by functionalizing their garments or public transportation textiles.

The third and last speech was given by Théo-Tim Denisart. Based at EPFL, he founded the startup Helvitek Labs in 2019. Théo began the presentation by explaining the omnipresent but not uniformly visible danger of air pollution: every year, pollution leads to 6 million deaths. With that in mind, Théo described the two types of protective face masks available, categorized in soft-shell (disposable or changeable filter) and hard-shell material. Soft-shell masks protect adequately against a pandemic, but when it comes to microparticles, they usually pose the issue of not fitting the facial structures of the wearer. However, the other category, hard-shell, is an investment in a sealing element that fits well. This is where Helvitek Lab's vision comes in: to provide a mask “Made in Switzerland” that optimizes protection, comfort, and design. Or in other words: the next generation of urban life masks.

The Skin Protective Layer: a solution that can be used together with existing masks. The idea is to put it between the mask and your face – to relieve pressure points, improve comfort, and also the sealing around your nose.

The Skin Protective Layer: a solution that can be used together with existing masks. The idea is to put it between the mask and your face – to relieve pressure points, improve comfort, and also the sealing around your nose.

Given the current situation, Helvitek Labs modified its activities temporarily, moving from anti-pollution masks to supplying health care personnel with novel facial structures to prevent injuries caused by prolonged use of respiratory masks. Exhaustion and unadapted masks put medical staff under pressure. Being faced with long working shifts requires appropriate protection and comfort. The solution is Helvitek Labs E.R.S., a 1-day use layer that works with existing masks. It is an offspring of a high-end morphological seal, relieves pressure points and improves the sealing. Due to a pending patent, Théo could not be too firm on aesthetic and technical details. Certainly, we are looking forward to the great innovation that will be created here – we will keep you posted!

Again, we would like to thank our speakers for sharing their special insights, as well as our partners Empa, ETH Zurich and EPFL for their support. Finally, we would like to thank our audience, whose engagement on-site and online adds a great amount of value to our events! Please stay tuned for our upcoming events!

Café des Sciences is a new format at swissnex China offering a monthly platform for Swiss Spotlight scientists and startups to present their projects and connect with the local community. The lectures will offer a casual setting in which speakers ca…

Café des Sciences is a new format at swissnex China offering a monthly platform for Swiss Spotlight scientists and startups to present their projects and connect with the local community. The lectures will offer a casual setting in which speakers can present their work and engage with the attendees during a Q&A period. Audiences are welcomed to enjoy the networking reception with Swiss flavour after the talk. The lecture is scheduled to take place every third Thursday each month at swissnex China or our partner spaces. To view past events, please click here.

Enabling Women’s Empowerment in Tech

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator Innovation & Entrepreneurship

On May 27, 2020, we hosted our webinar titled SheTech: Enabling Women’s Empowerment in Tech, co-organized with swissnex India and in collaboration with Innosuisse.

Today, women are making incredible advancements in politics, economy and society, they are founding and leading companies more than ever. Female entrepreneurs are pushing the frontiers of innovation and technology.

In this webinar, we have as our keynote speakers three female entrepreneurs from different countries with different backgrounds, who are leading technology enterprises from different areas. They are Chunguang Wang (Charlotte), Founder & CEO of EQuota Energy Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd from China, Séverine Chardonnens, Co-founder of IDUN Technologies (ETH spin-off) from Switzerland, and Himani Shah，Co-Founder & CFO of Intello Labs from India. They shared with us their cutting-edge technology projects, as well as the opportunities and challenges they have faced during their entrepreneurship journey.

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Our first speaker Charlotte WANG founder and CEO of EQuota is specialized in smart energy management solution. As an AI and big data-driven energy technology startup, EQuota serves users from every stage covering both the energy supply and demand side in the entire industrial chain, from energy efficiency optimization, operation & maintenance monitoring, to carbon emission management, energy planning, electricity trading services, micro-grid services and etc. She gave a talk on “Big Data analytics’ impact in manufacture process and energy optimization”.

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Charlotte share with us three products provided by EQuota to save energy

  • Real -time monitoring: Based on data, EQuota makes all-round analysis and diagnosis for customers, finds key indicators, analyzes influencing factors, and designs solutions.

  • Predicative maintenance: EQuota provides system-level solutions such as operation warning, fault diagnosis and predictive maintenance for key equipment.

  • System optimization: Operation optimization / process optimization reduces human operation through algorithm model. EQuota can directly issue operation instructions through automatic control system or give optimization suggestions.

As an example, Charlotte shared the case study of EQuota providing solution to the China State Grid

The key task of power grid operation and inspection department is to ensure the stability of power supply. Under the background of power Internet of things, it is a trend to integrate online data for equipment health management. Under this background, EQuota provides the State Grid:

  • Condition monitoring and predictive operation and maintenance of key equipment in two main substations

  • Dynamic early warning and trend analysis of main transformer, GIS combined cabinet and switch cabinet

As a result, the accuracy of fault feature recognition is 99% much higher than 44% of traditional methods.

In addition, Charlotte shared about her career story. She feels obliged to contribute the society, especially in terms of tackling environmental problems. She was encouraged by her mentor to think more, be brave, and accept the challenges in the early stage of her career. She believes that a low carbon future will come true with the help of data and technology.

Our second speaker Séverine Chardonnens, Co-founder of IDUN Technologies showed our audience a smart wearables future with her speech titled “Brain wave is the new heart rate”. IDUN Technologies is enabling the Internet of Humans by empowering the next generation of wearables. It has developed world-class biosensors for ECG, EMG and EEG for wearables, which collect and analyze biosignals. The holistic understanding of this process allows the startup to provide the end-user with actionable insight to enhance their wearables experience and knowledge of themselves.

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IDUN Technologies starts from material innovation (soft conductive materials with specific shapes) to focus hearables (EEG Monitoring). Now IDUN also focuses on data acquisition hardware, data interpretation through algorithm, and data visualization.

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In the future, IDUN will keep working on monitoring mental and physical health, focus, attention, stress & sleep with innovative materials they bring to society.

Our third speaker is Himani Shah, Co-founder & CFO of Intello labs. She touched upon the waste problem in food & agriculture. Himani pointed out that there are $500 B of fresh produce wasted globally every year because of supply chain issues. She believes Agriculture 4.0 is an innovative solution to tackle global food waste problem.

Agriculture 4.0 is a term for the next big trends facing the industry, including a greater focus on precision agriculture, the internet of things (IoT) and the use of big data to drive greater business efficiencies in the face of rising population and climate change.

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Agriculture 4.0 has a major role to play, not only in terms of feeding the world more sustainably but also in terms of business opportunities. Himani also introduced the imaging technologies in Agriculture 4.0 including satellite imaging, drone imaging & mobile and camera imaging.

With the fast and assessment enabled by AI, food organizations are able to measure quality objectively. In the end, it will decrease 21.6% loss for fresh produce in the retail supply chain.

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After the keynote presentations, speakers were invited to have interaction with audience and shared more about her entrepreneurship journey story. It is not surprising to know that they never limit themselves in the stereotypes of women.  For them, professionalism and expertise always come first, instead of gender.

We would like to express our special appreciation to our speakers who have presented their incredible leadership directing tech-driven organizations and dynamic exchanges with audience during the webinar, as well as our colleagues from India for co-organizing this event, and our partner Innosuisse for supporting the event.

We hope that webinar participants have acquired informative insights on the topic and trust female entrepreneur is always spotlight in tech world.

The webinar recording is available to view and download here.