The big lecture hall was completely full during Pascal Marmier’s (CEO of swissnex China) presentation on the Innovation Landscape of Switzerland at the Jiao Tong University on Thursday, 9 October. The audience, a group of "special" students, who are considered to become the future Innovators from China - they are the students of all three years from the SJTU-ParisTech Elite Institute of Technology (SPEIT), which is established under the cooperation of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Paris Tech. Their demanding curriculum at the Institute starts with 6 months of intensive language classes before the rest of the classes continue to be held in French or English. The studies at SPEIT also include a compulsory stay in France, which should be at least three months.

After learning more about Swiss Innovation, the reasons for its success and differences to the situation in China, the students then showed a lot of interest in the expertise of Pascal Marmier as well as in possible opportunities to study or work in Switzerland - where they could also make use of their already very impressing command of French!

We wish the students a lot of success for their studies and hope to see one starting as promising entrepreneurs pursuing their own projects in China or even in Switzerland!

- Contributed by Isabel Bolliger, Academic Intern

For Chinese version, go to here.