Maxwell Biosystems brings MaxTwo World Launch Tour 2019 to China

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Maxwell Biosystems is a startup that took part in the Innosuisse Market Entry Camp for China. This time, Maxwell Biosystems arrives in China with its new product MaxTwo. On May 20, swissnex China supported MaxWell Biosystem with the launch of a scientific workshop where we invited local and international speakers from different fields, such as stem cells, organoids, in-vitro technologies, neuroscience/neuro-engineering, toxicity, safety pharmacology, and drug discovery.

During the workshop, Dr. Urs Frey, CEO of MaxWell Biosystems shared their Company Overview and MEA Technology Trend.

Dr. Wei Gong, Application Scientist, shared the” iPSCs for CNS Drug Discovery - Phenotype Characterization and Novel Biomarkers”

The MaxTwo mainframe is an incubator allowing cells to have a proper environment during recording. It is designed for integration with automation systems. Overall, MaxTwo is a powerful electrical imaging system for drug discovery, safety pharmacology, and iPSC phenotyping applications.

 The event allowed the fascinated audience to learn more about the applications of high-resolution microelectrode arrays and to have a hands-on experience with the MaxTwo product.

 Company Overview 

MaxWell Biosystems AG is an electronics and biotechnology company based in Basel, Switzerland that provides instrumentation and solutions to advance neuroscience research and accelerate drug discovery. The company was incorporated in September 2016.

 Product Overview 

MaxWell Biosystems’ MaxTwo is a CMOS-based multiwell HD-MEA platform. It has all the capabilities of MaxOne–it captures high-quality signals at sub cellular resolution from long-term culture experiments. Electrical stimulation protocols can also be performed.

MaxTwo multiwell HD-MEA system allows for easy and vibration-free insertion of the multi-well MEA.

Future of Money: Brilliance in Fintech

By Mirjam Haab, Junior Project Manager - Science Outreach & Diplomacy

On April 23, swissnex China had the immense honour to organize for the President of the Swiss Confederation and Head of the Federal Department of Finance Mr. Ueli Maurer the Future of Money: Brilliance in Fintech event. On the occasion of his State Visit to China, Ueli Maurer attended the Shanghai event accompanied by two delegations of official and financial dignitaries. Among the delegations were the State Secretary, three Ambassadors, the President of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA, the Chairmen of SIX and SwissBanking and high-ranking representatives from all sectors of the Swiss financial world.

The continuation of swissnex China’s “Future of Money” series was on the topic: “New Technologies in Financial Markets: How China and Switzerland can benefit from each other”.

President of the Swiss Confederation meets with Swiss and Chinese delegations. (From left: Felix Moesner, CEO & Science Consul of swissnex China, Dr David Chang, Vice President of Shanghai Blockchain Association, Mr Peilung Li, Founder and Chairman of LUN Partners, Dean Charles Chang of Fanhai International School of Finance, Fudan University, Mr Ueli Maurer, President of the Swiss Confederation and Head of the Federal Department of Finance (FDF), Dr Romeo Lacher, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SIX, Dr Daniela Stoffel, State Secretary for International Finance, Mr Herbert J. Scheidt, Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), Prof Thomas Puschmann, Director of Swiss FinTech Innovation Lab, University of Zurich)

After a welcome speech by Wenzhon Jin (CEO of Orient Securities), President Ueli Maurer held the first keynote speech. He addressed two thought-provoking trade-offs emerging concomitant with new financial technologies. The second keynote speech by Herbert J. Scheidt, Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association, concentrated on Switzerland as a Fintech enabler and catered some key data on recent developments.

Mr Ueli Maurer, President of the Swiss Confederation delivers an opening keynote speech, calling for the Sino-Swiss collaboration and mutual benefit in fintech.

Mr Herbert J. Scheidt, Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) delivers a keynote speech.

 A highly relevant panel discussion moderated by Dr. David Chang (Vice President of Shanghai Blockchain Association) ensued the keynote speeches. The five top-class panellists were Dr. Daniela Stoffel (State Secretary for International Finance), Prof. Charles Chang (Dean of Fanhai Institute for International Finance at Fudan University), Dr. Romeo Lacher (Chairman of the Board of Directors of SIX), Peilung Li (Founder and Chairman of LUN Partners Group) and Prof. Thomas Puschmann (Director of the SwissFinTech Innovation Lab at University of Zurich). Some of the main discussion points revolved around regulatory frameworks, the handling of strictly regulated incumbents when unregulated disruptors enter the market, and how Sino-Swiss synergies could benefit both countries, for example regarding the Belt and Road initiative.

Moderated by Dr David Chang, Vice President of Shanghai Blockchain Association, the panel discussion features topics on current regulatory framework, traditional wealth management industry and Fintech startups.

 Orient Securities provided the event location in the South Bund area, allowing for a subsequent networking opportunity with a spectacular view of the Shanghai skyline.

The Swiss and Chinese delegations gathered for the networking cocktail reception at the Bund .

Thank you for the close collaboration with the Swiss Confederation, SwissBanking, SIX, University of Zurich, FISF Fudan University, Orient Securities, Blocknology Capital, The Asian Banker and Presence Switzerland.

All in all, the event was a financial extravaganza with first-class keynote speakers and panellists as well as top-level guests. The event was a great opportunity to shed light on the Venture Leaders Fintech program, which will take place in November 2019 in Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

Exploring Digital Media and Innovation in China - Tamedia Innovation Study Tour

By Yingzhen Chen, Junior Project Manager - PR & Communications

As Chinese technological innovation has been growing at an impressive rate in recent years, it has prompted a new wave of new media innovation that is redefining the Chinese media landscape. From April 1-5, swissnex China had the pleasure of organizing a 5-day Chinese digital media study trip for an executive delegation from Tamedia 20 Minuten, for the purpose of better understanding the new media ecosystem in China, discuss and exchange best practices with their Chinese counterparts, and have a deep dive into China’s latest innovations.

Taking part in the program were Marco Boselli, Editor-in-Chief of 20 Minuten, Gaudenz Looser, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of 20 Minuten, Mike Jenke, Head of Product of 20 Minuten and Mike J. Herter, Head of Innovation of Tamedia.

On April 1, the first day of the program, Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of swissnex China, welcomed the delegation to China and gave a brief introduction to the Tamedia delegation on the research and innovation landscape in China, and what the swissnex China team does to connect the dots between Switzerland and China.

swissnex China team warmly welcomed the Tamedia delegations in Shanghai office.

Afterwards, two members of the delegation visited Ximalaya (Himalaya), the leading audio and podcast sharing platform in China. The representatives of Ximalaya introduced their innovative audio ecosystem, including its content production and distribution process, podcaster university and business model, and they had an in-depth discussion on content distribution innovation.

Concurrently, the other two delegation members visited Shanghai Daily, the largest English-language newspaper in Shanghai and second largest in China, started its digital platform SHINE in October 1999. The executive representatives shared their respective experiences on digital transformation in the news industry.

Tamedia delegation with the Shanghai Daily editors.

In the afternoon, the group visited Yitiao, one of the most influential short-video new media in China focusing on lifestyle, fashion and art-focused content, providing daily quality videos and articles and targeting the Chinese middle class. The editors of Yitiao showed their studios, post-production rooms and a ‘kitchen studio’ exclusively for their food channel Mei Shi Tai.

Yitiao’s kitchen studio for its popular food social media Mei Shi Tai.

Pear Video, the leading information short video platform in China, own its office in Shanghai and Beijing.

For the last stop of the day, the group visited Pear Video, a leading news video platform founded in 2016, with 30k approved freelancers across China and globally, generating 1k videos every week. All the videos are fact-checked and quality-controlled internally. Pear Video recently launched Commonly as its English platform on Weibo.

On the second day, the group was invited to visit the College of Arts and Media of Tongji University in Jiading. The Vice Dean and professors welcomed the delegations and guided them on a comprehensive campus tour. The group visited various research facilities of the college, including fundamental labs and specialized practice labs in animation, interactive media, visual effects and electronic media etc. It was an insightful opportunity for the delegation to establish an overview of Chinese new media ecosystem from the academic side, at one of the first-tier new media colleges in China.

The Tamedia delegation visits the animation dome at the College of Arts and Media of Tongji University.

In the afternoon, the group continued their tour by transferring from academia to the latest practices in the industry, to grasp some ideas on how the traditional media dealt with their innovation. Yicai (China Business Network), China’s largest and most comprehensive financial media group owned by Shanghai Media Group (SMG) welcomed the delegations, guided them to their news rooms, studios, product department, among other facilities. Within the affiliate network of Yicai, there are Yicai TV, China Business News, YiMagazine, Yicai New Media Tech，Yicai Global, Yicai Radio, Yicai Forum, Yicai Research Institute, Big Data, Lujiazui Financial Herald and etc.

The Yicai executive boards was presenting Yicai company, the delegations exchanges valuable experiences on traditional media transformation.

After Yicai, the group visited International Channel Shanghai (ICS), the foreign language cable channel of SMG, which started producing 10 o’clock English news in 1986. The representatives from both companies shared their insights in the new media innovation.

The main television studio of ICS.

After exploring the latest digital innovation in the media industry in Shanghai, the group started a new chapter of the tour in Beijing, the capital city of China which is home to many headquarters of technology, media companies and startups. Taking the Renaissance EMU high speed train at speeds up to 350km/h, the delegation arrived in Beijing on April 3 by travelling 1318 kilometres in 4.5 hours.

The first stop in Beijing was the Kuaishou HQ (Kwai on the international market) and Acfun. Kuaishou is the largest social video sharing platform in the world with more than 700 million registered users and more than 100 million daily active users who upload over 10 million videos everyday. Kuaishou encourages users to share their stories in ordinary life. By applying AI and big data, Kuaishou enables machines to have a deeper insight into users, to understand their behaviour data in boosting the video production, understanding and distribution, at the same time presenting a diverse and down-to-earth community. Acfun is a popular Chinese video sharing website among the animation, comic, game and novel audiences, it was acquired by Kuaishou in 2018.

The Tamedia delegations with Kuaishou International PR team at Kuaishou HQ in Beijing.

The senior manager of Innoway was presenting China’s first Baidu Brain Innovation Experience Center at Innoway in Beijing.

In order to obtain an image of the China start-up culture and innovation in a nutshell, the group visited Innoway, China’s No.1 Hi-tech landmark of start-ups, created by Beijing and Haidian District. The mixture of investor offices, show-room, start-up cafes and “incubators” located in Beijing’s tech-heavy Zhongguancun. Since June 2014, Innoway has incubated over 1,900 Startups, with more than 222 international ventures. 743 Startups successfully received investments, accounting for 9.104 Billion RMB.  The representatives of Innoway introduced the group about Innoway projects and organized a networking dinner with some startup founders.

On April 4, the group visited the Phoenix International Media Center, the new headquarter and broadcast center of China’s largest private broadcaster Phoenix TV. With the Phoenix Chinese Channel, the Phoenix InfoNews Channel, the Phoenix Chinese News and Entertainment Channel which broadcasts in Europe, the Phoenix North American Chinese Channel, the Phoenix Movie Channel and the Phoenix Hong Kong Channel, Phoenix TV reach audience excess of 360 million worldwide. Wang Shu, the architect of the Phoenix International Media Center, received the 2012 Pritzker Prize for his ballooning torus formed by a twisting lattice of steel surrounded by glass. It was extremely interesting to visit the building while being guided through Phoenix TV’s studios, news rooms and exhibition arena in this artistic pavilion.

The group enjoyed a exciting tour at the Phoenix International Media Center with the Phoenix TV delegations.

The delegation also visited iQIYI, an innovative market-leading online entertainment service in China launched in 2010. The average mobile monthly active users of its mobile app is 565 million, ranked No.1 in the Chinese online video streaming platform, also the No.3 among top Chinese apps. iQIYI’s comprehensive entertainment ecosystem provides users with services including e-commerce, comics, literature, gaming, movie ticket bookings and short videos. The representatives of iQIYI introduced their business, content production and distribution model, IP ecosystem as well as AI-driven technology. By applying technological innovation such AI, Dolby Atmos, 4K and adaptive bitstream, iQIYI built up system on video intelligent creation, production, tagging, distribution, play, monetization and customer service. 

The Tamedia delegation was visiting the iQIYI exhibition wall in iQIYI ‘s HQ in Haidian, Beijing.

Last but not least, the group paid a visit to Plug and Play China in Zhongguancun, to obtain deeper insights into the start-up and investment ecosystem in media-related field. Plug and Play China had built up the largest innovation platform bridging startups, investors and blue chip corporations globally. The delegations exchanged creative ideas on case studies in different industries such as VR and advertising.

The Tamedia delegations were discussing innovative case studies of startups in media and VR industries with the PLUG and PLAY delegations.

swissnex China was honoured and delighted to receive the Tamedia executive delegation, providing them with an overview of the landscape of the Chinese new media and innovation ecosystem and opening a dialogue for potential bilateral Sino-Swiss collaboration. We would also like to express our great appreciation to the companies mentioned above for the warm welcome and their precious time in presenting the companies.

25 years in China – The successful journey of the Swiss Architect Daniel Heusser

By Gabriel Bishop, Junior Project Manager for Academic Relations

Every few months, SwissCham and swissnex China invite a seasoned Swiss professional based in China in the scope of an event series called the FiresideChat. This interactive format is an opportunity to share experiences and practices, notably on the topics of setting up a business or settling in China as well as on many related cross-cultural considerations.

On April 8, 2019, we had the pleasure to welcome the Swiss Architect Daniel Heusser. After graduating in architecture from ETH Zurich, Daniel Heusser has worked as senior architect and project manager in China for 25 years, first in the role of the Vice General Manager of a Sino-Swiss Joint Venture company for Architecture and Urban Planning in Shijiazhuang and Beijing, and from the year 2003 onwards as founder and managing partner of Virtuarch in Shanghai.

Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of swissnex China, welcoming the guests.

He took the opportunity of the chat to reflect on his journey and his learning experience since he arrived in the Chinese context of the 1990’s. He was able to highlight the challenges he faced, first in the establishment of the joint-venture and then in taking the big plunge of swimming on his own when he founded his own company in 2003.

He was further able to touch on a number of aspects, including the managing of Virtuarch, laying out strategies as well as planning and overlooking well designed projects, stressing the importance of trusting his gut feelings to prevent problems and having the flexibility to adapt – and to readapt – to ever changing circumstances.

Mr. Daniel Heusser, presenting his journey, sharing insights on how to build a successful business in China and answering questions.

Daniel Heusser’s key to success can hardly be summed up in a few words. Nonetheless, on that evening it appeared that without denying his “Swiss way”, he managed to grow by being receptive to and learning from a “Chinese way”, which is a point he expressed when answering questions during the Q&A session that followed his speech.

For the occasion, our community was joined by a delegation from the EMBA of the School of Management of Fribourg, and all the guests were able to further exchange and connect during the networking reception that followed.

On this note, we would also like to thank ETH Zurich and the ETH Zurich Alumni Chapter for supporting the event.

The swissnex China team looks forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.

Francophonie - A Call to Gather: Café des Sciences Special Edition

By Yao Lan, Junior Project Manager Interdisciplinary & Special Projects & Luca Mondada, Junior Project Manager Innovation & Entrepreneurship

To celebrate the Francophonie month of March, Café des Sciences Lecture series presented a special edition co-organized with other French speaking countries and regions on Thursday, 21st of March. 5 Scientists and startups from Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland were invited to present their research and pitch their projects. Creative design, sustainable energy, botanical science and various other topics are discovered and explored through the lecture. An audience of more than 70 French speakers in Shanghai gathered together in the swissnex China conference room to exchange with the speakers and enjoy the social networking Apéro.

The first speaker — Arthur Limpens from Belgium - introduced the development and keys to success of the startup DesignNest, a consumer product design platform. He started DesignNest during his studies and the company is today present across the globe, with a valuation around USD 30M and 120 employees across 5 locations as well as its own factory. He focused on widely used products, but proposed innovative designs focused on what purpose the product really serves. A good example is a multi-plug that looks unexciting at first; but its thought-through functional design made it an extremely popular product. The startup now launched a platform where designers from around the world can collaborate with the company to realize their products using their expertise and experience.

The second speaker is Prof. Gilles Vincent. He is a Canadian scientist now based at the Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden, where he can grow plants in a controlled environment on a real-life scale. This setup is unique in the world, as most botanic experiments are either on a very small scale or have external factors that cannot be controlled. His research focuses on two questions very relevant for urban Shanghai: waste water treatment and “phytoremediation”: the use of plants to clean polluted soil. His team has successfully recognized plants suited for both tasks and the results of his research is already being applied by the municipality of Shanghai.

Our third speaker is Pierre Angot from France. He is Co-Founder of ProtectorChain, a startup that helps companies improve the security of their supply chains using blockchain. He shared the blockchain technology with the audience. The blockchain allows every actor in a supply chain to record and store information that will be accessible to everyone. What makes this special and particularly useful is the fact that no actor can modify the data once it is stored. It thus acts as a proof of everything that has happened.

After developing a prototype for robot vision during his PhD at ETH, the fourth speaker — Prof. Laurent Kneip from Luxembourg worked on extending his research to self-driving cars. He is now Assistant Professor at Shanghai Tech university, where he is developing a tool to drive cars autonomously based on the sensors that are already present today in cars on the market. His team is hoping to achieve that by limiting autonomous driving to a controlled environment; in particular, they hope to enable cars to park autonomously in certain parking lots. This technology allows to track movement using only a limited number of sensors, which can have many attractive real-world applications.

The last speaker Laurent Coulot is from Switzerland. He graduated from EPFL, where he started working on solar panels with the goal of increasing their efficiency. Using technology usually reserved for space equipment and smartly focusing the light to reduce the costs, Laurent and his growing team came up with a design of solar panel that is viable for large scale production and commercialization. They are therefore moving to the next step, where China will play a decisive role for them: finding partners for the production of their solar panels.

From Left to Right: Arthur Limpens (Speaker), Co-Founder of DesignNest; Marie-Adélaïde Matheï, Consul for economic affairs, Consulate General of the Kingdom of Belgium / Wallonie-Bruxelles International; Gaétan Messin, Science & Technology Attaché, Consulate General of France; Pierre Angot (Speaker), Co-Founder of ProtectorChain; Anneleen Van Landeghem, Consulate General in Shanghai, The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg; Prof. Laurent Kneip, Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at Shanghai Tech university, Shanghai Tech University; François Dansereau, Head of Political and Public Affairs, Vice-Consul, Consulate General of Canada / Québec Government Office in Shanghai; Prof. Gilles Vincent (Speaker), Special advisor to the Executive President, Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden; Laurent Coulot (Speaker), Co-Founder and CEO, Insolight; Dr. Felix Moesner, CEO & Science Consul, swissnex China; Rahel Gruber, Operations Manager & Co-Deputy CEO, swissnex China.

Café des Sciences - Francophonie special edition, was co-organized with the Consulate General of Belgium / Wallonie-Bruxelles International, the Consulate General of Canada / Québec Government Office in Shanghai, the Consulate General of France / French Tech Shanghai and the Consulate General of Luxembourg. We'd like to appreciate our thanks and appreciation to their great support in co-organizing this event!

Café des Sciences is a new format at swissnex China offering a monthly platform for Swiss Spotlight Scientists and Start-ups 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. Audience are welcome 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.

Visit to the World’s Most Valuable AI Startup Unicorn Together with S&TDC

By Priska Furrer, Junior Project Manager

On February 25, swissnex China joined a visit of the Science & Technology Diplomatic Circle to the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startup unicorn SenseTime. SenseTime focuses on computer vision and deep learning and is valued US$6 billion. SenseTime leads the market in almost all vertical industries, including smart city, smartphone, mobile internet, online entertainment, automobile, finance, retail, education, real estate, and so forth. The company boasts more than 700 customers and partners in China and overseas, including world-renowned institutions and companies such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Honda Motors, Alibaba Group, Suning, China Mobile, China UnionPay, wanda, Huawei, Xiaomi Technology, OPPO, vivo, orWeibo Corporation. It also established the National Open Innovation Platform for Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence on Intelligent Vision. The future plan is to extend its Shanghai base to host 3000 employees and accommodate the largest of 5 supercomputers with 30’000 GPUs. Already now, an impressive 250 PhDs in AI are working for SenseTime.

Discover Swiss Collision-resistant Drones for Inaccessible Places | Café des Sciences

On 21st February, swissnex China organized an networking-event focused on Swiss safe drones in Shanghai. Including scientists, investors and experts from local drone industry, 50 registered guests came and joined the event. We invited Xiaolin Briod-Wang, General Manager of Greater China at Swiss startup & EPFL spin-off Flyability to give us the speech about its drone ELIOS, which is the world’s first collision-tolerant Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The speech was followed by networking session with Swiss-style refreshments.

During the event, Xiaolin presented Flyability and introduced it’s safe drone - ELIOS - for industrial inspection where it avoids sending people in dangerous and confined spaces for the inspection of energy, oil & gas or transport infrastructure. ELIOS is also active in search & rescue and security to assess emergency situations without putting humans at risk.

Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO of swissnex China, gave the welcome speech

50 Audience came to the event.

Integrated payload, on-board lightening, continuous operation, LIVE 2.4 GHZ video feedback, protective frame… as Master of Science in Microtechnology, Xiaolin explained the design and construction of ELIOS in details. She also showed two videos as examples that ELIOS was used for inspection in China in order to save the cost and time as well as improve the safety: one is for China-ASEAN Exposition event inspection, the other is for sewer inspection in Shanghai city.

After the presentation, there was a followed-up Q&A session. The audience was interested in ELIOS and gave many insightful feedback about its applications for different kinds of inaccessible places.

This event was also the 2nd Edition of our new “Café des Sciences” event series - a monthly platform for Swiss Spotlight Scientists and Start-ups to present their projects and connect with the local community, which are scheduled to take place every third Thursday each month at swissnex China or our partner spaces. We would like kindly invite you to join our upcoming events.

Networking with refreshment. (Catering: GEVENA Restaurant & Bar)

Networking with the speaker.

From Left to Right: Cissy Yiwen Sun (Project Leader for Interdisciplinary Projects of swissnex China), Dr. Felix Moesner (Science Consul & CEO of swissnex China), Xiaolin Briod-Wang (General Manager of Greater China at Flyability), Xiaolu Zhu (Interpreter)

swissnex China visits Landspace: a Private Sector Pioneer in the Chinese Commercial Aerospace Industry

On January 17, the swissnex China team joined its colleagues from the Section of Science, Education and Technology at the Embassy of Switzerland in Beijing for an insightful visit to the Beijing-based Land Space Technology Corporation Ltd. (LandSpace hereafter), a pioneer in the Chinese private commercial aerospace industry that was founded in 2015 by Tsinghua University.

The teams from Shanghai and Beijing were warmly received by Landspace.

LandSpace conducted the first Chinese private orbital launch on October 27, 2018 with its ZQ-1 rocket and is currently testing the ZQ-2, a medium-scale and low-cost commercial launch vehicle system that is independently developed by LandSpace with independent intellectual property rights. They aim to achieve reusable methalox orbital rocket launch by 2020. The private aerospace enterprise has two R&D centers based in Beijing and Xi’an, and an Intelligent Manufacturing Base in Huzhou, Zhejiang. LandSpace seeks to target the international market with its small and medium scale, low-cost launch vehicles.

Mr. Kevin Xu gave a comprehensive introduction to LandSpace's mission, activities and products.

Exchange between LandSpace and swissnex on the commercial aerospace industry.

swissnex China received an in-depth presentation on the mission, activities and the evolution of LandSpace products. Ms. Liu Chenchen, Project Officer from the Beijing team, also presented to LandSpace the Swiss expertise in various deep-tech and high-precision fields, opening the dialogue for potential Sino-Swiss collaboration.

Our thanks to LandSpace for their warm welcome and insightful presentation!

We would like to express our fond appreciation to Mr. Kevin Xu (Director, Sales & Business Development), Ms. Emily Zhang (Chief Financial Officer) and Ms. Lisa Shen (Senior Sales Manager) at LandSpace for the warm welcome and their time in presenting the activities. Our thanks to our colleagues in Beijing for arranging the visit.

Shanghai & Beijing teams at the Great Wall.

Morning breakout session with Shanghai and Beijing teams.

In the morning of the 17th, our Shanghai and Beijing teams also held a fruitful breakout session defining strategies, sharing best practices, exploiting synergies as well as tackle the challenges. Each of the sections also presented their 2018 activities and outlook for 2019.

swissnex China takes a Deep Dive into the Future of Logistics with S&TDC

On January 14, swissnex China joined its peers from the Science & Technology Diplomatic Circle for its first event in 2019, which was a visit to Alibaba Group's Cainiao Future Park in Wuxi. The logistics arm of the leading Chinese e-commerce platform is highly innovative and ambitious.

Group photo with the members of the S&TDC and the hosts of the visit from Alibaba Group.

It was an insightful visit of the largest automated warehouse in China with over 700 robots (= automated guided vehicles or AGVs). Most of the robots seen in action are Quicktron robots able to lift racks up to 500kg and automatically pick up a parcel and deliver it to another part of the warehouse where it is then picked up by a delivery firm. One purpose of the new flagship warehouse is field testing various logistics technologies as well as establishing new standards. The new process has brought significant time savings and improved accuracy reaching 98%. Alibaba invested billions to build a national Internet-based intelligent logistics backbone in China and works nowadays with over 3000 partners worldwide. Its publicly stated goal for the next 5-10 years is to deliver to anyone in China within 24 hours and internationally in 72 hours. In 2018, it took 2.6 days to deliver the 1042 million parcels ordered during 11.11, the Singles Day.

Cainiao is the largest automated warehouse in China with over 700 AGVs | Photo: Quicktron (PlaceTech)

On the statistics side, Cainiao covers internationally 224 countries and regions and domestically more than 2700 counties and villages, is connected with over 3 million express courier personnel, and processes 16 trillion pieces of logistics data per day. The smart logistic network has a daily average package volume of 69 million connected to the whole society. Cainiao is developing highly innovative solutions and technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), unmanned vehicles, express towers, cabinets which can be unlocked using facial recognition, and many more. Some of those technologies are already in use as pilot projects in some university towns.

Delivery speed growth from 2009-2018 | Graphic: Cainiao Network (Alizina)

Future of Money series: Sino-Swiss Luncheon Talk on Blockchain Trends

Shanghai, October 25 – Continuing the Future of Money series, swissnex China co-organized ‘BlockchainBites’, our first Blockchain luncheon. The speakers were Dr. Wei Cheng, Co-Founder of ChainFunder (top tier Chinese CryptoFund) and Quentin Reyes, Junior Project Leader on Blockchain at swissnex China. They both focused about the latest blockchain trends and perspectives in Switzerland and China. After Quentin gave an in-depth overview of the Swiss Fintech and Blockchain landscape and the new “Blockchain Center” at the University of Zurich, Dr. Cheng talked about blockchain developments in China and the latest “Dos” and “Don‘ts” in an interview format. The dialogue finally moved into an active Q&A with the 80 people in the audience.

Welcoming words by swissnex CEO Felix Moesner and SwissCham Vice President Gianna Abegg

Quentin Reyes, swissnex China interviewed Dr. Wei Cheng, ChainFunder

An active audience of 80 people joined the Blcokchain luncheon

Registration for the luncheon

This event “BlockchainBites” was in partnership with SwissCham (Digitalization Committee), UZH Alumni Shanghai and Presence Switzerland and held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Shanghai.

Background: The "Future of Money" series on FinTech by swissnex China was held in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong and focused on Blockchain and AI in WealthTech. The event BlockchainBites is the 7th event of this series in Greater China.

Makiko Aikawa & Gianna Abegg (Co-Presidents UZH Alumni Shanghai), Quentin Reyes, Dr. Wei Cheng and Felix Moesner

How Does China Drive Innovation and How Switzerland can Leverage from it?

Geneva, December 7 – After the opening words by Christophe Weber, President of the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, our CEO Felix Moesner gave a talk on "How Does China Drive Innovation and How Switzerland Can Leverage from It?". His deep dive into the foundations of innovation in China included "Made in China 2025", his insights on what we can learn from ‘China speed’ and what his team at swissnex China – the Science Consulate of Switzerland in China – does to connect the dots between Switzerland and China in education, research and innovation. An outstanding audience with 50 registered guests contributed to a lively Q&A, which was moderated by Christophe Weber, and continued during the networking event, where many old and new friends of swissnex China joined for 90 minutes and beyond.

The talk was in excellent partnership with the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Geneva Chapter. Special thanks go to Christophe Weber, President, Alexandre Gaillard, Secretary General, Philippe Nasr, Chief Operating Officer, and Yunfei Gao, Chief Business Development Officer for their effective and efficient collaboration.

CEO Felix Moesner highlights some hightech innovation examples

An audience of 50 registered guests attended the talk

SCCC President Christopher Weber did the moderation

Talk on Innovation in China

Networking with old and new friends of swissnex China

Picture credit: Philippe Nasr and Anna Lupina Wegener

SCCC website: https://www.sccc.ch/events/how-does-china-drive-innovation-and-how-switzerland-can-leverage-from-it

Unchaining the Blockchain in Zurich

Title: Ambassador Mauro Moruzzi, Head of swissnex network, State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI

by Quentin Charles Reyes, Junior Project Manager for Blockchain 

Last Tuesday at Careum Zurich, swissnex China’s team was proud to have organized the annual event of the swissnex Network in collaboration with State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI, fostering ground-breaking discussions on the regulations, opportunities, threats and challenges surrounding the topic of Blockchain and offering a unique opportunity for the swissnex Swiss partners and Blockchain actors to meet the Swiss global network for education, research and innovation.

Photo: Dr. Felix Moesner, CEO swissnex China, gave the speech

Prof. Dr. Michael Hengartner, President, University of Zurich, gave the speech

During the day, top Blockchain guest speakers shared their views and insights over the current and future state of the Blockchain technology. With the swissnexDay’18, swissnex China organized it’s first event outside of China and we are very proud of the quality, the popularity and the positive reviews we received during and after the event from not only  the other swissnex outposts but also from Swiss Blockchain entrepreneurs, academia and government officials.   

Prof. Dr. Lino Guzzella, President, ETH Zurich

Daniel Haudenschild, CEO Swisscom Blockchain AG

Katherine Foster, Chief Strategy Officer, BLOC

Livio Ammeter, Legal and Policy Specialist Fintech Desk, Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA

We would like to thank our high-profile speakers: Ambassador Mauro Moruzzi (SERI); President Michael Hengartner (University of Zurich); President Lino Guzzella (ETH Zurich); Thomas Heiniger (Kanton Zürich); Katherine A. Foster (CSO, BLOC), Daniel Haudenschild (CEO, Swisscom Blockchain), Livio Luca Ammeter (FINMA), Olga Feldmeier (CEO, SMART VALOR), Sam Lee (Founder & CEO, Blockchain Global Limited), Thomas Puschmann (Swiss Fintech Innovations) and Alan Wunsche, MBA,CPA,CBP, (CTO, TokenFunder), and our panel moderator Olivia Chang (CNNMoney Switzerland).

We would also like to express our appreciation to our event partners University of Zurich, ETH Zurich, CNNMoney Switzerland, Crypto Valley Association and Careum Zurich for their strong support.

Panel Discussion

A new source of Innovation has emerged in southwest China

On Thursday 13th, I attended at the SSBICom (Sino-Swiss Business Incubation Competition) in Chongqing. Chongqing is famous for its Three Gorges dam, spicy hot pot, and for being the City of Fog. Maybe soon, it will be well-known for its Swiss companies.

The SSBIcom gathered startups from the Zurich Area and gave the opportunity to the startups to present their company in 15 minutes, followed by 10 minutes Q&A. vispectiv AG won the first prize. The business target is focused on long Range Sensor Systems to survey and detect different kinds of environmental hazards. The major commercial product is based on the optical automated smoke detection system „Forest Ranger” which can be implemented into sophisticated computerized fire management systems and procedures.

The second prizes have been attributed to eBlock an Australian startup that produces prefabricated concrete panels, and holo|one. Holo-one is a Swiss IT start-up and developer of the 'sphere', an augmented reality platform for companies. Their goal is to revolutionize industries and redefine workflows. This platform brings company data and expert knowledge into Augmented Reality.

The other startups won the third prizes. Clipthis provides a simple augmented reality solution that allows you to view movie clips and animations with AR. The clips are linked to ClipThis objects, such as business cards, flyers, brochures, wallpapers etc. Through the application, users can discover interesting, fun and educational digital content while holding the video in their hands. IoTech.swiss is developing embedded AI and IoT products and solutions for the aviation/drone industry, such as Colibri, a plug and play device that aims at reducing light aircraft accidents. Kyon biotech develops a treatment for arginine-dependent cancers by systemic, deep, sustained and acute arginine depletion. Papafut offers quantum programming courses tailor-made for IT professionals.

On Friday 14th happened the Opening Ceremony of SinoSwiss Technopark. It started with an introduction speech by Mr. Liu Qi, CEO of SinoSwiss Technopark and has been followed by the award ceremony of 2018 SSBICom hosted by Markus Assfalg, Director, Office for Economy and labour, Canton Zurich; Felix Sutter, Chairman, Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce; Rene Forster, Chairman, Swiss Chamber of Commerce China. It was quickly followed by speeches delivered by Mr. Paul Sives, President of EUCCC Southwest Chapter; Frank Eggmann, Consul-General of Swiss Consulate in Chengdu; Thomas Wagner, Honorary President of the Swiss-China Association and former mayor of Zurich. After the projects signing ceremony, I had the opportunity to present the activities of swissnex China in a keynote speech. Then, a tour of SinoSwiss Technopark was organized.

This Technopark is to attract Swiss SMEs from a variety of industry sectors which, with the help of a Chinese partner, would like to find their way to the Southwest of China. The park offers a total of 480’000 square meters of usable space. Besides Office, Trade, R&D and Manufacturing facilities, the park will also consist of a hotel and a great variety of restaurants, coffee shops, and bars. It is located in the New North Zone of Chongqing, which is known as the core area of economic growth and the best area to live and work in Chongqing.

I would like to thank Dominik Widmer for the organization of this event, everything ran smoothly and was perfectly coordinated.

swissnex China 2018 Year-End Events & Insights

by Quentin Gigon, Junior Project Manager - Innovation and Entrepreneurship

While the year is coming to the end, the technology community in Shanghai is still going strong, and as such swissnex China had the pleasure of being invited to a few conferences and events about various tech related topics. Read more below.

Plug and Play China 2018 Winter Summit

Based in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play is one of the largest startup accelerators in the world. It has helped grow companies such as PayPal, Google, DropBox, SoundHound etc. In China, Plug and Play has invested in more than 200 startups and accelerated over 500 startups.

Fintech Selection Day

The Fintech Selection Day, which saw 20 Fintech startups pitching from fields such as big data analysis, flash payments, and meteorological risk analysis, as well as the inauguration of Plug and Play's new Blockchain Innovation Lab.

Supply Chain | Brand & Retail Focus Day

Brand & Retail / Supply Chain Tech Focus Day, with 12 startups pitching and demonstrating innovative new retail concepts on the one hand, as well as disruptive unmanned vehicle services on the other. Leon Zhao, one of the panelists at our Homes of Drones event a few weeks ago, was among those pitching with his startup Antwork.

Fea Consulting / The Blockchainer

FEA-Consulting, a subsidiary company of The Blockchainer, has been holding in-depth and high-end summits in fintech, consumer finance, commercial banking, internet insurance, wealth management, AI, blockchain and digital assets areas for many years. It has so far served more than 5,000 outstanding global companies and 30,000 industry leaders.

Finners City 2018

The Finners City 2018 Digital Finance summit brought together international fintech associations, governments, old & new financial institutions, tech providers, as well as investors to discuss and explore the future of digital finance.

The Summit provided interesting insights into the future of fintech: indeed, there seemed to be a consensus among the fintech associations of Zhejiang, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, that the next "battleground" of fintech will be in blockchain and data protection.

Chain Plus

The Blockchainer's conference "Chain Plus +" focusing on the Iterative Development and Regulatory Trends in Blockchain. The event offered interesting insights, particularly in the applications of blockchain technology in various fields including crowdfunding and gaming. The crypto winter was a notably recurring theme in many presentations. Once again, there were some familiar faces at the conference, including Olga Feldmeier of Smart Valor, who will be a speaker at swissnex China’s Blockchain event in Zurich on December 11.

IPIEC 2018 Global, Swiss Chapter

by Bodong Shi, Sino-Swiss Center Guangzhou

IPIEC GLOBAL 2018, guided by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information technology, is an entrepreneurial and innovation contest originated in China, aiming to bridge splendid ideas and innovation from overseas to the promising China market. The competition offers selected startups a business development week in China, including meetings with Chinese companies, industry clusters and investors in multiple cities across China.

On October 26th 2018, WTOIP in collaboration with Venturelab hosted the Swiss final of the IPIEC GLOBAL 2018, where 10 startups were pitching for a chance to win up USD 100,000 and a seat for a business roadshow in China. Insightness, Amphasys AG, MORPHEAN and BIOWATCH came out on top, selected as the top 30 IPIEC GLOBAL 2018 global champions, and compete with the world's best players for the $100,000 championship prize; deeply participate in the Chinese roadshow tour, and face-to-face exchanges with investors and potential cooperation agencies across China.

Insightness was selected as TOP 10 advances into Final ceremony of the IPIEC GLOBAL 2018 in Guangzhou on December 13th. MORPHEAN signed cooperation agreement with Chinese partner in Final ceremony.

Representative of Amphasys and Insightness in IPICE 2018 Global Final

Jordi Montserrat, Co-founder and managing partner of Venturelab, together with Joanna Sapulak, representative of WTOIP hosted the Swiss Chapter

Swiss Hi-Tech companies’ interaction with audiences

Intro of the 4 companies

- Amphasys focuses on the market development of pollen quality analysis and stands for an innovative and patented new "lab-on-chip"-technology to analyze single cells:  Microfluidic impedance flow cytometry. It allows analysis of almost any kind of single cells from human, animal and plant sources as well as bacteria, yeast and algae. Taking into account that some high quality seeds are more expensive than gold (in weight), the reliable determination of pollen quality obviously becomes a key success factor in the seed production process. The most distinctive measure is viability (cell activity), in addition to count, concentration, size, and cell differentiation.

Amphasys' presentation and Q&A in the IPICE 2018 Global Semifinal

- BIOWATCH delicates to Wearable safety certification devices which can be used in payment, auto, access control and other areas. Wearable devices coupled with adequate biometric authentication have the power to avoid the cumbersome nature of authentication from daily lives. The products integrate finger vein, NFC and Bluetooth technologies to enable customers to have a better security authentication experience, ensuring user security and privacy. 

BiowarchID' presentation and Q&A in the IPICE 2018 Global Semifinal

- Insightness develops a highly efficient vision sensor technology which is inspired by people's eyes and builds spatial AI solutions (Vision Chip & Software) that allow devices to understand the structure of their environment, how things move and where they are located. The system uses self-designed chips and its tracking speed is 100m/ms which is 100 time faster than others. While this was already successfully deployed in drones, the current focus of Insightness is AR, VR and MR.

Insightness' presentation and Q&A in the IPICE 2018 Global Final

- Morphean, specializes in securing the connection of sensors and devices simply, and automatic response from collected data. It has the leading position in the fields of video, audio, big data analysis, artificial intelligence, etc., and uses AI to continuously improve the algorithm for monitoring and forecasting, and improve the platform function to bring business value to customers. There are two main application fields which have been greatly recognized by many customers in Europe:

1. Security & Guarding: To address issues such as access control, remote monitoring, intrusion detection, and perimeter detection;

2. Retail: To solve the problems of biometric identification, passenger flow statistics, consumer behavior analysis, face payment, KPI assessment.

MORPHEAN signed cooperation agreement with Chinese partner in Final ceremony of the IPIEC GLOBAL 2018.

Morphean's presentation and Q&A in the IPICE 2018 Global Semifinal

Morphean reached cooperation intention with Chinese Company

Gathering of Woman Entrepreneurs Working in Innovation

By Priska Furrer, Junior Project Manager

From November 21 to 22, the 2018 International Summit of Women Entrepreneurs took place in Guangzhou with a representative of swissnex China being invited as part of the Swiss delegation. Titled with ‘Innovation and Growth: Women Empowerment to Win the Future’, the summit had strong speakers present, such as for example Maya Morsy, President of National Council for Women of the Arab Republic of Egypt; GUAN Yuxiang, Founder of ORG Packaging Co., Ltd. (aged 80!); Sophia Slingerland, Founder of Atelier Phi-I; Joy Tan, President of Global Media Communications at Huawei Technologies; Jet Jing, President of Tmall, Alibaba Group; and MENG Xiaosi, Chairwoman of China Woman’s Development Foundation.

General impressions of the summit.

Sophia Slingerland (Founder of Atelier Phi-i), Isabelle Yang (Founder and Former President of Sino-Swiss Women’s Forum), Martin Bienz (Consul General of Switzerland in Guangzhou), Priska Furrer (swissnex China) (left to right).

For the afternoon of the second day, the participants of the summit were taken to Unicorn Field, an incubator for startups, which is part of the Heungkong Financial Center in Guangzhou.

Visit of the co-working space area and introduction of Unicorn Field.

Presentation of several products and visit of the offices.

Armasuisse Emerging Technology Tour to China

---

Armasuisse Emerging Technology Tour to China

By Quentin Gigon, Junior Project Manager - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

As technology advances at an breathtaking pace and we are invariably impacted by innovations in our society, everyone is trying to stay up to date on the latest and greatest developments; The military is no exception, and to this end swissnex China had the pleasure of organizing a 3-day program from November 5 to 7, focusing on emerging technology trends in China for the visit of Mr. Quentin Ladetto of Armasuisse, a Federal Agency of the Swiss Confederation responsible for the procurement of armaments for Switzerland.

The program organized by swissnex consisted of three days. On the first day, swissnex China brought Mr. Ladetto to Hangzhou, a city neighboring Shanghai and famous for its West Lake as well as for hosting Alibaba’s HQ. With the help of Lucas Rondez, CEO and Founder of NiHub, an organization helping foreign startups in China, Mr. Ladetto had the opportunity to visit HIKVision, world leader in video surveillance products, NiHub’s latest office space, as well as Getui.com, a leading third-party push notification service provider, as well as We Meet, a platform for European SMEs to launch in China.

On the second day, Mr. Ladetto was able to visit the China International Import Exhibition (CIIE), the world's largest trade expo taking place in Shanghai. With enterprises from over 100 countries and every possible field, the Exhibition provided the ideal environment to explore the latest technological developments and innovations.

On the third and final day of the program, Mr. Ladetto visited the Beidou Research Institute, a non-profit platform promoting the Beidou Navigation Industry, China’s equivalent of America’s Global Positioning System (GPS). The Institute is also home to a “Robotics Testing & Training Area”, which is one of the largest indoor “sandbox environments” in China allowing for the testing and validation of mobile robots.

Mr. Ladetto’s trip then continued to South Korea, followed by Japan.

Swiss Startups Shine at Sino-EU Innovation Week of Health-Technology in Nanjing

By Victor Dietrich, Junior Project Manager

On November 2, 2018, the Sino-EU Innovation Week of Health Technology wrapped up to great fanfare in the beautiful Nanjing, with innovators from Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and China. The attendees gave praise to the host's investment and life science community, facilitating Sino-EU collaboration in health technology innovation.

swissnex had the privilege of attending this high-level event during its closing days in Nanjing, in particular the inauguration of award and opening of ICCAMT-Nanjing, and had the opportunity to network with interesting companies in the field of biotechnology, health technology and medical technology.

You will find below detailed information on companies that were representing Switzerland at this event, as well as a summary of their products / services and the remarkable results they acquired.

---

Biognosys AG, a company that had collaborated previously with “our cousins” from swissnex Boston, was represented by Oliver Rinner and Lidia Novak. They won one of the 2nd Health Technology Innovation Award.

Biognosys was founded in 2008 and is a privately held company in Zurich, Switzerland. Originally an ETH Zurich spin-off from the lab of Prof. Ruedi Aebersold, Biognosys is a pioneer in the field of proteomics and caters to the Pharma, Biotech, Diagnostics and Agricultural industries.

Biognosys believes that the decoding of the proteome will impact life science more than the genome revolution a decade ago. They provide innovative services and products for protein quantification using cutting edge technology and strive to be the company that provides the best possible solutions to support researchers in their protein analysis needs.

Their next generation technology quantifies proteins with unbeatable precision and depth. The solution is based on mass spectrometry based targeted proteomics technology, which provides simultaneous quantification for thousands of proteins in a single experiment.

---

Dualsystems Biotech AG, represented by its CEO, Dr. Paul Helbling, won one of the 3rd Health Technology Innovation Award. Dualsystems Biotech does target identification on living cells using the LRC-TriCEPS platforms as their core technologies. They are a specialized proteomics service provider working already with 15 of the 20 largest pharma companies and with a large number of Biotech companies worldwide. They also support discovery reach by collaborating with Universities around the globe.

Dualsystems Biotech have the only technology published so far to identify the unknown receptors of ligands (small molecules, peptides, proteins, antibodies, ADC, biologics, Fc-fusion proteins, and viruses) on the living cells to elucidate the Mode-of-Action of a molecule by target deconvolution. With their TriCEPS platforms they have a tool to optimize, identify and validate the targets. 

Further, they can identify new cell-cell interactions similar to PD-1/PDL-1 to identify new drug targets i.e. on primary human T-cells using the extracellular domain of any receptor fused to an Fc-tag to identify new drug targets. At the same time a large portion of the surfaceome (proteins expressed in/at the cell membrane) are identified. 

The technology has been shown to be able to detect where the peptide/protein/virus and small molecule docks on the living cell. 

---

MagCath ApS, represented by its CEO Niels Erikstrup, proposes an alternative option for women that are thinking about undergoing mesh surgery due to stress urinary incontinence. Surgery has risks and may not work at all. That is why MagCath ApS have developed and clinically tested a unique medical device called Obtinu.

Obtinu is a single-use, very soft, silicone tube, that the user herself inserts in the urethra each morning. The tube stays in place all day, and has an inner valve, which restores control over bladder voiding. The tube is pulled out and discarded in the evening, before going to bed. Obtinu has a high user approval as it is both comfortable and easy to use.

---

swissnex also had the chance to connect with Serge Perriard, Managing Director of BioTalk GmbH. Over a period of 12 years, BioTalk has also published the special interest journals BioWorld and BioWorld Europe. Since over 3 years together with their partners in Switzerland, Finland, Italy, USA, and Israel, they are focusing on building bridges between Swiss & European SMEs on the one side and Chinese partners & investors in their sector on the other side, and have organized and initiated many events, roadshows, and cross-border partnerships.

Among others, BioTalk has enabled excellent cooperation between the Swiss Technopark Alliance and their closest Partner company in China, Beijing YiGu Venture Capital Management & Consulting Co. Ltd. This leading healthcare technology developer in China is setting up and managing healthcare initiatives, incubators, and industry parks. Moreover, BioTalk maintains partnerships with many other industry & innovation park, event & media, and VC&PE investment fund managers, as well as with international relations managers from large pharma & medtech companies and with government officers, responsible for economic industry zone development in Hong Kong, Foshan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jinan, and Beijing.  

swissnex would like to congratulate all the companies for their interesting presentations, great results, and engagement. A huge bravo to Karin Schütze, Managing Director of CellTool for winning the 1st Health Technology Innovation Award. A special thanks to Dr. Hui Wu and Matthias Hölling for the invitation and to iCCAMT, Beijing, TechnoPark, Germany Medical Valley, Steinbeis Stiftung and Business Sweden for the organization of this event.

Swiss National Pavilion @ CIIE: the Jewel in the Crown at the World's Largest Trade Expo

By Victor Dietrich, Junior Project Manager

China International Import Expo (CIIE), the World's Largest Trade Expo with 3000 companies from 130 countries/regions, took place from November 5 to 10 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center Shanghai. The CIIE is a major initiative of the Chinese government to support trade liberalization, economic globalization and open the market to the world.

The Swiss National Pavilion at CIIE is managed by the Swiss Business Hub China of the Embassy of Switzerland in the People's Republic of China, in cooperation with Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), on behalf of the Swiss Confederation. The Swiss National Pavilion has an outstanding presence at the expo, and swissnex China was proud to provide strong support to the Swiss National Pavilion at the first CIIE.

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

On the opening day November 5, the official opening ceremony included important speakers such as Xi Jinping president of the People’s Republic of China, Alibaba.com's CEO Jack Ma or Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. On November 6, the Swiss National Pavilion was inaugurated by the Swiss Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Mrs. Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch, and Swiss Ambassador to China, Dr. Jean-Jacques de Dardel who led a high-level Swiss delegation to the trade fair.

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

On November 7, swissnex China was delighted to host a special event on Swiss innovation at the Swiss National Pavilion. The event was opened by Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of swissnex China, who highlighted Switzerland's substantial global lead in education, research and innovation, as well as the swissnex mission. Swissnex China Project Leaders Ms. Libing Gu (Academic Relations), Ms. Cissy Yiwen SUN (Interdisciplinary & Special Projects) and Ms. Lijun Zhang (Innovation & Entrepreneurship) then each presented their own fields and diverse range of activities. As a remarkable example of Swiss innovation applied in a Chinese context, Ms. Xiaolin (Lin) Briod-Wang from Flyability, a Swiss startup spin-off from EPFL, presented the Elios collision-tolerant drone and its impressive application at the 15th China-ASEAN Expo.

Since 2010, China has been Switzerland’s most important trading partner in Asia. It was therefore important for Switzerland to participate in the CIIE and show its excellence in innovation, in addition to the robust commercial relationship they have. The Swiss National Pavilion offered the audience an opportunity to visit Switzerland in virtual reality, physical space, engaging all senses while showcasing Switzerland’s global leadership in innovation, culture, and tourism. The main feature of the Swiss National Pavilion was the LiveMap, a large walkable aerial map of Switzerland in front of a Swiss traditional Chalet and a large LED screen. Visitors could then enjoy culinary specialties and receive prizes won while using the LiveMap in the Swiss Post office on the balcony of the Swiss chalet. In the relaxation zone in the back of the chalet, visitors can take a rest in a natural environment that resembles a swiss alpine meadow and relish the unique sensory experience in Swiss nature.

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

Photos © Bi Yuchao / Swiss Business Hub China

The CIIE has been intense. Thank you very much to the volunteers and all the people that worked on the pavilion and thank to the numerous visitors, that we hope to have appreciated this experience. We will see you next year probably!

A resounding success for the 5th edition of Venture Leaders China: Swiss Deep Tech leaves a lasting impression on China

By Quentin Gigon, Junior Project Manager - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

For the past few years, China has seen its economy grow at a fast-paced rhythm with a keen interest towards innovation, making it an ideal location for high-tech startups to stress-test ground-breaking technologies while seeking international expansion. Moreover, it goes without saying that China also opens doors to other Asian markets. Nevertheless, foreign companies doing business here are faced with a set of challenges both cultural and operational, tangible and intangible. These challenges are amplified if these foreign companies are small and have only limited financial resources and manpower.

In light of the above, the Venture Leaders China program was launched to offer a platform for a selection of 10 disruptive startups from Switzerland to connect with China over a 10-day roadshow across 5 cities: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. The trip included business workshops, investor meetings and public events. A few weeks ago, the 5th consecutive edition of Venture Leaders China 2018 ended after 10 days full of learning, memorable experiences, and, most importantly, valuable contacts from various industry professionals of the local startup ecosystem and multi-million and -billion-dollar investors.

All in all, as we look back at this 5th edition of Venture Leaders China, we can be more confident than ever that this program is an ongoing success story. All the startups showed high levels of satisfaction regarding the trip, with some of them already having secured investments, signed agreements and booked flights to come back in the next few weeks for follow-up meetings with potential investors and clients that were met during the trip. Moreover, the feedback from the audience of the various pitching events was nearly unanimous: the quality of the startups was one of the highest they have ever seen, and the pitching events were among the best they have attended. The valuable agreements signed here as well as these laudatory words provide evermore justification for the program and remind us of the high potential of Swiss startups, but also of the importance to support them. Today’s big firms were yesterday’s disruptive startups and the Venture Leaders platform provides the perfect gateway for startups to accelerate their growth, which eventually will lead to positive spillovers back in Switzerland, in terms of both employment and an increase of the quality of the already excellent Swiss innovation ecosystem.

More information below including testimonials and details of the individual events. 

This year, the delegation was composed of Jordi Montserrat and Beat Schillig of Venturelab, Mathias Paquier of Canton de Vaud, Michael Friedrich of DistalMotion, Reto Naef of Topadur Pharma, Aurélien Rizk of InterAx Biotech, Marco Salerno of Foldaway Haptics, Raj Lehal of Cellestia Biotech, Noris Gallandat of GRZ Technologies, Zhenzhong Su and Lukas Meier of Fixposition, Carlos Ciller of RetinAI, Matthew G. Hall of SimplicityBio, and Nilson Kufus of Nomoko.

Hong Kong

The program started in Hong Kong with a morning at Invest HK, the local investment promotion bureau, with insights from Charles Ng and Jayne Chan into the attractivity of Hong Kong as a place to do business, as well as Karena Belin of WHub discussing the local startup ecosystem, while Peggy Cheung of Jones Day offered a presentation about IP and Licensing.

Kick off of the Venture Leaders program at Invest HK, in Hong Kong

The afternoon session consisted of more business insights at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park with a first presentation by Julia Fung introducing the HKSTP and how they promote innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship in Hong Kong. The afternoon continued with insights from Luciano Tattoni of Compagnie d'Investissements et de Gestion Privée into the services his company provides for startups in Hong Kong. Finally, a panel discussion took place discussing "Business Development in China and the rest of Asia from Hong Kong" and "Fundraising in Hong Kong and China", organized by Helen Lo of the IMD Business School Alumni Club Hong Kong.

Afternoon presentations at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park

The program was off to a great start. After all the valuable inputs of the morning and afternoon sessions, the Venture Leaders took the stage for the first time during this trip as they pitched at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council in the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center. After a welcome speech by Andreas Rufer of the Consulate General of Switzerland in Hong Kong, Regina Lai of Hong Kong Trade Development Council, and Jordi Montserrat of Venturelab, the startups launched the show, with a high-quality audience of over 100 people.

Pitching in Hong Kong in front of an audience of over 100 people

“Hong Kong was really great, we had some very interactive sessions with potential investors and managed to make many good contacts, which I’m looking forward to building upon to bring Cellestia to China.” -Raj Lehal, Cellestia Biotech

“Hong Kong was great as it provided us with an opportunity to interact with 100-150 people, in an incredible city. This was a great discovery and an eye-opener in terms of what we can do in Asia in general.” -Matthew Hall, SimplicityBio

Shenzhen

After a busy first day in Hong Kong, the Venture Leaders headed to a neighboring city famous for its culture of innovation and often referred to as the Silicon Valley of Hardware: Shenzhen. The day began with a company visit at VisionerTech, an AR/VR company specializing in hardware and software. The visit provided a first time look for many of the participants into the daily operations of a Chinese company.

VisionerTech Company Visit in Shenzhen

In the afternoon, the Venture Leaders headed to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange for their first pitch in mainland China. After some introductory words by Shenzhen Stock Exchange representatives, Felix Moesner of swissnex China, the Consul General of Switzerland in Guangzhou, KPMG China, as well as Lutz Berners of Berners Consulting, the Venture Leaders took the stage and began their presentations. The audience consisted of many eager investors who never missed an opportunity to ask questions at the end of each pitch, a true testament to the quality of Shenzhen as a business and innovation hub in China.

The high-level audience at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Pitch

“The pitch at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange allowed us to engage with many investors from the Shenzhen region, which is booming at the moment. I believe there will be many potential collaboration opportunities very soon.” -Carlos Ciller, RetinAI Medical

“I was very impressed by Shenzhen. After the pitching, I met so many people, experts, and investors from the field, but mainly also people from pharma, who are potential partners for us to develop our drug in China.” -Reto Naef, Topadur Pharma

Shanghai day 1

After an exciting day in Shenzhen, the Venture Leaders headed to Shanghai for an evening pitch on the Bund, at the SOHO co-working space. After some introductory words by Felix Moesner of swissnex China, as well as Cun Jie Li, CEO of Money Weekly Culture Development, the startups started their usual business, but this time with a twist: live software generated translations, courtesy of iFlytek, a world leader in AI language solutions. Moreover, the evening had a competitive component, as a very Swiss voting round took place at the end, where the attendees had the chance to vote for their favorite startup of the night. With 35 votes, Michael Friedrich of DistalMotion walked away with the win. All this was followed by networking and more interactions between the startups and the attendees. The audience was very interactive and proved once again that Shanghai is very business-minded. 

Pitching in Shanghai

“The pitch in Shanghai allowed us to have a close proximity and contact with the participants which led to many questions and interesting discussions afterwards.” -Aurélien Rizk, Interax Biotech

“When we pitched the technology in Shanghai, we had people from both the startup side and the industry side give us precious contacts and advice about applying this technology in products in the Chinese market.” -Marco Salerno, Foldaway Haptics

Shanghai day 2

The 2nd day in Shanghai was a day full of learning, with an insightful coaching session in the high-rise conference room of Rouse. The morning consisted of lectures about “IP & Trademark in China” (Melvin Mei and Yvette Feng of Lusheng Law Firm), “Business Deals & Transactions in China” (Chris Bailey of Rouse), “Fundraising in China” (Zhebo Ding of Richland Capital), and “JV Implementation in China” (Ginger Yang of Financeren and Frances Yao of Brainforce China)

Coaching Session in Shanghai

With 6/10 of the Venture Leaders being healthcare startups, a special session dedicated to this field was held in the afternoon. Ronghui Gao of G-Med Consulting gave an “Overview of the Life Science Industry in China”, Haohao Zhang of Cenova discussed “Cross-Border Investment in Healthcare”, and finally Xia Meng of Cellular Biomedicine Group presented a “Successful Sino-French Equity Joint Venture Story” in Biopharma.

The coaching session provided the Venture Leaders with a unique chance to sit down with all of these industry experts and to have 1-on-1 discussions about issues specific to their business.

Beijing

Following the two busy days in Shanghai, the Venture Leaders were in the Chinese Capital of Beijing to spend the day at the Zhongguancun Dong Sheng Science Park (DSSP). The morning saw the Venture Leaders pitching as part of the European Division Semi-Final of the 6th "Dongsheng Cup", an international entrepreneurship competition. After some opening words by Hbous Hassan of the DSSP, the inauguration of a cooperation agreement between Venturelab and the DSSP, and the 10 pitches, Reto Naef of Topadur won the "competition", giving him the opportunity to come back for the final in December. The pitching session was followed by a visit of the park for one part of the group, and afternoon 1-on-1 sessions with investors for the other part. This session at the DSSP was an excellent illustration of a fruitful win-win cooperation between Venturelab and the DSSP, providing both parties with tangible added value for their stakeholders.

Dongsheng Cup in Beijing

Later, the Venture Leaders concluded a busy day with a final pitch in the evening at the Embassy of Switzerland, after some introductory words by Nektarios Palaskas and Swiss Ambassador Jean-Jacques de Dardel.

His Excellency Swiss Ambassador Jean-Jacques de Dardel’s opening words during the pitch at the Swiss Embassy in Beijing

Pitching at the Swiss Embassy in Beijing

“The evening at the Embassy in Beijing allowed us to develop a very high-level network. In fact, I was personally able to meet people from Switzerland here in Beijing who I have been trying to target for a meeting in Switzerland unsuccessfully for over a year, which was great!”-Noris Gallandat, GRZ Technologies

“The event at the Embassy was very helpful for us all. The ambassador understands the Chinese market as well as Swiss innovation, giving him the perfect credibility as a speaker to convince both Swiss entrepreneurs to come to China and Chinese investors to invest. I met both potential buyers as well as investors who focus specifically on our business.” -Zhenzhong Su, Fixposition

Tianjin

For the last three days of the program, the Venture Leaders headed to Tianjin, where the Summer WEF was taking place, with distinguished attendees such as Li Keqiang and Jack Ma. This provided the entrepreneurs with the rare chance to rub shoulders with world leaders and business decision makers and expand their network, as well as take part in various workshops and presentations. The final night of the WEF was marked by the Swiss Incubator event, a platform dedicated to Swiss high-tech startups which was initiated by the Embassy of Switzerland in China. The startups pitched for the last time of the program, and Noris Gallandat walked away with the prize of best pitch.

Swiss Incubator at the WEF in Tianjin

The last pitches of the program, in Tianjin

The last pitches of the program, in Tianjin

“The Swiss Incubator event in Tianjin was very fruitful for me as I was able to talk to potential investors that are Chinese, but also to Swiss people who have already made inroads into the Chinese market and are in turn willing and open to helping us penetrate China.” -Michael Friedrich, Distalmotion

“The WEF brings a very diverse and well-educated group of people together in a very open setting which makes networking extremely easy. I made a lot of great connexions here.” -Nilson Kufus, Nomoko

Many thanks to all the program partners and local partners for supporting us in the organization of this program:
 

Program Partners

        ·        digitalswitzerland

        ·        EPFL

        ·        ETH Zurich

        ·        Gebert Ruef Stiftung

        ·        Vaud

        ·        Canton of Zurich

        ·        Immomig

        ·        Dongsheng Science Park

Local Partners

        ·        Embassy of Switzerland in the People's Republic of China

        ·        Consulate General of Switzerland in Hong Kong

        ·        Consulate General of Switzerland in Guangzhou

        ·        Swiss Centers China

        ·        Shenzhen Stock Exchange

        ·        Shenzhen Securities Information Co

        ·        Rouse Consulting

        ·        Money Weekly Culture Development

        ·        Invest HK

        ·        WHub

        ·        Jones Day Law Firm

        ·        Hong Kong Science and Technology Park

        ·        Compagnie d'Investissements et de Gestion Privée

        ·        IMD Alumni Club Hong Kong

        ·        Hong Kong Trade Development Council

        ·        VisionerTech

        ·        Berners Consulting

        ·        WTOIP

        ·        Invest Shenzhen

        ·        KPMG China

        ·        Lusheng Law Firm

        ·        Richland Capital

        ·        Financeren

        ·        Brainforce China

        ·        G-Med Consulting

        ·        Cenova

        ·        Cellular Biomedicine Group