Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce Luncheon on Emerging Models of Innovation , March 30
Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce Luncheon on Emerging Models of Innovation , March 30
80 executives, innovators, investors and entrepreneurs joined the Swiss delegation for a luncheon discussion on emerging collaborative models for innovation. The standing only crowd had gathered to hear Swiss and US perspectives on this topic from four experts:
- Fritz Schiesser is the President of the ETH Rat, which provides strategic leadership to the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne and the four application-oriented research institutes. He has a long experience in politics and judicial affairs.
- Patrick Aebischer is President of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He combines experience as a world class researcher and a serial entrepreneur.
- Josef von Rickenbach, is Chairman and CEO of PAREXEL, which he founded in 1982. Since then, he has led the development of this CRO company to its actual
global footprint with more than 69 locations throughout 52 countries, and has more than 7,600 employees - Paul Maeder is a General Partner with Highland Capital Partners, a Boston-based venture capital fund. He also serves on the board of Directors of the National Venture Capital Association.
Martin Naville, the CEO of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, moderated the discussion. He also kicked off the discussion with a few take-aways from the report produced by the SACC called "Creative Switzerland! Fostering an Innovation Powerhouse". For Mr. Naville, it is essential that Switzerland continues to develop an ecosystem that favours the creation and the location of high-tech companies. The early part of the discussion focused on the need to continue the development of a thriving ecosystem for entrepreneurs. While numbers of startups seem to be similar at universities both in the Boston area and in Switzerland, there are still major differences when it comes to growth rates. The second part of the discussion focused on a broader understanding of innovation. From processes to organizations, it was suggested that academia and business has still a lot to do together to create value.
