Detlef Günther obtained his Diploma degree in Chemistry (1987) and Dr. rer.nat. in Analytical Chemistry (1990) from the Martin-Luther- University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany). After carrying out postdoctoral studies in the Plant Biochemistry Institute in Halle (Germany), in the Earth Science Departments Memorial University Newfoundland (Canada) and ETH Zurich, he became Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry at ETH Zurich and became Full Professor in 2008 in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Sciences. Since 2015, he serves as Vice President for Research and Corporate Relations at ETH Zurich and is responsible for internal research funding and equipment, activities of platforms, IP, ieLabs and the spin-off activities as well as projects and contracts with industry.

Stéphane Berthet earned a doctorate in Astrophysics and Astronomy at the University of Geneva in 1991, and for 11 years contributed to shaping Switzerland’s research policies in various fields. Through the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, he was responsible for representing Switzerland at numerous international research institutions such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and Euratom. He returned to UNIGE in 2003 as Secretary General, a position he held through October 2018 and then he has been named Vice-Rector as of 1 November 2018 Geneva in charge of International and Inter-institutional Relations.

Sebastian Hiller obtained his PhD in Structural Biology in the group of Prof. Kurt Wüthrich at ETH Zurich in 2006. After postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, he joined the Biozentrum at the University of Basel as a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professor in 2010. Today, he is Associate Professor of Structural Biology and Biophysics and Dean of Research. His research aims at resolving molecular mechanisms at the atomic level, focusing on biophysical principles of chaperone function, mechanisms of outer membrane protein biogenesis, and bacterial cell signaling.

Harald Gall is Dean of the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Informatics at the University of Zurich (UZH). Furthermore, he is professor of Software Engineering in the Department of Informatics at UZH. Prior to that, Harald Gall was Associate Professor at the Technical University of Vienna in the Distributed Systems Group (TUV), where he also got his PhD (Dr. techn.) and master’s degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Informatics. His research interests are in software engineering with focus on software evolution, software architectures, software quality analysis, program families, cloud-based software engineering, IoT, and distributed and mobile software engineering. Harald Gall is probably best known for his work on software evolution analysis and mining software archives which he has worked on since 1997.

Lichun He was awarded a Ph.D. fellowship from the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in 2010 and received his doctor degree in 2014, supervised by Prof. Christiane Ritter on macromolecular interaction and assembly. During his postdoctoral period at Biozentrum, University of Basel, with Prof. Sebastian Hiller he resolved the mechanisms of chaperones interacting with folded client proteins. In 2018, he was appointed professor at the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Chuyao Peng, Founder and CEO of DeepMag Technology (深磁科技), listee of 2017 Forbes Under 30 China. He graduated with M.Sc. at EPFL and Bachelor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Following that, he got Ph.D. admission from the University of Oxford in Physics in 2014 but quitted the PhD to join a tech startup – Shanghai Superconductor Technology as the Founding Director of Marketing and Sales. In two years, he led to boost their revenue for 20 times and initiated the world’s first 600km/h high speed maglev train R&D project based on high temperature supercondcuting coil. Since 2017, he founded DeepMag Technology (Yunyee Tech as the subsidiary), backed by a top 3 angel investment firm in China, committed to bring the world’s most advanced maglev technology into all walks of our life.

Xueying Mao got her bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University (Control Science and Engineering) in 2013 and master’s degree from ETH Zurich (Biomedical Engineering) in 2016. During her master’s program, Xueying did a 6-month internship at Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM). After graduation, Xueying joined rqmicro AG, a Swiss startup/ETH spin-off. In 2017, Xueying made several business trips to China together with the founders’ team to get a first-hand feeling about the Chinese market and to find potential business opportunities. Starting from 2018, Xueying is based Shanghai, doing in-depth market research and business development in China. Xueying is now the Chief Representative of rqmicro AG China Office. Her daily job includes marketing and communication, while looking for potential business partners and investors in China.

Yi Zheng is the Head of Office of the Institute for Sustainable Development Goals of Tsinghua University (TUSDG), the manager of the Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN) China Hub. She is currently a researcher at Geneva-Tsinghua Initiative and PhD candidate at the University of Geneva. She holds a MA in World History from King’s College London. Her research focuses on the role of higher education institute, global governance and education on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Besides, she is also a certified auto-racing referee since 2017.

Amy Weng got her bachelor’s degree in Sinology from the University of Zurich and her master’s degree in International Relations with an Asian focus from the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. During her master’s program, Amy worked at SwissCham in Shanghai and at the Swiss Business Hub, Swiss Embassy in Beijing, promoting investment opportunities in Switzerland to Chinese businesses. After graduation, Amy joined the investment advisory team at Credit Suisse in Zurich, where she would gain her investment product knowledge and leverage it in her current position in investment sales management for private banking in Switzerland.