Patrick Warnking has been the Country Director of Google Switzerland since 2011. From 2007 to 2010 he led teams in the areas of media, games and entertainment at Google Germany. As a member of the board of the ‘digitalswitzerland’ initiative, Warnking is committed to the topic of lifelong learning, especially with regard to digital skills among adults and young people, as well as in the business world. Warnking completed training as a banker and business graduate, earned an international MBA in Berlin, Milan and New York, and completed the Stanford Executive Program. Patrick Warnking has lived in Germany, USA, Italy and Switzerland in the context of training and jobs.

Professor Magnenat Thalmann is Director of the MIRALab at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Director of the Institute for Media Innovation at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. With her team, she has authored dozens of books, published more than 600 papers on Virtual Humans/Virtual Worlds, Social Robots and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). She has organised major conferences as Computer Graphics International (CGI), Computer Animation and Social Agent (CASA), and delivered more than 300 keynote addresses, some of them at global events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Professor Vanessa Wood is the incoming Vice President for Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations at ETH Zurich. To present, she holds the chair in Materials and Device Engineering Group and is head of the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. She won the 2014 Science Prize in Electrochemistry endowed by BASF and Volkswagen Group, and the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Materials Research Society in 2018. Vanessa holds a Bachelor in applied physics (2005) from Yale University, a Master (2007) and PhD (2009) in Electrical Engineering from MIT. Her PhD work focused on the development of quantum dot LED technology. From 2010-​2011, she was a postdoc at MIT, working on lithium ion battery flow cell technology.

Ms. Weini Winnie Qiu is the founder and CEO of Haalthy, a platform that uses patient’s submitted data to accelerate drug approval in China, and eventually making cancer curable and treatment affordable. The platform has helped over 50,000+ lung cancer patients in China to better understand and manage their disease, as well as supported two therapies to receive IND approval with 20% less time in China. Ms. Qiu has also collaborated with oncologists from China and the U.S. to report the largest real-world treatment outcome in NSCLC patients with EGFR exon 20 insertion. Ms. Qiu received a M.S. degree from MIT and two B.S. degrees from the University of Connecticut. She is the honoree of the 2017 Forbes (China) 30Under30 in healthcare and was named “Leader of Tomorrow” by GapSummit in 2018.

Sirpa Tsimal is an economic development specialist. Currently, she is Director for Investment Promotion at Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), where she focuses her work on emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, personalized health, robotics and advanced manufacturing in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to Switzerland. Sirpa has 15+ years of experience working with and leading international teams in marketing communications, business development, market entry and strategic innovation projects. Prior to S-GE, Sirpa was the founder of The Location Lab and Managing Partner at TSIMANN LLC, and a consultant for various economic development agencies such as BaselArea and Health Industries South Australia.

Professor Gisou van der Goot is the incoming Vice President for Responsible Transformation at EPFL. She is the Head of the Laboratory of Cell and Membrane Biology in the EPFL School of Life Sciences, of which she is the Dean since 2014.Before joining EPFL, she was Group Leader at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and subsequently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the same university.She studied engineering at the Ecole Centrale de Paris, then did a PhD in Molecular Biophysics at the Nuclear Energy Research Center, Saclay, France, followed by a postdoc at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg.

Dr. Chasi currently serves as the Strategic Advisor to the International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA). She is passionate about facilitating deeper understanding and connections between diverse people and institutions by creating spaces for critical engagement and constructive dialogue.Dr. Chasi is a practitioner-scholar in higher education internationalisation with more than 20 years of experience in this field through positions in international offices of German and South African universities, an agency of the European Commission as well as representations of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Nuffic and the British Council in South Africa.

Sairee Chahal is Founder and CEO of SHEROES – the world’s largest online ecosystem for women, comprising the SHEROES app, Babygogo, SHECO, SHEROES Money, MARS by SHEROES and Naaree.com. The network has a national and global footprint of 21 million women. Sairee is on the Board of Directors of Paytm Payments Bank and Milaan Foundation, and on the advisory board of US-based initiative Women in Cloud. She has an M. Phil from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. She is an Aspen Fellow and a Cartier Award Alumni. In a personal capacity, Sairee has mentored hundreds of women entrepreneurs, and continues to do so to help strengthen the women-led entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Dr. Inez von Weitershausen is Head of Learning & Outreach of the Center for Leadership in the Future of Work at the University of Zurich. She leads the group’s engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, and connects people and topics to advance knowledge, best practices and innovation in the fields of leadership and skill formation. Dr. von Weitershausen joined UZH after three years at MIT, where she contributed to the research, teaching and outreach activities of the Taskforce Work of the future and of the Good Companies Good Jobs initiative at the Sloan School of Management. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, a master’s in law and business from Bucerius Law School and WHU Otto Beisheim school of management and an MA from the University of Bonn.

Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges is a Professor of Leadership and Human Resource Management at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He partners with businesses to conduct research and to educate executives about the future of work, skill development in the digital age, leadership, emotional intelligence, and organizational culture. His award-winning research focuses on how leaders successfully build institutions and inspire people to pursue collective goals, on how people best work together in ways that contribute to their productivity and well-being, and on how organizations become future-ready in a fast-changing world. In addition, he provides evidence-based advice rooted in rigorous experimental, archival, survey-based and field research that is actionable in the corporate world.

Lijun Zhang is the Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Swissnex in China. She is responsible for organization and liaison support for technology-oriented workshops and activities. She is also working to facilitate Switzerland start-ups’ Chinese venture by leveraging the resources from the networking and community in China. Lijun holds B.S in Pharmaceutical and MBA from UK Manchester Business School. She used to work in government science park as business development manager and consulting firm for market analysis in life science industry.

holo|one is a Swiss startup with 14 employees that has developed sphere, a standardized augmented reality platform for enterprises. The solution is easy to use and integrate into company processes and covers all common augmented reality use case in one platform, namely remote support, collaboration and workflow support.

Neural Concept optimizes industrial engineering processes using deep learning algorithms. Its solution allows companies to focus on core strategic choices, accelerate R&D cycles, reduce computation costs and leave the repetitive work to AI-empowered machines.

Headquartered in Zurich, Seervision develops state-of-the-art video analysis algorithms for real-time object recognition and scene segmentation in video productions. The startup’s complete technology stack helps customers automate object-tracking shots using any camera and any lens, facilitating new creative possibilities, better production quality, lower costs, and easier planning.

Based on 10 years of research at the Idiap, Vima Behavioural AI can improve credit score systems from a short 1-3 minutes video presentation of borrower applicants. Its AI platform is capable of replicating expert assessments in order to understand traits such as conscientiousness, which are correlated to financial risk taking, capabilities to plan and repay. Its system is transparent, minimises bias and improves risk-taking balance.

Established in 2011 by a qualified team concerned about global environment issues, ecoRobotix gathers key competencies in machine vision, robotics and information technology to provide state of the art robotic machines suited for agriculture tasks. Its vision is to provide added value for farmers, and sustainability for the modern agriculture.

Voliro is developing advanced flying robots to perform Inspection and Maintenance tasks more safely, cost-effectively and faster than traditional methods. It aims to provide innovative UAVs with unique capabilities. It promotes the concept of omnidirectional aerial vehicles, where position and orientation of the flying platform are completely independent. This ability is crucial to achieve robust and reliable interaction with the environment. With its tiltable rotor system, Voliro expands the abilities of service drones from “fly and see” to “fly, see and touch”. The flying robot can be equipped with a variety of payloads, such as Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) sensors. The unique 360° drone design of the platform allows inspection of curved and sloped surfaces.

Wingtra is the world’s leading VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) drone producer, headquartered in Switzerland. Since its market entry in early 2017, Wingtra has partnered with more than 50 of the biggest surveying equipment dealers across the globe such as RDO Equipment in US. Wingtra manufactures VTOL drones WingtraOne for professional surveying and mapping. WingtraOne is an all-in-one drone solution. It offers large coverage, high resolution and accuracy. Configuring it with different cameras, WingtraOne can be used in surveying, mining, construction and many more industries.

ROVENSO is a Swiss startup of EPFL founded in January 2016. It is based in Switzerland and have offices and workshop in Shenzhen thanks to the accelerator HAX.co. It develops agile robots that perform security and safety monitoring of industrial sites. Concretely, they patrol fully autonomously inside and outside buildings, detecting intrusions or thefts. They also detect safety anomalies such as hot-spots (start of fires) and liquid or gas leaks that could put people’s lives at risk.