Launched in 2023, the Swissnex in San Francisco Connect Lunches began as informal gatherings in Berkeley and Palo Alto to bring together Swiss academics. They have since evolved into a dynamic platform for building relationships and exploring the expertise and trends of universities across California. Today, they serve as a key tool to connect scholars with one another and Swissnex, spanning multiple cities and innovation hubs along the US West Coast.

Each year has revealed new possibilities: 2023 showed us the power of authentic connection, 2024 taught us about strategic expansion, and 2025 is demonstrating how communities become self-sustaining ecosystems. Here’s what we’ve discovered about building meaningful academic bridges across borders and disciplines.

2023: Planting the Seeds
The first year focused on mapping where Swiss researchers, professors, students, and alumni were located, intending to create an academic community across the Bay Area. While it was still early to know the full potential for Swissnex, the aim was to understand the distribution of the community, without yet knowing what opportunities or connections might emerge from it.

The first two gatherings, organized in Berkeley and Palo Alto in June 2023, each attracted over 30 attendees through personal outreach. What quickly became clear was the participants’ strong desire for connection, a need for spaces where Swiss alumni, scholars, researchers, and even entrepreneurs could meet, exchange ideas, and create new synergies.

Encouraged by this initial success, we organized two more Connect Lunches in October at the same locations. By the end of the year, four Connect Lunches had been hosted, establishing the foundations for what was to come.

2024: Expanding and Experimenting
2024 marked our year of strategic expansion. The Connect Lunches grew in both reach and variety. Berkeley and Palo Alto remained anchor hubs, hosting six lunches, fueled by Swissnex’s targeted outreach, our Connect Lunches connectors, and a stronger presence on social media. The lunches became more than gatherings; they opened opportunities for participants to get involved with Swissnex in San Francisco activities, as mentors, speakers for our events or podcast, or by connecting with Swissnex’s network.

We listened, then we acted. When participants began asking for Connect Lunches in their own cities, we didn’t hesitate; we expanded. Their enthusiasm told us we were onto something bigger than Berkeley and Palo Alto. By September, we had launched our first edition in San Francisco, bringing together researchers and professors from UC San Francisco and the State University of San Francisco. Two months later, we organized a smaller gathering at UC Davis to reactivate our existing connections and create a signal that we are willing to expand out of the Bay Area.

Each new location represented strategic relationship building, weaving a stronger network where it mattered most.

We also experimented with new formats. With our involvement at SIGGRAPH in Denver, we leveraged the opportunity to organize a special lunch reuniting Swiss researchers and experts attending the conference. The conference-based approach allowed us to integrate our lunch model into a larger professional gathering, testing how we could create focused connections within industry-specific contexts.

These experiences helped us refine our approach: strengthening key academic hubs while continuing to scout new ones through conferences, campus visits, and community outreach, all while staying true to our principle of connecting by choice and showing up.

2025: From Growth to Impact
This year we’re shifting from expansion to depth. Our core hubs, Berkeley, Palo Alto, and San Francisco, now host regular lunches with a more intentional format. Each participant shares a current project during introductions, creating natural opportunities for collaboration. We noticed a really strong need from our community to stay connected; some created a WhatsApp group chat, others started partnerships, and several attended Swissnex’s events, all with the intention to stay in touch beyond the Connect Lunches.

Building on our San Francisco and Denver successful expansion, we wanted to add Southern California to our map. In coordination with our presence at NAFSA conference, a key gathering for international educators, we launched our San Diego Connect Lunch in May. Scholars and professors from UC San Diego, San Diego State University, and other Swiss alumni came together for a successful first edition, sparking new collaborations.

Our approach has caught attention across the Swissnex network, with other offices exploring how to adapt our model to their regions. The formula resonates because it’s both simple and effective: meet communities where they are, and understand local ecosystems. Major academic conferences remain prime opportunities for targeted alumni connections, helping us map communities, understand needs, and identify where Swissnex programs can make the greatest impact.

Two years of Connect Lunches have proven that strategic community building goes far beyond sharing a meal. Each gathering, from Berkeley to San Diego, has been a deliberate experiment in relationship building, with every location and participant teaching us how to refine our approach. We’re continually grateful for the beautiful communities that have embraced this vision and made it their own.

Our most strategic insight? Rather than hoping attendees would stay engaged, we designed pathways for them to become mentors, speakers, and connectors. The results of our intentional approach and the generosity of our community speak: participants now open doors to institutions like NASA and Stanford Robotics, and many have become “ambassadors” who actively shape Swissnex’s academic presence.

We strategically chose each location to unlock distinct academic landscapes. Berkeley was selected for its interdisciplinary power, combining UC Berkeley’s breadth with Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s focused research. Palo Alto became our largest hub, leveraging the region’s research and innovation ecosystem with Stanford and NASA Ames. We positioned San Francisco to capture health sciences excellence, while UC Davis gave us strategic access to agtech and foodtech communities. San Diego was our calculated entry into the growing biotech corridor with strong Swiss research connections.

Our experimental formats also served strategic purposes. Denver’s conference-based approach tested our ability to create Swiss networks within international gatherings, validating our model’s adaptability.

Connect Lunches have become a strategic cornerstone of our Academia vertical, proving that when you intentionally meet communities where they are, and systematically learn from what they teach you, you can curate meaningful collaborations rather than simply hope for them.

Be Part of the Story
We are excited to launch the Fall 2025 season with three Connect Lunches in our three anchor cities, Berkeley, Palo Alto, and San Francisco. Plans are also underway for a fourth gathering in Los Angeles. Stay tuned!

Connect Lunch in Berkeley | September 24, 2025
Connect Lunch in San Francisco | October 8, 2025
Connect Lunch in Palo Alto | October 22, 2025

Ready to be part of this community building? Let’s discuss how we can bring the Connect Lunches to your area!