It was pleasure to welcome our global colleagues in Bern. After the welcome remarks from State Secretary Martina Hirayama and a presentation by our Head of Division Jacques Ducrest, we shared the latest updates, outlined key priorities, exchanged ideas, and discussed plans for the future. Our colleagues then had an internal workshop to brainstorm and present innovative project ideas under our new initiative “Swissnex for the Planet.”

On the third day, we hosted our signature event, the Swissnex Day 2024, at the Gurten in Bern. Our event’s topic of planetary thinking played a vital role in fostering discussions and in shaping our upcoming activities under our new initiative “Swissnex for the Planet”.

The welcome remarks by our Deputy Head of the International Relations Division at SERI, Maria Peyro Voeffray, were followed by a keynote presentation from Prof. Thomas Stocker from University of Bern, and a virtual presentation by Prof. Adil Najam, the President of WWF. Our Swissnex CEOs, Benjamin Bollmann, Emilia Pasquier,  Felix Moesner, Jonas Brunschwig, Malin Borg, and Philippe Roesle, took the stage and shared insights from their locations worldwide on the topic of planetary diplomacy, including their planned activities to further explore human and non-human interactions. Up next were the lightning talks of two invited startup founders, Josephine Graf (rrreefs) and Cameron Dowd (Inverto Earth), two researchers, Prof. Chinwe Speranza from the University of Bern and Prof. Christine Brombach from ZHAW, and two artists, Khalil Berro and Lithic Alliance. Finally, a networking apéro took place, providing the opportunity for the participants to interact with the speakers and our Swissnex network.

We were welcomed by the Fribourg Development Agency FDA, and learned more about the local education, research, and innovation landscape, with presentations from the Innovation Boosters Swiss Food Ecosystems & Future Food Farming, the Smart Living Lab, the University of Fribourg, the School of Management Fribourg (HEG-FR), and the iPrint Institute.

Our day started by visiting CSEM and being introduced to the top-level research that is being conducted there. Next, our team visited three EPFL labs: the Center for Artificial Muscles (CAM), the AQUA, and Instant-Lab. We spent the second part of the day with the Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) team. Our colleagues participated in a joint internal workshop, exploring synergies, and discussing possible collaborations between our organizations. We finalized the week with the S-GE & Swissnex Award Ceremony, where innovative project ideas co-created by both organizations were presented, with the focus on finding connection points and emphasizing innovative services for our common stakeholders.