She believes that the most important questions for the technology sector are not which technologies to use, but to address the “Who” and “How”. Who gets to use technologies, implement solutions and access leadership opportunities in the “Technology for Good” space? And how can technologies create sustainable value in an inclusive way?

Together with her colleagues and by shifting power with local experts and organizations, WeRobotics is redefining what it means to be an expert. WeRobotics elevates and strengthens expertise in emerging technologies with the Flying Labs Network. This network offers a lived, applicable, and scalable example that other organizations can adopt.

Sonja is a passionate change agent, facilitator and social entrepreneur with a longstanding career both in the non-profit and for-profit sectors, including start-ups, SMEs and multinationals. Her strategic advice, operational insights and Design Thinking methods have supported many new ventures to turn their ideas into viable and impactful organizations.

Sonja holds Master degrees in Marketing and SME Management, is trained in Design Thinking, Project Management and Principled Negotiation. She is a seasoned speaker, including recent speaking engagements at WSIS, WEF and UNWDF, and has been voted one of Switzerland’s 100 Digital Shapers in 2021, 2019 and 2018.

In 1992, he joined the Swiss government as personal assistant to Secretary of State for Science, Research and Education. Then he was sent, in ‘95, as scientific diplomacy to the Swiss Embassy in Washington. In 2000, he was the first Swiss Scientific Consul in Boston where he created the concept of Swissnex. In 2002, he was appointed as the first French-speaking Director of the Think Tank Avenir Suisse, mainly on issues of metropolitan France and innovation.

He has published three books in his role as head of Avenir Suisse Romandie “Dartfish, Logitech, Swissquote & Co”, Orell Füssli 2005; “Le Feu au Lac”, NZZ 2006, “Gouvernance à géometry variable”, Tricorne 2012. In addition, he wrote a series of four booklets on “Soft-Governance” within the framework of the Fondation pour Genève from 2008 to 2010 .

From 2003 to 2006 he was a member of the board of the Moser School (Geneva, Nyon, Berlin). In 2012, he co-created, on behalf of the Neuchâtel Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the “Swiss Creative Center” dedicated to the new industrial revolution (FabLab, Design Thinking and Think Tank). In 2014, he founded with Elmar Mock (co-creator of the Swatch) a think tank, in fact the first “Industrial Think Tank” of this kind (for more information  www. ManufactureThinking.com )

He previously worked for Siemens, Daimler Chrysler Rail Systems, Bombardier Transportation, Electro-Motive Diesel EMD.  He is also a board member at Helrom, a technology and transport start-up based in Frankfurt. 

He holds a Master in Mechanical Engineering from Technical University of Munich.

In addition to being a non-executive member on several boards across the world, he has more than 20 years of experience in the Gas & Oil industry. Peter graduated from Eindhoven University of Technology with a MSc in Mechanical Engineering and completed his MBA at London Business School.

Previously she has been an International Management Trainee at Bühler from 2015-2017, Project manager at Bühler in Grain Quality & Supply from 2017-2018 and Team leader for Digitalization and Automation R&D for Grain Quality and Supply at Bühler from 2019-2020.

Cornelia completed a PhD at federal institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) in food process engineering in collaboration with Nestlé in 2015.

Since 2010, he chairs the Tokyo Interaction Center, a privately-owned incubator in central Tokyo, focused on early stage deep technology start-ups. In 2018, Nicolas Loeillot joined the Swiss health insurer Groupe Mutuel as Chief Innovation Officer to setup an innovation strategy, accelerate deployments of A.I. and craft a data-driven, prevention-focused future of the company. In 2021 he joins InnoSuisse as Expert for a 4-year mandate.

Previously Massimo was at Samsung as Chief Strategy Officer and overlooking M&A activities in Europe for 4+ years and Cisco Systems for 22+ years where he had sales and channel responsibility, Corporate Innovation leader with the Technology Center, member of VoIP team to deliver 1st product on market, initiated M&A office in Europe to deliver 12 acquisitions and Head of Cisco System International in Rolle and EPFL.

Prior to Cisco he worked for Telecom Italia and for the European Space Agency. Massimo holds MsC in Electrical/Telecommunication Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.

Pascal is active since 30 years in the field of microelectronics technologies development. From ASIC design and system design to embedded vision and connected solutions. During 2006 to 2014 he participated developing start-ups in the fields of connected toys industry, mobile phones for disabled people, and vision sensors.

Pascal holds a Master’s in Electrotechnique from the Ecole d’Ingénieurs de Canton de Neuchâtel in 1990.

He joined FELCO SA in 2003 as Sales and Marketing Director and has worked mainly on developing new markets and increasing the density of the European distribution networks. In 2010, the family that owns FELCO SA gave him the opportunity to co-found a spin-off company, FELCO Motion SA, whose objectives are to design, develop, industrialize and assemble a new innovative range of electroportable pruning shears for professional plant pruning. In 2020, FELCO Motion and FELCO decide to merge into a single entity. Stéphane Poggi became CO-CEO of this new entity, called FELCO SA. In 2021, the family that owns the company decides to appoint a new CEO, Nabil Francis, a family member. From then on, Stéphane Poggi became the number 2 of the group with a COO and CMO function.

Before joining CSEM, Bahaa had more than 7 years of industrial innovation management experience with business leaders (Swatch Group/Belenos Clean Power Holding), where he oversaw several projects related to new venture creation and R&D projects in the sustainable energy domain.

Bahaa holds a Master’s in Chemical Engineering from the Ecole Européenne d’Ingénieurs de Chimie, Polymères et Matériaux (ECPM)’of Strasbourg, France and a PhD in Electrochemical Engineering with a Post-Doc fellowship, from EPFL in 2006. Besides these degrees, Bahaa has pursued a full range of business courses including an Executive MBA in Management and Corporate Finance from ‘HEC Lausanne’ in 2012, and a Certificate of Leading Digital Business Transformation from ‘IMD’ in 2019.

AISA Automation Industrielle SA was founded in 1962 in Vevey. At that time, it was manufacturing semi-automatic machines for varnishing aluminum tubes. In 1971, with the Vevey premises becoming too cramped, the family SME was established in Vouvry. From the 1980s, the company began to develop and manufacture machines to produce plastic tubes and laminate packaging; it quickly found itself in a competitive international context to become a leader in the world market.

Graduated from EPFL with an MSc in Data Science and Bachelor in Communication Systems, Karthigan was previously Machine Learning Research Engineer at Schlumberger (Boston).

During his time at EPFL, he was also the President and IT Manager of Forum EPFL in 2018 as well as responsible for external relations in 2017.

He holds a degree from the University of St. Gallen.

Lan started her career at R&D department of Rolex, in charge of creating new computer aided design and optimisation tools in the product development process. She was later appointed as Head of Operational Planning at Pictet, working closely with a startup to design, develop and implement a management information system for group operation control. As the Managing Director of Geneva Creativity Center, she connected large corporations, SMEs, startups and researchers to initiate innovative joint R&D projects.

Currently at EPFL Innovation Park, she is leading entrepreneurship training and acceleration programs and is helping startups to establish business partnership with large corporations. Lan has a PhD degree from EPFL, an MBA from HEC Lausanne and postdoctoral applied research experience at Stanford University.