SIH Bulletin #3

September 2022

👋  Welcome to the third Science Innovation Hub Bulletin.

Several times a year, we will bring you news on innovative fields with entrepreneurial potential, innovation ecosystems, and recent breakthroughs of SIH's projects.

 

Welcome to the new subscribers who joined us last months. Let's build together an entrepreneurial community! Feel free to forward the Bulletin to your colleagues, team and friends.

 

📣 This year, we are going to launch workshop series with guest speakers, through which we'll cover the different topics of entrepreneurship. So stay tuned on our social medias for events announcements! 

UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA JOINS FEMPSIN

👏 We are proud to announce that the University of Geneva has joined FemSpin, a collaborative project funded by Swiss Universities and led by Prof. Dr Brigitte Liebig from the FHNW that promotes innovation and spin-off activities by women.

 

In this objective to empower and highlight female innovators, founders, and CEOs and their achievements, some inspiring portraits of female academic entrepreneurs and their companies are showcased on the website. You can find the brilliant idea of Clara Moldovan for example, founder of the EPFL startup Swistor, and one of the two winners of the 2020 Isabelle Musy Award. The award is given out every two years to outstanding female entrepreneurs from the French- and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland and comes with CHF 50,000 in prize money.

 

In addition to these success stories presentations, you can find information and links to programs such as FEMtrepreneurs, a grass-roots initiative by the University of Basel whose goal is to create a supportive community centred around supporting female entrepreneurs in their innovative endeavours and enabling their development in founding their businesses. 

 

We are looking forward to seeing what changes we can bring to the academic world and are therefore already planning an event that we will host next year, which will be the occasion for representatives from gender & diversity, knowledge and technology transfer (KTK), innovation and startup centres and further stakeholders to meet and discuss. So stay tuned!

UNIGE DATA SCIENCE DAY RECAP

🖥 The promises of Artificial Intelligence were the focus of the captivating projects presented to Data Science enthusiasts during this day. Among the projects, we can mention François Fleuret's work on generative models (Faculty of science), which are key in the next generation of AI methods. On another subject, Katarzyna Wac (GSEM) published a book on Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine, which presents the rise of technology-enabled methods and tools for objective, quantitative assessment of QoL. It encompasses 24 chapters corresponding to 24 variables that fall in one of the following 4 categories: physical health, psychological, social relationships and environment. To cover another domain, we’ll also mention PhD student Vitaliy Kinakh (Faculty of science) who uses machine learning in astronomy to predict the images that the well-known Webb telescope would produce, but from the images generated by the Hubble telescope, which is a bit less powerful.

As you may have understood by now, a vast array of applications and uses of data science were exhibited. Fields such as astronomy, earth sciences, statistics, environmental sciences, biochemistry, medicine, and more surprisingly law and psychology, can benefit one way or another from the use of data sciences to make things progress. This is the beauty of this science. 

 

📅 Finally, we would like to introduce to you the next event on this topic that will take place at the University of Geneva in September/October 2023 (TBD): the Artificial Intelligence for Science, Industry and Society Symposium organized by Steven Schramm, professor at the nuclear and particle physics department of the University of Geneva. Note this meeting, it promises to be fascinating! 

INNOGAP - Proof-of-Principle Fund

Unitec created the INNOGAP proof-of-principle fund to help researchers at UNIGE and HUG move their research discoveries toward practical implementation. Every year, Unitec distributes INNOGAP grants of up to CHF 30'000 each to UNIGE and HUG innovators to help them finance proof-of-principle or prototyping projects. Next deadline for submission: Thursday 13 October 2022.

Scale-up Coaching

Scale-up Coaching is a program aimed at startups with very high growth potential and essentially designed to stimulate them, in particular by helping them to refine and implement their growth strategy. The current call for applications runs from August 25 to October 2, 2022.

BRIDGE - Proof-of-Concept

The proof-of-concept funding is meant for young researchers that have an idea for developing their results into a social or commercial innovation, and who are looking for the opportunity to test and refine their idea. BRIDGE funds projects up to a maximum of CHF 130'000 a year. 24th call submission deadline: 5 December 2022, 5pm.

Ready? Go, Pitch!

Ready? Go, Pitch! is the GENILEM competition that supports the most innovative ideas in French-speaking Switzerland, in all areas of activity. Prices can go up to CHF 30'000 and come with different types of support. You have until Sunday 2 October 2022 to fill the application form and upload your 59 second video pitch!

Greater Geneva Hydrogen Meetings 2022

This year, the leaders of the Hydrogen Meeting - Canton of Geneva (Territorial Department), SIG and OPI - as well as the organizers of 100% Mobilité du Grand Genève - ArchParc Auvergne-Rhônes-Alpes Platform and Nomads Foundation - are joining forces and propose a new Hydrogen Meeting. So see you in Plan-les-Ouates on October 4, 2022! 

Neuroscience and Biotech conference

Next October 20, this event is an all-day conference series. It will bring together experts from academia, industry, and law in neuroscience and biotechnology.
Professors from the University of Geneva, the University of Bern, the HES-SO Geneva, and Imperial College London will present their research.
The Geneva companies Neurix, GeNeuro, MesenFlow, and Triskel will present their activities in these exciting fields.