Making better use of Swiss innovative strength - Business Innovation Week comes to an end
On September 30, the Business Innovation Week kicked off in Zurich. In the Credit Suisse auditorium in Oerlikon, representatives from business, science and politics made it vividly clear how artificial intelligence will change work and everyday life. Until Friday, October 4, 2019, more than 100 speakers and almost as many exhibitors addressed the topic of human-machine megatrends.
Today, October 4, 2019, marks the end of the first edition of Business Innovation Week. The goals were ambitious: It was to be a major event in festival style, transforming the vibrant workplace of Zurich Oerlikon into an "inspiring, interactive forum for company-relevant innovations and business models". The focus was on digitization, new work, trends and the latest technologies for the modern working world. Whether the expected 10,000 or so trade visitors were actually reached cannot yet be judged. However, initial comments from exhibitors and visitors sound cautiously positive: the quality was good, but the audience could have been a bit larger.
Future SwAIz
On the opening day, the main focus was on Swiss innovative strength: At the opening forum "Zukunft SchwAIz," Dr. Peter Grünenfelder, Director of Avenir Suisse Business, made it clear that Switzerland should make better use of its economic potential. "We must finally break the reform logjam," he called on those present. In his view, artificial intelligence does not threaten the labor market: "Technology-related unemployment is a myth." New job profiles would compensate for that.
Swiss innovative strength vs. caution
SMEs in particular are called upon to attend. Tuesday, October 1, started as a theme day on innovation culture, co-working, leadership, HR and new work. All topics that companies should keep in focus if they want to remain competitive in the future. "These topics affect every SME," said Lionel Schlessinger, owner and CEO of paint manufacturer Monopol AG. "How do I deal with Generation Z? How to deal with new markets? The Swiss gets up early and wakes up very late," Schlessinger told the media. Futurist Gerd Leonhard urges companies to leave their comfort zone. "Acceleration is increasing, and exponentially. However, people themselves are not exponential," he says, summing up the problem.
Diverse event format
The format of Business Innovation Week is a reflection of the complexity in which the business world must operate today. "Our vision is to offer different perspectives on issues," says Ewa Ming, who launched and created the event. "We want to bring different people together on different topics."
Whether this format works remains to be seen. The first day of the conference certainly deserved a bit more of an audience. But it's not just about papers and presentations, the organizers and speakers agree. "It has to be about experiencing and experiencing technology," said Gerd Leonhard. And that was certainly possible: for example, 25 humanoid robots made an appearance this week; this was the largest robot show in Europe to date. HERA, a new European robotics alliance, was also launched at the Business Innovation Week: the "Human Empowering Robot Alliance".
In any case, one can be curious about the future of the event.
