News
The infrastructure maintenance of roads, bridges and dams offers great potential for the use of artificial intelligence (AI). AI-based image recognition can systematically and automatically detect the smallest cracks or damage. Infrastructure operators currently still carry out most inspections manually.
As part of the InnovationSandbox for AI, IBM Research and pixmap gmbh have implemented a pilot project at the military airfield in Dübendorf to assess the potential of AI-based inspections. A drone created high-quality images of the runway in order to automatically detect damage with the help of AI models.
The findings will be used to drive forward the use of AI in the inspection and maintenance of other infrastructure elements. The image material is made available to other innovation players. With this project, the cooperation between the administration, the military, research and the private sector is contributing to the further development of the international AI location in the Zurich metropolitan area.
News
Zurich – Koa has successfully completed a Series B financing. With 15 million dollars in fresh capital, the Swiss-Ghanaian start-up wants to continue to grow with the utilization of cocoa fruits and drive forward the transition to regenerative and climate-friendly agriculture.
Koa has increased its equity capital by 15 million dollars in a Series B financing round. According to a press release, the Swiss-Ghanaian start-up based in Zurich intends to further expand its use of the cocoa fruit. The Land Degradation Neutrality Fund led the round with 9 million dollars. It was initiated by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Geneva-based asset manager Mirova, a subsidiary of Natixis Investment Managers.
The Regenerative Growth Fund 1, which is managed by Zebra Impact Ventures and Bank Mirabaud, and the Luxembourg-based Haltra Group have also invested. It had led the Series A financing in 2021. "We are proud to have closed the Series B round in this difficult market environment for investments in start-ups," Koa's CFO Fabien Nizard is quoted as saying.
Koa is the first company in West Africa to establish a new value chain around its previously discarded fruit pulp. In this way, Koa works closely with smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana to reduce food waste on the farms and generate additional income for the families. At the same time, the company provides new ingredients for the food and beverage industry.
The deal came just a few months after Koa inaugurated "Africa's largest cocoa fruit factory" in eastern Ghana. The company sees this as the basis for a tenfold increase in production and for cooperation with 10,000 additional cocoa farmers. Koa also intends to develop new cocoa fruit products and expand its marketing and sales activities. The start-up also supports the transition to regenerative agriculture. It is intended to make cocoa cultivation more resilient to the consequences of climate change. ce/mm
Koa has established a value chain around previously discarded fruit pulp. Picture: Agyeman Duah / Koa
News
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the dominant topic of our time. AI opens up undreamt-of possibilities for automation in all areas of life and the economy. In education, schools are striving to find an appropriate approach to AI to ensure that people can fulfill their responsibilities despite their increasing dependence on technology. The business world is working hard to keep pace with the rapid development of AI technology so as not to fall behind. The spread and use of chatbots in particular raises the question of how the relationship between humans and machines should be structured. Can ChatGPT trigger a revolution in education? How will AI change the future world of work? Which abilities will continue to be reserved for humans?
These and many other questions will be discussed on March 19, 2024 at the 14th Zurich Park Side Education Conference at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute in Rüschlikon. We offer an exciting program with renowned speakers from science and practice as well as ample opportunity for informal exchange.
Register today and be part of it!
Startups
Magnes developed a disruptive real-life-monitoring solution to analyse walk patterns of patients of neurological disorders.
Selnaustrasse 5
8001 Zürich
Neurological Disorders, MedTech, Remote Monitoring, Gait Analysis, Wearables, AI, Personalised Therapy, Haptic Stimulation
Startups
Centi is a digital cash payment facilitator for consumers and merchants alike. Centi gives back control to the users and provides attractive promotions. Our consumer app is leading in ease of use in the payment space and provides a full overview of all digital cash and promotions.
On the merchant’s side, Centi enables a lot of services auxiliary to payments all lower costs than the competition. Coupons, vouchers, tickets, loyalty tokens and a lot more. Centi’s online portal is the easy solution to manage all centi features for the merchant.
Centi shines in micropayments and thus enables entirely new business cases. Consumers get instant access to content with private digital cash payments. At retail and as a one-stop shop solution for events Centi shines in the retail and presence business just like online.
Im Schilf 4
8044 Zürich
Payment Facilitation, System Engineering, API Integrations, Business Development and Growth, Merchant Services, Ticketing, Loyalty
Initiatives
Administrative units and bodies of the Canton of Zurich make data that is not required to be protected available in a machine-readable form and free of charge as open government data. Anyone and everyone can access them, share them and use them freely.
Statistisches Amt Kanton Zürich
Schöntalstrasse 5
8004 Zürich
- Prepare data as easy-to-use, machine-readable resources
- Describe data with metadata and make it openly accessible
- Clarify requests for data not requiring protection with administrative units and bodies of the Canton of Zurich
- Communicate potential of open or shared data in collaboration in and with government.
Voices
Amanda Boekholt is Legal Advisor & Project Stakeholder Manager for the Federal Office of Civil Aviation Switzerland (Bundesamt für Zivilluftfahrt, BAZL).
The term U-space, refers to a collection of digitalised and automated functions and processes aimed at providing safe, efficient and fair access to airspace for the growing number of civilian drone operations. U-space provides a framework to facilitate the implementation of all types of operation in all classes of airspace and all types of environment, while ensuring an orderly coexistence with manned aviation and air traffic control. Switzerland does not yet have an operational U-space airspace. The Federal Office of Civil Aviation Switzerland is currently working to establish such airspaces, especially in areas where a large number of simultaneously operated drones are expected or where drones are operated alongside manned aircraft (aircraft, helicopters).
Voices
Rino Borini is the founder of the «House of Satoshi» and of «Finance 2.0». In the video, he explains what digital assets are, what opportunities they present, and what challenges they pose.
Voices
What does innovation mean to Gerrit Sindermann? That's what we asked the President of the Green Fintech Network.
Voices
A combination of artificial intelligence and traditional methods is intended to make everyday school life easier for teachers and maximize the learning success of students. Herby wants to make it possible to correct a worksheet in seconds with the use of artificial intelligence.
The Innovation Sandbox for AI clarifies the legal basis for automated correction of handwritten learning content. Because these are often unclear to providers, teachers, and parents.
In the video, Marco Cocuzza and Raphael von Thiessen explain the lessons learned from the Innovation Sandbox project and how Herby will now evolve.
Voices
Artificial intelligence is now penetrating all areas of work and life. But what role does AI play in infrastructure maintenance? The Innovation Sandbox is addressing this question in a research project together with IBM Research and pixmap gmbh.
What is the Innovation Sandbox?
The Sandbox is a test environment for the implementation of AI projects. The Sandbox aims to promote responsible innovation by enabling the administration and participating organisations to work closely on regulatory issues and to use novel data sources.
News
The goal of the present guidelines is to clarify legal questions in relation to autonomous systems. The focus is on autonomous ground vehicles and systems for commercial purposes, potentially in operation in public spaces.
The guidelines are primarily designed for manufacturers with a strong focus on product development. These manufacturers often have limited know-how and resources available to dedicate to clarifying regulatory aspects, or to have these aspects clarified for them. With that in mind, the purpose of these guidelines is to provide an overview of the most important questions, and to serve as an entry point for a more in-depth and manufacture-specific exploration of the topic. The present guidelines are exclusively for manufacturers in Switzerland.
News
"We are delighted and proud of this great position in the FT ranking. This is the result of our commitment and the high quality of our teaching, executive education, and research. I would like to thank everyone who has made this possible."
– Reto Steiner, Dean of the School of Management and Law
News
In 2019, the ZHAW defined its approach with its sustainability strategy. Since then, the strategic programme ZHAW sustainable has been driving the transformation process forward. The first university-wide sustainability report now takes stock of what the ZHAW has already achieved, what developments can be seen and how the next milestones need to be tackled. The focus is on the fact that the ZHAW can only implement its sustainability strategy together with its employees and students. In the report, some of them are representative of the many ZHAW members who are committed to sustainable development in research, teaching, university operations and also personally - in ecological, social or economic terms.
In order to reduce the ecological impact of its university operations, the ZHAW relies on realistic targets and evidence-based measures. In line with the motto “You can only manage what you can measure”, the ZHAW collects data in the areas of business and commuter mobility, resource consumption (catering, paper, ICT, water, waste) and energy consumption in buildings. In the latter, heating is responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions, although the proportion of renewable energy continues to increase. In the area of resources, catering and ICT equipment are the largest emitters. In business mobility, air travel and commuting by car are the biggest sources of emissions that need to be reduced.
“With its report, the ZHAW makes its sustainability endeavours in its four service areas and for society transparent. The aim is to fulfil its responsibility towards internal and external stakeholders. In future, the report will be published every two years. The publication of the first university-wide report now provides the impetus for a “multi-stakeholder dialogue” to continuously improve sustainable development at the ZHAW. A series of events in the spring semester of 2024 will support this process.
News
Since the first call in 2019, 44 fellows have been selected. The 12 new fellows will start their projects in January 2024 and are working on various topics:
David Jaggi from the School of Management and Law is examining company publications and patent texts in order to develop a method to identify greenwashing using natural language processing and machine learning.
Alice Aubert from the School of Life Sciences and Facility Management is investigatingthe benefit of a digital tool for participatory decision making. The tool will allow citizens to share how they address trade-offs of sustainable developments. "The DIZH Fellowship brings to life that was until now developed and tested in experimental conditions," says Aubert.
Pasquale Cirillo from the School of Management and Law wants to use machine learning to provide industry and regulatory authorities with reliable tools for climate-related financial risks. "Fighting climate change requires huge amounts of money. Our goal is to help financial markets do their part, by offering a more reliable quantification of potential financial losses due to climate change," he says.
Christian Rapp, from the School of Management and Law, will look at teaching academic writing and align it with new AI technologies.
Next to Christian Rapp, also Malgorzata Anna Ulasik from the School of Applied Linguistics has a project about AI and texts. She will compare text production with and without text generators to identify best practices.
Michelle Haas, from the School of Health Sciences, will build on a recently completed project in which the ZHAW and ZHdK developed an exergame for the rehabilitation of cruciate ligament injuries, will deepen the knowledge and validate other important aspects.
Sven Hirsch from the School of Life Sciences and Facility Management is researching the concept of the digital twin in healthcare to virtually recreate patient-specific pathophysiological systems.
Further information on the fellowship program and the other funded fellows (Michael Jüttler, Florian Spychiger, Andrea Günster, Andreas Schönborn and Yulia Sandamirskaya) can be found on the ZHAW digital website.
News
Coachbetter has been able to attract prominent supporters from the world of professional football: According to a media release, former German national football coach Hansi Flick, fellow coach Uli Forte (former Bundesliga coach and Swiss Cup winner) and Steven Nzonzi (2018 World Cup winner with France) are investing in the platform. The funds of CHF 4 million raised as part of a Seed Plus financing round will be used to expand digital coach training in professional and amateur football.
According to the press release, the participation of former German national coach Hansi Flick, who is joining Coachbetter with his wife Silke and their joint investment fund, is particularly noteworthy. "By bringing innovative solutions to the amateur game, we are not only strengthening the development of young players, but also football as a whole," he is quoted as saying.
"With their expertise, the investors will shape the content of the platform and the company's football know-how," the press release states. According to Patrick Patzig, co-founder and CEO of Coachbetter, quoted in the press release, "their knowledge and experience is invaluable and will benefit our users in the future". For Coachbetter, coaches are the key to success. "We want to use our tool to inspire trainers to coach and make it easier for them to access digital tools."
The Wallisellen-based digital football technology start-up operates an app for digitalization in professional and amateur football, which is available in six languages. Coachbetter intends to use the fresh capital to optimize the platform in the DACH countries of Switzerland, Germany and Austria and to expand the circle of users to the USA. ce/heg
Auch Hansi Flick hat in Coachbetter investiert. Bild: zVg/Coachbetter
News
This approach is in stark contrast to conventional agency search methods, which are primarily based on agency lists, Google or existing contacts.
"You wouldn't expect it, but unfortunately none of these methods are effective: around 60% of all clients are dissatisfied with the work of their agencies or freelancers," says Raphael Aebersold, initiator of Kampadre.
Anyone who now believes that only the clients are fighting with unsuitable partners is mistaken. Agencies also report that the search for suitable new customers is one of the biggest challenges in acquisition.
A solution to the problem must therefore take into account the interests of both sides and combine the best of each search method under one roof.
Kampadre has recognized the challenge and offers with its intelligent agency directory a platform that, thanks to AI, makes matching easier for both agencies and clients and increases the quality of the results.
Specifically, the following aspects speak in favor of an agency search with Kampadre:
Kampadre's mission is clear: to significantly increase the availability of high-quality marketing services, and the intelligent agency directory is the first step in this direction.
Further services are planned for the future, such as the option to book certain services directly or an expert chat for immediate, qualified answers to all marketing-related questions.
News
Innovation Hubs
At HITS, we inject innovation into corporates by partnering with startups, we call it Corp-up. Corp-up is the matching of corporate needs with startup solutions, shaping and nurturing partnerships between the two to accelerate and scale corporate innovation.
Generali
Soodmattenstrasse 4
8134 Adliswil
Innovation Hubs
In the heart of the Swiss business center, Trust Square offers two places where entrepreneurs, startups, universities, and investors from blockchain, technology, and innovation come together to implement and realize ideas. We offer you private offices and working desks at Rennweg and Paradeplatz. Our events inspire, connect, and promote exchange, and our Service Portfolio enables us to bring concepts and ideas to success. The Venture Service team assists our clients with daily operations so they can focus on their core business and growth.
Poststrasse 5-7
8001 Zürich
Innovation Hubs
Axelra is a Zurich based Tech Venture Builder accelerating digital business models for corporates and startups with skin in the game. We are co-creating and shipping revenue-generating MVPs after 100 days since 2019. Our Services cover Product, Management Support, and Growth.
Hagenholzstrasse 83
8050 Zürich
