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PreComb Therapeutics announced today that it closed its 1.3m CHF Pre-Series A Round. Biotech and deep tech-focused venture capital firms LongeVC and Kinled, in addition to family offices and private investors, participated in the investment. PreComb is developing an evidence-based therapy prediction for cancer drug discovery and therapy guidance using its patented 3DTwin® technology.
Cancer remains one of the leading killers, with about 10 million deaths worldwide attributed to the disease in 2020. While personalised medicine is gaining traction in other medical fields, only 5%–10% of cancer patients currently benefit from customised treatment plans matching their unique genetic profile.
PreComb’s groundbreaking technology generates 3D tumour twins that mimic the behaviour and characteristics of the original tumour. The 3DTwins® then undergo AI-supported testing using a broad range of cancer drugs to determine which treatments will be most effective for an individual cancer patient. In the future, physicians will be able to use PreComb to conduct fully automated tests directly in their clinics for rapid results and direct treatment planning.
“Cancer is an incredibly individualised disease,” said Jens M. Kelm, CEO and co-founder of PreComb. “Success of treatment depends largely on the unique tumour profile as well as the patient's biology. PreComb removes the guesswork from treatment protocols to ensure patients receive therapies tailored to their unique needs. We look forward to working with our new investors to advance our technology’s capabilities and reach.”
LongeVC Managing Partner and co-founder Sergey Jakimov said, “Personalised medicine is the future of healthcare. PreComb is using this technology to transform the narrative on cancer treatment and help individuals live longer and healthier lives post-diagnosis. We are proud to back their industry-defining work in oncology.”
Chairman of Kinled Patrick Aisher said, “PreComb will not only help patients receive the best treatments available but also serve as an invaluable resource for physicians and drug developers. By investing in their technology, we aim to unlock a greater understanding of cancer medicine for all.”
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For 10 years, the UZH Foundation has been successfully raising funds for research, teaching and innovation – including for the Digital Entrepreneur Fellowship, which offers start-up support to help develop marketable products or applications for industry from research in the digital field.
"It was pure coincidence that an email from the university alerted me to the Digital Entrepreneur Fellowship call," recalls Merens Derungs, who was the first Fellowship grantee in 2021. At the time, he was writing his dissertation on digital equities and thought his project could fit well into the program. "With a digital share, a digital token is issued rather than a physical security. Switzerland is one of the first countries to allow this," he explains.Derungs had acquired the detailed knowledge of capital markets and their legislation, among other things, during the internship year for his bar exam in Zurich. At the time, however, he said he was not yet a fan of the crypto world and digital assets. That changed when Professor Caspar von der Crone, with whom he planned to write his dissertation, asked him to write an article on digital assets. Derungs then decided to found a startup based on the digitization of shares. With this idea, he won the first Digital Entrepreneur Fellowship 2021.
Derungs was able to profit above all from coaching. "The fellowship program provided me with a coach. He guided me through the various steps of building a startup," Derungs recounts in retrospect. He had helped him to develop the idea into a solid business concept. Based on this, Derungs founded the company Arcton a few months ago. The startup aims to build a marketplace for funding startups based on the blockchain. Through this platform, start-up companies could find investors from around the world faster and cheaper by offering digitized shares of their company. In return, investors could invest very diversified and already with small amounts in interesting startups and would also not have to wait ten years until they can sell their shares again.
In addition to coaching, Derungs was able to benefit from the Fellowship's reputation. It gave his crypto project the credibility it needed, which opened numerous doors for him, he said. The young lawyer used the start-up funding of 100,000 francs to buy licenses and software and to pay himself and his team a small salary. In addition to his co-founder Thomas Charrière, three developers in Georgia are currently working on the Arcton platform, which is scheduled to go live at the end of this year.
In December 2022, Marta Marciniak, one of this year's two Fellows, will start her program. A native of Poland, she studied psychology and is developing a mental wellness app for women. As a postdoc, she wanted to apply her psychological research in a practical way to help people. In Zurich, she worked for the research project DynaMORE - Dynamic Modeling of Resilience. There, she developed app-based interventions that improve mental health. She now plans to use the fellowship to further develop an app intervention to market readiness.
Most of the apps that already exist are not based on scientifically tested interventions and do not specifically address the needs of women. This is despite the fact that women suffer from stress-related psychological disorders twice as often as men and are additionally burdened by the hormonal fluctuations of the monthly cycle. "Thanks to the fellowship, I can fully focus on developing a mental wellness app for the market after finishing my dissertation. I will use the funds mainly to finance a team," says Marciniak. A portion would also be used for focus groups. The app is developed in close cooperation with the end users.
Marciniak and Derungs are among the winners of the fellowships and thus benefit from the financial grant and coaching. But Merens Derungs thinks applying for a fellowship is worth it even if you don't win in the end. "It helped me conceptualize my own application idea. Also, it's good practice for pitching and you get valuable feedback on the business concept."
Markus Hagmann, President of the Board of Trustees of the Hans Eggenberger Foundation, which makes the program financially possible, is also enthusiastic about the Digital Entrepreneur Fellowships. "Hans Eggenberger was a pioneer who brought radio to Switzerland. When he first demonstrated this new type of device in Zurich in 1922, which could receive music from the air, people were amazed," says Hagmann with a smile. Hans Eggenberger founded a successful company that imported electronic equipment such as radios and televisions into Switzerland, and made plenty of money from it. Since he had no children, the assets were transferred to a foundation with his name.
Back then, technology brought about major social upheavals, just as it is doing today with digitization. Especially the foundation of a startup in the field of blockchain like Merens Derungs' is highly interesting, says Hagmann. In addition, Hans Eggenberger has always been keen to support young entrepreneurs. The original mission of the foundation to promote electronics and electrical engineering has now been extended to include IT. That's why the Digital Entrepreneur Fellowship is an exciting project that fits the foundation's purpose, Hagmann said.
The Digital Entrepreneur Fellowship is an example of the new programs at UZH that specifically support innovative research. Already in 2017, the UZH Innovation Hub created a UZH Entrepreneur Fellowship in the field of biotech. The fellowship was so successful that a MedTech track was also introduced just one year later. Now this promising funding instrument has been extended to digital innovation, says Maria Olivares, head of the Innovation Hub at UZH.
However: The UZH Innovation Hub does not have its own funds for the implementation of such a project. "For funding instruments like the fellowship, we therefore rely heavily on third-party funding, i.e., donations and foundation money," Olivares says. "The UZH Foundation can provide us with professional support here. It knows the market and has a good overview of which topics can be used to approach potential target groups. With the Hans Eggenberger Foundation, it has found the perfect partner for funding the fellowship."
The UZH Foundation builds bridges between foundations, companies, private donors and patrons and university research projects that enable groundbreaking developments for society and advance the careers of young talents. "Such projects often cannot be funded with public money," says Annelise Alig Anderhalden, CEO of the UZH Foundation. The private funds raised by the Foundation enable or accelerate additional innovative research at UZH.
Numerous examples, such as research into sickle cell anemia, show that the projects supported ultimately benefit society. Until now, the severe genetic disease could only be treated with expensive gene therapy, until a team from the University of Zurich was able to prove that an already known Alzheimer's drug protects against the deadly sickling of blood cells.
The research studies on the coronavirus made possible by the UZH Foundation are a current example that clearly shows the relevance of the funded projects for our society. During the 2020 lockdown, the UZH Foundation, together with UZH, launched its first crowdfunding for a pandemic fund to finance research on the coronavirus. "Thanks to the results of these studies, schools have been able to reopen earlier," Alig says. Funds from the UZH Foundation also made possible the digitization of the letters of the Zurich reformer Heinrich Bullinger, which were thus made accessible to the public.
The launch of new funding instruments such as the Digital Entrepreneur Fellowship is intended to drive forward further innovative research projects in the digital field and encourage young researchers to develop their projects into market-ready products and applications.
Author: Jeannine Hegelbach,
UZH News
Image source:
Stefan Walter
News
Yokoy (1st), Planted Foods (2nd), and Ledgy (3rd) were the top picks of the expert jury. A selected audience of startups, investors, and key partners of the TOP 100 were present at the event, held at startup space in Schlieren. In the afternoon 100 handpicked Swiss and international investors met the startups at the TOP 100 Investor Summit 2022.
Three startups from the fintech and foodtech sectors lead the TOP 100 Swiss Startup ranking in 2022. Yokoy, Planted Foods, and Ledgy represent the diversity and potential of Swiss startups: They are, on average, three and a half years old, have already created over 420 new jobs, and have raised a cumulated CHF 153 million. For the first time since the creation of the TOP 100 Ranking, a fintech startup has taken first place, which illustrates the meteoric growth of this field in recent years. The 12th edition of the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award was organized by Venturelab and facilitated by its presenting partners Credit Suisse and Swiss Venture Club.
First place: Yokoy | Zurich | Company expenses and credit cards on autopilot
Fintech company Yokoy uses artificial intelligence to automate the entire corporate spend and corporate credit card process. The Zurich-based startup was founded in 2019 by Melanie Gabriel, Devis Lussi, Thomas Inhelder, Philippe Sahli, Lars Mangelsdorf and was ranked 20th in 2021.
Second place: Planted Foods | Kemptthal (ZH) | Turning plants into “meat”
Planted Foods revolutionizes the food industry by creating plant-based protein made of 100% animal-product-free ingredients. The vegan meat alternatives do not include any additives. Planted Foods was founded in 2019 by Christoph Jenny, Eric Stirnemann, Lukas Böni, and Pascal Bieri and ranked 37th in 2020.
Third place: Ledgy | Zurich | Setting equity for growth
Ledgy is an equity management platform that helps startups manage their cap table, employee participation plans, funding rounds, and investor relations. The ICT startup was founded in 2017 by ETH Zurich physics graduates Yoko Spirig, Ben-Elias Brandt, and Timo Horstschäfer and ranked 13th in 2021.
Ranks 4- 10
4 CUTISS AG | Zurich | Biotech
5 CREAL SA | Vaud | Engineering
6 9T Labs AG | Zurich | Engineering
7 Carvolution AG | Bern | ICT
8 HAYA Therapeutics SA | Vaud | Biotech
9 Bloom Biorenewables SA | Fribourg | Cleantech
10 Daphne Technology SA | Vaud | Cleantech
With more than 40 new nominees, the 2022 ranking offers a unique panoramic view of this innovative ecosystem, which is positioned among the best internationally. You can find the complete ranking with more information about the Top 100 startups plus a ranking of the 25 best scale-ups and several background articles in the Top 100 magazine which was again published in five languages.
“This year’s ranking reflects the strength of the Swiss ecosystem” says TOP 100 program director Stefan Steiner. “With a record 2.6 billion francs in venture capital already affected into startups during the first half of the year, it is in Olympic share, and we aim to continue on this track, despite the current crises affecting the global economy”.
10 winners of the public Voting
In parallel to expert ranking, the public was also invited to select their favourite startup in ten verticals. The winners are:
Biotech: TissueLabs Sagl | Ticino
Cleantech: SoHHytec SA | Vaud
Engineering: dimpora AG | Zurich
Fintech: Alpian SA | Geneva
Foodtech: myDropz AG | Aargau
ICT: Almer Technologies AG | Bern
Medtech: Bearmind SA | Vaud
Proptech: Popety SA | Geneva
Robotics: Sevensense Robotics AG | Zurich
Security: Strong Network SA | Vaud
Multiple events, magazines and more
Born in 2011 as a ranking and event to celebrate the best Swiss startups, the “TOP 100 Swiss Startup” has grown into a benchmark in Switzerland. Today the TOP 100 offers an Investor Summit, multiple events along the year, the only startup magazine translated in five languages and the flagship evening TOP 100 Swiss startup award, often referred to as “The Swiss Oscar for startups”, which took place in Schlieren and was again live-streamed for a global audience. The 512 Swiss deeptech startups that have been featured in the TOP 100 Ranking over the past 12 years have created 16,149 jobs and raised CHF 11,1 billion. 71 exits and eight IPOs top off the achievements of these innovators.
Author: startupticker.ch
Bildquelle: startupticker.ch
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Many aspects of decarbonising buildings are connected to the sun. But how can new methods and building components such as façades be tested under controlled climate conditions? Dr. Arno Schlüter, ETH Prof. and Director of the new Zero Carbon Building Systems (ZCBS) Lab, had the idea to emulate qualities of the sun.
The sun is a dominant theme in building construction. How can we manage solar radiation? How do we take the regional climate into account? How can we build in a climate-neutral manner? How can we capture solar radiation on buildings to generate energy? All these questions are becoming increasingly urgent in times of climate change and are also being addressed by building technology research. Currently, Prof. Schlüter's team at the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems is tackling these questions and putting the ambitious idea of emulating sunlight and climatic conditions to test full-scale, 1-to-1 building components.
Located on ETH’s Hönggerberg campus, the research group has built a test lab that is unique worldwide. The Zero Carbon Building Systems (ZCBS) Lab consists of several test rooms and a control centre. In the respective test rooms, façade, roof, floor, and wall elements can be installed, and, subsequently, heated or cooled in a controlled way. The largest room – the climate chamber – houses a spectacular solar emulator. Using an array of LED-powered light sources that are concentrated with mirrored reflectors and mounted on a swivelling arm, the solar emulator can be moved both horizontally and vertically to mimic the sun’s path. With this method, the climate and solar radiation of different geographic locations can be created and building component performance data can be generated in much shorter time periods.
"The solar emulator allows us to replicate aspects of sunlight at an exceptional combination of quality and scale," explains Prof. Schlüter. He continues, ”…and it is a uniquely ETH project, where different scientific workshops across ETH have shared their practical know-how with our research team to ensure a future-proof facility.”
First experiments
The first test object is the digitally printed polymer façade from a project of the NCCR Digital Fabrication. The optical and thermal properties of this façade can be customised. Testing with the solar emulator will provide insight into when the façade should allow sunlight through, when it should block sunlight, and when heat should pass through it. This opens up numerous possibilities for rethinking façade design, and more generally building construction and a better use of material resources.
In the future, the Zero Carbon Building Systems (ZCBS) Lab will not only be used by ETH internal research groups but will also be available to external researchers and industry partners. Most recently, a researcher supported by a fellowship from the Velux Foundation has joined the group to conduct research using the ZCBS Lab facilities. Additionally, collaborations to test innovative building components and technologies are in planning with several companies and academic partners.
According to Dr. Krishna Bharathi, the Executive Director of the ZCBS Lab, "Another very special dimension of the lab is that now, it is possible to simultaneously evaluate the technical performance of building components while observing occupant behaviour and interaction. A central aim of this new experimental facility is to keep building users in the design loop.”
Author: Tünde Kirstein, ETH Zurich
ETH-News
Bildquelle: ETH Zurich / ETH transfer
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21.co, the world’s leader in providing access to crypto through simple and easy to use products, today announced a $25 million round led by Marshall Wace. This round values the business at approximately $2 billion, making 21.co Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn. With this round of financing, 21.co will continue to drive rapid, targeted growth through first-of-their-kind products, key market expansions and strategic talent acquisitions. Other investors in the round include Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners.
In addition to funding, the company also announced its new parent company, 21.co. 21.co is a collection of companies, the largest of which is 21Shares, the world’s largest issuer of cryptocurrency exchange traded products (ETPs) – which is powered by Onyx, a proprietary technology platform used to issue and operate cryptocurrency ETPs for 21Shares and third parties – in addition to Amun, a token provider focused on making the DeFi world more accessible.
This round – raised during Crypto Winter – was the company’s first raise in over two years, a testament to the company’s early success and growing investor demand in the asset class. To prove such investor demand, the company ended 2021 on a nine-figure revenue run rate and has seen sustained inflows, even during down markets. Year-to-date, from September 2021 to September 2022, 21.co recorded over $650 million in net new assets, and hit its peak AUM at $3 billion in November of 2021. To support this rapid business growth, 21.co grew its headcount 75% during this period.
Launched in 2018, by Ophelia Snyder and Hany Rashwan, 21.co was founded to build bridges into the crypto world. Since then, 21.co has been on a tremendous journey to stay at the forefront of the market by providing investors with the most innovative crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), the broadest token solutions, a decentralized software platform to create, list and manage ETPs globally and more forward-thinking solutions – all powered by free institutional-grade research to educate investors about the evolving industry.
“My co-founder, Ophelia, and I set out with a simple mission to make crypto more accessible,” said Hany Rashwan, CEO and Co-Founder at 21.co. “Now, we’re the highest valued and largest tech startup in Switzerland – and we’re still only in the early days. 21.co remains committed to building innovative products that meet investor demand as this asset class continues to gain rapid momentum.”
“The success 21.co has experienced over the past four years is truly amazing,” said Ophelia Snyder, President and Co-Founder at 21.co. “We have built an incredibly diverse team, with some of the brightest minds in crypto and brought on best-in class investors. Our drive to revolutionize the world of crypto and build bridges into the asset class is only just getting started.”
“At Marshall Wace, our culture is built around innovation – and we saw an immediate alignment of values when meeting with the team at 21.co. 21co is a first-mover in the crypto industry: the company is focused on growth, and committed to bringing new and innovative products to investors across markets – in a secure, accessible way,” said Amit Rajpal, Partner and CEO Asia at Marshall Wace. “Even in the midst of crypto winter, MW believes that 21.co has the potential to revolutionize the industry globally and we’re looking forward to working alongside the team.”
“When I first met the team at 21.co, I understood their long-term vision and truly believed the company would transform the crypto ecosystem,” said Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO and CIO of ARK Investment Management LLC, and an independent board member of 21.co. “This round is a testament to 21.co’s early success and its ability to thrive in both bull and bear markets. I’m proud to be a part of the 21.co growth story.”
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Zurich – Sygnum is the first Swiss bank to open a hub in the Metaverse. With this, the world’s first bank for digital assets wants to offer investors new access to its products in the crypto-based economy. The launch is on 27 September.
Sygnum is the first Swiss bank to open a hub in the Metaverse. There, the world's first bank for digital assets will present its Web3 product innovations. In addition, this virtual branch will offer "a trusted entry point for investors into the emerging $5 trillion crypto-based metaverse economy", according to a media releasevideo provides first glimpses. The Web3 portal features a Video gewährt erste Einblicke. Das Web3-Portal verfügt über einen CryptoPunk receptionist, an interactive NFT gallery with curated exhibitions by Sygnum, its clientele and artists, and a space for events and launches. The official opening will take place with a livestream event in Decentraland on 27 September at 11am. For the "tele-transport" to this public event, Sygnum will provide a link to interested parties. mm/Café Europe
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Heart attacks in women are more likely to be fatal than in men. The reasons are differences in age and in comorbidity burden which makes risk assessment in women a challenge. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now developed a novel artificial-intelligence-based risk score that improves personalized care for female patients with heart attacks.
Heart attacks are one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and women who suffer a heart attack have a higher mortality rate than men. This has been a matter of concern to cardiologists for decades and has led to controversy in the medical field about the causes and effects of possible gaps in treatment. The problem starts with the symptoms: unlike men, who usually experience chest pain with radiation to the left arm, a heart attack in women often manifests as abdominal pain radiating to the back or as nausea and vomiting. These symptoms are unfortunately often misinterpreted by the patients and healthcare personnel – with disastrous consequences.
An international research team led by Thomas F. Lüscher, professor at the Center for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Zurich (UZH), has now investigated the role of biological sex in heart attacks in more detail. “Indeed, there are notable differences in the disease phenotype observed in females and males. Our study shows that women and men differ significantly in their risk factor profile at hospital admission,” says Lüscher. When age differences at admission and existing risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes are disregarded, female heart-attack patients have higher mortality than male patients. “However, when these differences are taken into account statistically, women and men have similar mortality,” the cardiologist adds.
In their study, published in the prestigious journal The Lancet, researchers from Switzerland and the United Kingdom analyzed data from 420,781 patients across Europe who had suffered the most common type of heart attack. “The study shows that established risk models which guide current patient management are less accurate in females and favor the undertreatment of female patients,” says first author Florian A. Wenzl of the Center for Molecular Medicine at UZH. “Using a machine learning algorithm and the largest datasets in Europe we were able to develop a novel artificial- intelligence-based risk score which accounts for sex-related differences in the baseline risk profile and improves the prediction of mortality in both sexes,” Wenzl says.
Many researchers and biotech companies agree that artificial intelligence and Big Data analytics are the next step on the road to personalized patient care. “Our study heralds the era of artificial intelligence in the treatment of heart attacks,” says Wenzl. Modern computer algorithms can learn from large data sets to make accurate predictions about the prognosis of individual patients – the key to individualized treatments.
Thomas F. Lüscher and his team see huge potential in the application of artificial intelligence for the management of heart disease both in male and female patients. “I hope the implementation of this novel score in treatment algorithms will refine current treatment strategies, reduce sex inequalities, and eventually improve the survival of patients with heart attacks – both male and female,” says Lüscher.
Author: UZH News
Image source: iStock/Svitlana Hulko
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Game developers from the ETH Game Technology Center have created an app that explains bone remodelling in a playful way. If students point the camera of their mobile device at the textbook, they find themselves transported to the bone’s surface, where they help cells break down bone tissue.
While textbooks are useful and contain valuable knowledge, their high information density often makes them inaccessible and can be off-putting. Have you ever imagined engaging with the contents of your textbook in a playful and interactive way? The AR Osteoclast app makes this possible. Game developer Jascha Grübel, from the ETH Game Technology Center (GTC), and Bernd Stadlinger, a member of the ETH AI Center and Chief of Service at the Clinic for Cranio-Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery at the Center for Dental Medicine in Zurich, designed the app to give dentists a better understanding of bone remodelling processes.
If students point the camera of their tablet or smartphone at a certain image in their Cell-to-Cell Communication textbook, they end up on the bone surface next to a blood vessel. In this microcosm, magnified by a factor of 600, players control otherwise automatic biological and biochemical processes. Each of the game’s six chapters is introduced by a voice explaining the ins and outs of bone resorption as well as the students’ role in the game.
Every year, 10 percent of our skeleton undergoes bone remodelling without us noticing. Cells known as osteoclasts break down bone tissue, while osteoblasts synthesise new bone. This is crucial knowledge for dentists, since osteoclasts play an important role not only in tooth exfoliation but also in the integration of dental implants into the natural bone structure. On top of that, they protect the jaw bones against bacterial infection and support tissue repair after a tooth extraction.
Before getting started, the game’s main developer Grübel had to come to grips with the subject matter: “I watched instructional videos and mind mapped all the cells involved as well as their functions, actions and interactions.” Since these bodily processes are automatic, Grübel had to figure out which ones to assign to the players. “For instance, when the player taps on the screen, the osteoclast releases messenger substances to attract stem cells, which then turn into osteoblasts and repair the bone,” Grübel explains. On occasion, the players receive symbolic aids: in chapter three they control two taps – one for acid and another for enzymes – enabling them to dissolve the bone with the right amount of each substance. Grübel builds these game mechanisms on a game development platform called Unity. “It’s important for a game for time to pass in the computer as well and to determine the next step in the game,” Grübel says. “Unity predetermines the background for that, such as the laws of physics that should apply in the game.” Because, at the end of the day, all game mechanisms are mathematical computations, Grübel explains.
Finding the right balance between play, science and education is the main challenge, according to the GTC’s Managing Director Fabio Zünd: “A game must be fun and a source of motivation. This means we have to simplify the biological processes without distorting them.” To this end, the game developers entered into an intense exchange of ideas with dental specialists, researchers and the publishers. “Certain moves reminded the researchers of outdated knowledge. So we had to work out together how best to represent the current state of knowledge,” Grübel reports.
Another challenge was to ensure that the app would work on as many devices as possible: “At the GTC, we usually deal with research prototypes – so they might only run on one device, but they can do crazy things,” Zünd says. AR Osteoclasts, by contrast, is an app store product intended to reach as many people as possible. In fact, the developers had to restrict the technology in AR Osteoclasts to ensure that the app would work on older devices as well. The digital artist Violaine Fayolle has compressed the detailed 3D model of the bone on whose surface the player is located to prevent devices from running hot when displaying the game. The 3D model was created by medical film producer interActive Systems. The company participated in the development of the app alongside the publishers
A study is currently underway to determine if the app improves students’ motivation and learning performance. However, the two computer scientists are both convinced that games have great educational potential. “Games can be a vehicle for information, but it’s difficult to know what to communicate,” Grübel says. “We still need more results from the learning sciences.” In striking a balance between play and knowledge transfer, the app may not have turned out as playful as Grübel had hoped; however, considering the short development time, he is pleased with the result. “Turning the contents of a book into an interactive experience is new,” he says. But the developer will get a chance to play around some more after all: together with Bernd Stadlinger, who co-edited Cell-to-Cell Communication, he plans to take the project one step further. “We would like to realise the game in virtual reality, which offers more opportunities for interaction and allows us to study how people and the computer interact,” Zünd says.
Autor: Stéphanie Hegelbach, ETH-Zürich
ETH News
Image source: eye science
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Pfäffikon ZH – Huber+Suhner is supplying Bosch with 3D radar antennas for autonomous driving. With this partnership, the technology company is continuing its expansion strategy in the automotive industry.
Huber+Suhner is to become a new supplier and development partner for German automotive supplier Bosch. According to a media release, the globally active supplier of connectivity systems has received an order to develop and manufacture radar antennas for semi-automated and automated driving.As the company writes, "the faithful mapping of the vehicle environment by means of radar" is considered the basis on the way to autonomous driving of the future. Huber+Suhner's 3D antenna technology allows driving assistance systems to recognise the driving environment from a long distance.
The antennas are equipped with metallised plastic and can determine the position, relative speed and direction of movement of other road users and objects even at higher speeds.
Huber+Suhner sees the partnership with Bosch, the world's largest automotive supplier according to the company's statement, as a milestone in the implementation of its growth strategy in the automotive industry. The company, based in Pfäffikon ZH and Herisau AR, was already selected in September 2021 by Continental, also of Germany, a leading manufacturerof driving assistance systems, as a partner for the development and series production of radar antennas.
Author: heg, Café Europe
Image source: Huber+Suhner
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Empa, together with EBP and Fussverkehr Schweiz, analyzed in spring 2022 in Thalwil (ZH) how pedestrians react to automated vehicles. The automated parking assistant that had been used is the first system approved in Switzerland that moves a vehicle without a person sitting in it. The findings of the research project, which was co-financed by AXA’s Foundation for Prevention, create an important basis for prevention measures and design principles for sustainable road spaces.
Automated driving will shape everyday urban mobility in the future. However, many questions are still open, such as how pedestrians will react to automated vehicles and how a sustainable and safe mobility system can be designed for all road users. The research project "Pedestrians and Automated Driving" provides initial answers and opens up the dialog on interaction between automated vehicles and pedestrians, which is crucial for the future.
In this first phase of the project, field studies were conducted on two test days in Thalwil to determine how pedestrians react to an automated vehicle in real-life situations. To this end, parking situations were carried out with a vehicle equipped with a parking assistant. Empa experts contributed their in-depth knowhow about vehicle technology to this social science pilot study. "Safety was of central importance in the field studies. Our research team ensured that the vehicle was properly equipped and also operated correctly," explains Empa researcher Miriam Elser. Also involved in the field studies was project manager Bettina Zahnd from EBP Switzerland: "What we noticed already on the first day of the trial is that many people react to the driverless vehicle and look for eye contact with a person who is in control of the car." This finding was confirmed in the interviews: Almost 70% of the interviewees recognized the driverless car and 60% of the interviewees saw or actively looked for the person in charge.
The reactions of the passers-by varied depending on their age. For example, older passers-by sought eye contact with a responsible person more often than younger people did. In addition, older people were more wary of the new technology, whereas younger people assume that the technology works or it hardly impresses them. The results further point to a knowledge gap in the population: For only about 20% of respondents, the topic of "automated driving" was not entirely new. Many people are not yet aware that driverless technologies are already approved in Switzerland. The project team recommends, for example, an information campaign as a possible measure to raise public awareness of the topic.
Also of interest: Roughly the same number of people are neutral/positive as negative about automated vehicles. It is clear that automated vehicles will play an increasingly important role in Swiss traffic in the future and that the discourse about this must be stimulated already today.
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What is Open Innovation and how can you benefit from it?
Sari Depreeuw, IP lawyer at Crowell & Moring, introduces you to the benefits of open innovation, the default rules of IP that apply in the setting and how to well prepare the handling of IP issues before and during open innovation.
The Swiss IPI maintains an IP advisory network that offers free initial consultation on issues concerning patent protection and software copyright protection: More information
Innovation ideas supported by one of the Innovation Boosters can benefit from an assisted patent search by the IPI for free: More Information
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This episode is about Lean. Alfred and Patrick report on projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that deal with Lean in GP practices, long-term care and hospitals.
Since the last summer special a year ago with Johanna Stahl (which, by the way, is currently the second most successful episode of this podcast), a lot has happened. And so Alfred Angerer once again chats out of the closet and has invited the new member of his team and well-known Lean podcast colleague Patrick Betz.
Patrick, the grand seigneur of Lean, now combines his passion for teaching with his consulting work in his new position at the Winterthur Institute for Health Economics. Creating evidence for Lean in the healthcare sector is one of the goals that the new research assistant in Alfred's team is pursuing.
And Lean is one of the topics of this episode. Alfred and Patrick report on projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that deal with lean in GP practices, long-term care and hospitals.
But they also take a comprehensive look back at projects in the team that deal with value-based healthcare and digital health. And it turns out, working in team management in healthcare doesn't get boring.
Listen in to this podcast episode and learn more about the opportunities and challenges facing the Lean Optimisation philosophy and what Alfred and his team are dealing with beyond that!
The podcast "Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen" is the podcast on healthcare management and leadership. Alfred Angerer is a professor at the ZHAW for Management in Healthcare and the founder of Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen. In the podcast he interviews exciting people with whom he discusses the current trends. In doing so, he is looking in a forward-thinking direction that does not neglect topics such as digitalization and process optimization.
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The Digitalization Initiative of the Zurich Higher Education Institutions (DIZH) is funding four innovation structures with a total of 16 million Swiss francs. These structures will intensify the exchange between higher education institutions in the canton of Zurich and real-world companies and partners in the long term.
The DIZH digitalization initiative launched by the University of Zurich, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the Zurich University of the Arts and the Zurich University of Teacher Education is funding four innovation structures with a total of 16 million francs, as was reported in a press release.
The new organizational forms will focus on areas including cybersecurity and innovations in digital health, strengthening the collaboration between higher education institutions in the canton of Zurich and companies or partners in practice in the long term.
The structures include a new place at the Dübendorf Innovation Park where experts from science and industry will in future shape the future of autonomous systems, such as independently navigating drones.
The Zurich Applied Digital Health Center will also receive funds. It researches digital health solutions in the hospital context and brings together experts from clinics, research, development and industry.
A third structure being backed is the Cyber Resilience Network of the Canton of Zurich. Its goal is to increase the resilience of Zurich as a business location and its population against cyber risks.
The Digital Health Design Living Lab is the fourth structure, as a hub for participatory design in digital health care. It will design innovative digital solutions “in the interest of high-quality, human-centered and value-based healthcare” with participation from the population.
Author: Café Europe / ko
swisstrade
Image source: DIZH
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Venture Kick is supporting Akina in the canton of Zurich with pre-seed capital and expert guidance. The spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich is developing software that gamifies at-home physical therapy. The product launch is planned for 2023.
Akina impressed the jury of the startup accelerator program Venture Kick. The startup based in Zurich has been awarded pre-seed capital of 150,000 Swiss francs, as was reported in a press release. It will also benefit from access to support and an international network of successful entrepreneurs and investors.
Akina impressed with a digital therapy service, with software based on artificial intelligence. It aims to make physical therapy at home easier by placing a greater focus on gamification and guidance through feedback.
Akina will use the kick funding to hire key team members in the areas of business development, product management and regulatory affairs. The product launch is planned for 2023.
“Venture Kick offers two of the most essential resources that founders need at an early stage: venture financing and expert guidance on how to use it. For Akina, support from Venture Kick has been extremely valuable,” said Florian Haufe, Co-Founder and CEO of Akina. He founded the company together with Michele Xiloyannis after several years of research in the areas of rehabilitation technology and robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).
The Venture Kick accelerator program supports startups from idea to founding of a company. The Venture Kick Foundation assigned the mandate for its operational management to the IFJ Institut für Jungunternehmen, which is based in Schlieren, St.Gallen and Lausanne. ssp/Café Europe
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A short message on Linkedin caught our attention: A company network “Ground-based Autonomous Systems” held a kick-off meeting. What is behind this network? We asked Martin Kyburz, CEO of the company Kyburz, which is also represented in the network.
Mr Kyburz, the kick-off of the company network "Ground-based Autonomous Systems" recently took place. What is the idea behind this?
The idea behind the company network is cross-company and cross-sector learning in a relatively new technology area of autonomous systems. We see that universities and companies are working intensively on the topic of autonomous systems and recognise synergies in various places that we would like to exploit through networking.
Why a company network and how do you bind the companies to this network?
A company network offers participating companies a simple opportunity to exchange ideas on current topics on an informal level and without obligation. Involving companies in the network is very easy: companies that are interested and support the idea and values of the company network are welcome to participate and contribute.
Which companies are currently involved and why is Kyburz also committed to this network?
We have united representatives from globally active corporations to just founded start-ups and from product manufacturers to component manufacturers in our company network. Currently, there are about 12 companies that have participated in the founding of the company network. We know of further companies that are interested and over time the company network will continue to grow. Kyburz is involved in this network because we have a great interest in the topic of autonomous systems and are convinced that a company network can have an accelerating effect for specific questions.
Is it still possible to join as a company?
Yes, for sure, as mentioned we are an open and transparent company network and are very happy to accept other companies that share our idea and values into our network at any time.
What will be the next steps in this corporate network?
The central element of the company network are the meetings, which take place three to four times a year at a participating company. The first meeting took place at our premises in Freienstein-Teufen; the next meeting will be held at the premises of another participant. The meetings have a thematic focus on which the participants exchange ideas, learn from each other and work together on solutions.
In addition to the quarterly meetings, smaller working groups can be formed on specific topics to work on challenges and solutions in a very focused way. The working groups are largely self-organised, similar to the whole company network, and the results of the working groups are shared with all participants of the network. This creates a system in which companies get involved in terms of content and benefit from the existing know-how of the network - a typical win-win situation.
The big topic of the network is "Ground-based Autonomous Systems": What are the major challenges that still need to be overcome in this area?
There are several here. Among other things, there are the investments: New technologies mean high investments in development, resources and know-how, especially in sensor technology.
Then there is the lack of industry standards and interfaces. Companies generally work on their own technologies and there is a lack of coordination of interfaces to the infrastructure (traffic control system, building technology, etc...).
However, legislation and approval procedures for pilot trials also need to be adapted, standardised and simplified, or made more efficient for all parties involved.
Furthermore, one has to look at the responsibility in case of damage, because autonomous systems need new insurance models. And last but not least, social acceptance is needed, just as all new forms of mobility require the consent of the population
Is there a website or how do you find out about the network?
A website for the company network is being planned by the Canton of Zurich's location promotion agency, which is also a co-initiator of the company network.
The network was set up on the initiative of the Canton of Zurich's location promotion department. If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Markus Müller (markus.mueller@vd.zh.ch), Hightech Project Manager, directly.
Author: Eugen Albisser
Technik und Wissen: Das Fachmagazin für die Industrie
Image source: Kyburz Switzerland AG
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A little over a year ago, the SAIROP partners announced their intention to jointly develop a Swiss research overview in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Now the time has finally come: SAIROP – the Swiss Artificial Intelligence Research Overview Platform – is online.
Switzerland has several internationally leading research institutions in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) spread all over the country. In addition to this, the importance and use of AI as a basic technology is steadily increasing in multiple research fields and application areas. For the first time, SAIROP now presents a detailed overview of the AI competencies in Switzerland all across the entire research landscape.
The ten partner organisations involved in the making of SAIROP surveyed the various research institutions in Switzerland and compiled information on current research projects from various publicly accessible data sources. The ongoing data preparation and curation process is complex due to the great diversity. However, thanks to the new platform, the information is becoming more accessible, and the level of detail is probably unique in Europe.
The platform is publicly accessible via sairop.swiss and was presented to an audience of industry representatives and researchers on 23 June at the Swiss Conference on Data Science (SDS2022) in the KKL Luzern. At the moment it contains data on research institutions, current AI projects started in 2021 and experts conducting research on and with AI in Switzerland. The data will be continuously complemented and updated. In addition, the platform will be enriched with further relevant information in the future to provide an even better overview of the research field and its impact on society.
SAIROP’s long-term goal is to further connect the AI research community, improve the national and international visibility of Swiss AI research organisations and provide new opportunities for domestic as well as foreign companies and research institutions to initiate joint innovation projects. For this purpose, dedicated events and further communication measures are planned.
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The Swiss health system is on the verge of a trend reversal: away from cost orientation towards quality orientation.
PWC Switzerland has developed a target picture with conceptual principles, practical examples and concrete recommendations for action for Value-based Healthcare. Because PWC considers Value-based Healthcare - VBHC for short - to be the most promising approach for the transformation from cost to quality orientation, they have developed their VBHC framework for all actors, regardless of whether they are service providers, insurers, producers or legislators, and have formulated concrete recommendations for action in their latest publication.
Image source: PWC Switzerland
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Since the beginning of the Corona pandemic at the latest, the term “telemedicine” has probably become familiar to the whole world. Where once there were concerns about feasibility and the needs and acceptance of users, today there are questions about implementation in existing processes and remuneration for these services.
Gian-Andrea Degen, former master student at Alfred and currently consultant at PWC in the healthcare advisory area (with a focus on digital health and telemedicine), is just the right guest to roll up the topic together and discuss the current issues and challenges.
The podcast "Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen" is the podcast on healthcare management and leadership. Alfred Angerer and Stefan Lienhard interview exciting people with whom they discuss current trends. In doing so, they are looking in a forward-looking direction, with topics such as digitalization and process optimization not neglected.
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Investor clubs Startup INVEST and SICTIC join forces. Startup INVEST’s activities, its angel investors and its large group of 32 institutional investors from Switzerland and abroad are merged into the non-profit association SICTIC. Furthermore, Startup INVEST is handing over the startup days conference to the company LINDEN 3L AG.
The Startup INVEST association decided at its general assembly in March 2022 to hand over the association's activities and to dissolve the association at the end of the business year 2022. As part of the merger, SICTIC will extend its startup verticals from primarily ICT and Fintech and also accept other technology-driven startups.
Jean-Pierre Vuilleumier and his partner Daniel Bermejo are devoting themselves to new challenges. Jean-Pierre comments: “After almost 20 years, it is about time for me to start the next journey of my life. I am very thankful for having been so privileged all these years and hopefully having contributed to the development of the Swiss Startup Ecosystem. I strongly believe in giving back, that is why I will be focusing on a social project in South Africa in the coming years.” Daniel Bermejo, co-managing director at Startup INVEST adds: “I feel grateful and honoured for the confidence and trust placed in me by our board, management and members and excited for the future ahead. Looking forward to many more years of Startup INVEST’s legacy under the SICTIC & LINDEN brands.”
This succession plan preserves the pioneering work done by Christian Wenger, Jean-Pierre Vuilleumier and Daniel Bermejo at Startup INVEST since 2003 and strengthens the Swiss ecosystem by consolidating complementary efforts into the Switzerland based investor platform.
SICTIC that has local and international angel investors and institutional investors in its large investor community of more than 500 investors. Dr. Thomas Dübendorfer, president and co-founder of SICTIC, welcomes the merger: “This merger allows us to better position Switzerland on the global map for startup investors by consolidating fragmented efforts into SICTIC that becomes a super strong Swiss investor platform with international visibility and a large investor base.”
The startup days are the leading networking platform for entrepreneurial topics in Switzerland. Every year, the conference gathers well over 1’000 relevant players of the startup ecosystem of Switzerland in Berne. The conference was organised by LINDEN already in 2021 and is now fully handed over to LINDEN. Representatives of the association's board will sit on the new advisory board and support the new owners of startup days with their know-how and network. Dominik Isler, Partner at LINDEN, is looking forward: "The startup attitude is the growth engine of the entire Swiss economy, in all phases of a company's life cycle. That's why, together with SICTIC and others, we continue to develop startup days into THE outstanding conference for personalities with an entrepreneurial attitude in Switzerland."
Christian Wenger, Chairman of Startup INVEST, concludes: “We’ve closely watched the strong growth of SICTIC and it was our favourite solution to merge with them as we truly share their values. The team at LINDEN has the power, network and experience to take the conference to the next level in the spirit of the association."
Autor: press release/SK
startupticker.ch
Bildquelle: StartupINVEST, SICTIC
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For his doctorate, Johannes Weichart is developing an artificial skin that could give robots a sense of touch similar to humans. This would make them much more adept at handling objects.
One of many special human qualities is the ability to handle objects with skill and precision. This is all down to our sense of touch, which is particularly acute in the tips of our fingers. Using our hands, we are able to explore the shape and composition of objects and to feel the texture of their surface – and all without ever clapping eyes on them.
Our sense of touch is incredibly refined. Just try and get a robot to achieve a similar degree of nuance. Production robots, for example, are able to pick up and move objects with impressive dexterity. To do so, however, they first need to know where the object is – or they require additional visual information to help with orientation. Ideally, too, they need to know how sturdy an object is, and its composition, before they grab it.
Johannes Weichart has an idea that could make robots much more adept at handling objects. Weichart, a doctoral student in the Micro- and Nanosystems (MNS) group at ETH Zurich, has developed an artificial skin that emulates the sense of touch in a human finger. He believes that this can endow robots with the ability to touch and feel. What’s more, the artificial skin is pliable, which means it can be used to cover soft and unevenly formed materials – a robot gripper, for example, in the shape of a human finger.
In common with its human equivalent, Weichart’s artificial skin is equipped with a large array of receptors. “You need around one sensor per square millimetre,” he explains. Each sensor comprises various layers. Two of these are a conductive membrane and subjacent electrodes, which springs hold apart at a distance of three to four micrometres. Changes in the distance between them causes changes to an electrical signal captured by the electrodes.
Connected to the conductive membrane is a small bead. When pressure is applied to the bead, the membrane deforms – and, with it, the signal measured by the sensor.
Half of the sensors are equipped with three electrodes rather than one. These measure not only the amount of force applied to the bead at any one point but also the angle of application. This gives the skin a much more nuanced sense of touch. “It means you can feel the quality and texture of a surface and recognise when an object is slipping over the surface of the skin by sampling the sensors at high enough frequencies,” Weichart explains.
Weichart has spent the first three years of his doctoral studies demonstrating that his idea functions in principle. The challenge now is to make the skin more robust and, crucially, suitable for concrete applications. This still requires some work. “To be able to use the artificial skin in an everyday context, the sensors require a protective layer which we developed,” Weichart says. “And we also need to radically simplify the output signal. All that raw input data would overwhelm a robot. Besides, even humans don’t perceive the output of each individual receptor. We just register the overall impression.”
Despite the work ahead, the project is already looking promising. Little wonder, then, that Weichart was among the nominees for the Spark Award, which was presented last week.
Weichart tends to favour a left-field approach – as his desk readily reveals. Unlike the functional workspaces of his fellow students, his is literally surrounded by a mini jungle of houseplants.
He was also quick to diverge from the initial suggestion of his supervisor, Christofer Hierold, and his advisor, Cosmin Roman. Their idea was to develop silicon-based touch sensors. But Weichart opted to embed the sensors in a flexible substrate. That way, it will be easier to mount them onto soft and uneven surfaces. “My advisors were a bit sceptical at first,” he grins. “But, in retrospect, I think it was the right decision!”
Ultimately, it was problems with red tape that nudged Weichart in the direction of artificial skin. Freshly graduated from ETH Zurich with a degree in mechanical engineering, he first joined the company Evatec AG, where he worked on plasma processes for coating and etching integrated circuits. However, at the end of three years, the time seemed ripe for a move back into research.
His work in industry had sparked an interest in fusion technology. “But, because I come from Liechtenstein, it was difficult for me to be considered for national research programs,” he explains. In search of a reference, he turned to Hierold, who had supervised his Master’s thesis. To his delight, Hierold proposed he start his project on tactile sensor technology.
“My experience in industry has turned out to be really valuable,” Weichart says. “You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel – in fact, it’s often better to build on a technology already known.” Rather than striving for academic perfection, he aims for practical relevance: “That’s what makes me tick.” And relying on established tech can be an advantage when it comes to commercialising a new development, he says. “As a start-up, you can never be in control of the entire process chain. There are always some parts you need to outsource.”
For now, his entrepreneurial ambitions are on hold. “I’ve still got another year or so as a doctoral student, and then I’ll start thinking about my next move.” Were he to take the project forward himself – perhaps as a Pioneer Fellow – he would need to think very carefully about which area to focus on. He spies potential applications in a variety of fields, including medical robotics, telerobotics, warehouse robotics and also prosthetics. But there’s no way he can do all of these options justice at this stage of development.
Staying focused may well be his biggest challenge over the coming months. “I’m not obsessed with details,” he admits, “and I can quickly start chasing new ideas. But that can soon get out of hand.” As it is, he already has plenty on his plate: microtechnology, electronics, precision mechanics, data processing, materials integration and AI pattern recognition – all of these fields will exercise his attention for some time to come.
Regular activity beyond the lab helps keep his eyes on the prize. “I go biking and ski touring in the mountains, swimming in the lake in winter, and do boxing and mixed martial arts to help with my coordination and self-confidence,” he says. “That frees my head and helps me refocus on the job in hand.”
Author: Felix Würsten, ETH Zürich
ETH-News
Bildquelle: ETH Zürich / ETH transfer
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Digital health is driven by innovation, progress and growth and is therefore of great importance for Zurich as a business location. Products from this sector promote health and can make a significant contribution to reducing healthcare costs. With the “digital health centre bülach”, which opened today, Zurich is becoming even more attractive as a location for companies and start-ups from this sector.
The digital health sector has received a boost from the pandemic in the past two years. Digital solutions for medical and health problems are more in demand than ever. Social acceptance of the use of these products has also increased. Digital health products make it possible, for example, to accompany patients by means of long-term ECGs or sensor-based monitoring of the state of health of elderly people in their own homes. But the products are also widespread in the lifestyle sector, for example when it comes to tracking sleep or calorie consumption via smart devices.
The canton of Zurich is one of the most important hotspots for digital health in Switzerland. Around 70 companies and start-ups are already based in the canton. That is about a third of all Swiss companies in this field. With the "digital health centre bülach", which opened today, the industry now has its own hub in the canton of Zurich. "Many digital health innovations come from start-ups that exchange ideas and dare to try out new ways. I am therefore very pleased that we can contribute to better collaboration with the 'digital health centre bülach'," says Head of the Department for Economic Affairs Carmen Walker Späh. Head of the Departement of Health Natalie Rickli adds: "The pandemic has shown that there is a lot of catching up to do in the health sector with regard to digitalisation. Investments in the digitalisation of our healthcare system are important and increase patient safety."
In the "digital health centre bülach", start-ups, established IT service providers and companies from the healthcare industry connect with the aim of jointly developing practical, digital solutions for the healthcare sector. The "digital health centre bülach" is organised as an association that was founded in October 2021. Members of the board are the Bülach Hospital, the Winterthur Cantonal Hospital, the Hirslanden Group, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), the Helsana health insurance company, the Zurich Cantonal Bank, the Division of Business and Economic Development of the Canton of Zurich and the City of Bülach. The latter was the initiator of the project. "I am convinced that the mutual inspiration and interdisciplinary collaboration of our members will provide a strong impetus in the digital transformation of the healthcare sector," says Mayor Mark Eberli. He has taken over the presidency of the association.
Already at the start, several start-ups and companies have joined, and over 60 others are expressing interest in becoming members. On 1 April, operations began in temporary offices. The physical proximity is important because it promotes regular and spontaneous exchange among the members. From winter 2023/2024, they will be able to move into the modern offices in the booming Glasi neighbourhood. There, around 120 workstations as well as seminar and workshop rooms will be available on an area of 1,600 square metres.
The direct contact person for start-ups, companies and partners is Stefan Lienhard. The former digital manager of the Schulthess Clinic took over the management of the association in February. "After 100 days, the 'digital health centre bülach' has already become a real affair of the heart for me. It's extremely fun and extremely interesting to experience first-hand the dynamics with which this new, heterogeneous ecosystem is developing," says Stefan Lienhard.
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Dr. Christophe Vetterli is founder and Managing Partner at Vetterli Roth & Partners. He devotes himself in depth to the question of how design thinking can be used to provoke innovations in the environment of healthcare. In the podcast, the Design Thinking expert explains this successful concept in a very tangible way using a case study and shows how the proportion of interprofessional and integral collaboration in the context of a 45-minute visit between nursing and medical staff could be increased from 3 minutes to over 20 minutes and how this not only increased the satisfaction of the hospital staff.
The podcast "Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen" is the podcast on healthcare management and leadership. Alfred Angerer is a professor at the ZHAW for Management in Healthcare and the founder of Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen. In the podcast he interviews exciting people with whom he discusses the current trends. In doing so, he is looking in a forward-thinking direction that does not neglect topics such as digitalization and process optimization.
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The aim of the Innosuisse “Smart Urban Multihub Concept” flagship project is to develop a logistics concept that will sustainably reduce freight traffic in urban areas. In achieving this goal, the ZHAW, which is working together with partners from the realms of retail, logistics and science, wants to boost the quality of life in cities.
The growth in online retail in Switzerland is leading to an increase in the volume of deliveries in city areas – resulting in more congestion, air pollution and noise. The coronavirus pandemic has intensified this trend and there are no signs of this changing. According to the Swiss Federal Office for Spatial Development, parcel traffic will increase by a further 75 percent by 2040, with goods traffic subsequently rising by 37 percent. Headed up by the ZHAW, the new Innosuisse flagship project wants to address this issue and relieve cities of the burden caused by ever greater volumes of traffic on a sustainable basis. The companies involved in the “Smart Urban Multihub Concept” project include H&M, Zalando and IKEA, as well as Post Schweiz AG and Cargo Sous Terrain, who are also project partners.
The targeted solution envisages interaction between three hubs. Starting the journey at a distribution centre located outside the city, goods from various retailers will be transported to a multi-functional transhipping centre within the city’s congestion zone either via road, rail or the “Cargo Sous Terrain” tunnel. From here, they will be distributed to several microhubs within the city districts. “At present, every lorry travels through the city once, distributing goods. With a hub in the city centre from which goods can be distributed locally, deliveries can be bundled much easier,” explains Maike Scherrer from the Institute of Sustainable Development at the ZHAW, which is heading up the project.
A pilot project is set to take place in Zurich, with the city itself also being one of the project partners. A multihub designed to be able to accommodate a wide range of goods is to be set up close to Zurich main train station. “The aim is for the hub to be used by a large number of partners, whereby the users only pay for the space that they actually occupy,” says Maike Scherrer. The last mile to the customer should then be covered by microhubs located in the city’s various districts. Different models are to be tested to this end. “Package boxes can, for example, be integrated into VBZ bus and tram stops. In addition, a number of local stores can act as microhubs for other stores. We would also like to test the idea of a mobile hub,” comments the project manager. “It is important that the microhubs are as close to residential areas as possible so that the recipients of the packages are able to walk to them.” After all, it will ultimately be the customers who decide whether the concept works or not.
In the background meanwhile, the hub concept’s digital backbone will ensure that the interaction between the different providers runs smoothly and that there is a transparent overview of each individual delivery. “The digital backbone integrates all information from the sender to the recipient, and in doing so allows for customer-specific communication,” explains Scherrer. An algorithm based on artificial intelligence will help to organise the shipment allocation on different means of transport in such a way that the distance covered in urban areas is kept as low as possible. Using an online auction platform, shippers are also to be able to offer free transport capacities, which in turn can be purchased by other shippers with insufficient delivery options.
A sub-project is also looking at the question of how the different project partners, including H&M, Zalando, Swiss Post and DPD, can work together, use the same hubs and send out their goods together despite being competitors. CO2 certificates or sustainability labels could provide incentive to cooperate. A comprehensive assessment framework should in future help cities to find suitable locations for distribution centres and to evaluate the impact on social, environmental and economic sustainability. The flagship project will therefore make a significant contribution to making life in cities more liveable and thus more attractive.
Medienstelle ZHAW
Bildquelle: ZHAW
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Traffic jams and long waiting times at junctions in city centres are part of our everyday lives – be it as pedestrians, public transport users or motorists. ETH spin-off Lumisera promises a significantly improved traffic flow with self-regulated traffic light systems.
Every major city is familiar with the problem: junctions where traffic jams and delays occur time and again. Engineers and authorities develop signal plans for the control of complex traffic light systems for every time of day and traffic volume. The aim is to find the best possible variant for all road users at any time of day. If required, green phases can be used to prioritise buses or pedestrians. This type of traffic signal control has been standard for the past 20-30 years.
Christian Heimgartner (CEO) and Stefan Lämmer (CTO) of Lumisera have taken the next step by planning the traffic flow second by second with their self-regulated traffic light systems. This means that the circuits are not programmed in advance but are continuously adapted to the traffic volume. This allows the auto-control to react quickly and flexibly to traffic situations.
The goal is still the same as before: road users should have few stops and waiting times, and traffic jams should be minimised. Of all the possibilities, the patented optimisation procedure selects the combination that achieves minimum stops and waiting times in the best possible way. The system allows prioritisation of different road users - and this completely independent of the time of day, as the traffic volume is continuously analysed. Even if unforeseeable traffic situations occur (e.g., diversions), the control system adjusts automatically.
For the continuous analysis of the traffic volume and optimisation of the steering commands, a technology is used that was originally developed and patented at the TU Dresden and the Chair of Computational Social Science with the participation of Professor Dirk Helbing. Pedestrians wanting to cross the road are detected by pressing the button at the traffic lights, as they have done until now. Buses automatically send information to the control system, and for the rest of the traffic there are cameras and/or induction loops in the asphalt. The transmitted data provide a dynamic image of the traffic volume, based on which the software controls the traffic lights.
The continuous data acquisition and the optimisation algorithm require more computing capacity than conventional traffic light systems. This is provided by an external processor that can be operated separately from the system in the control centre or on site. This means that software updates and extensions are possible at any time, independent of the life cycle of the traffic lights.
The city of Lucerne tested the system on a stretch of road with two junctions. Some 18,000 vehicles and around 700 buses travel there every day. As there are numerous workplaces in the area, there is also a considerable amount of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Waiting times and traffic jams were common during peak hours.
A scientific analysis of the test phase in January 2020, carried out by the Institute for Transport Planning and Systems (IVT) at ETH Zurich, delivered encouraging results. The researchers compared the new and the original traffic light system. For all road users, the average waiting time at both junctions was reduced - depending on the time of day, the savings are even considerable.
The self-regulated system has proven to be excellent and has meanwhile replaced the old control system. Further installations are being planned.
Apart from the improved traffic flow, self-regulated traffic light systems have other advantages. For example, the time-consuming pre-configuration of different signal plans for different times of day is no longer necessary. Initial observations also indicate that safety for pedestrians is increased, as they are less likely to cross the road at red lights. The system would be really interesting in the context of interconnected or autonomous driving, where vehicles constantly send signals that could be received by the system even without induction loops.
However, that is still a vision for the future. For the time being, Heimgartner and Lämmer are concentrating on the further spread of self-regulated systems. Two projects are currently underway in Switzerland and three in Germany. They also specialise in traffic assessments for public authorities, for which they can draw on many years of experience in the industry.
Author: Karin Kelly, ETH Zürich
ETH News
Image source: Rolf Leeb, Redaktion «Strasse und Verkehr”, VSS, 2021
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Data contains much more than just the information on the surface. With statistics, deeper cause-and-effect relationships can be brought to light. This is what Alexander Marx is researching as a Fellow at the ETH AI Center using artificial intelligence. One of his goals is to be able to make predictions regarding diabetes in children.
In diabetics, hypoglycaemia usually doesn’t occur randomly, just as a stock market price doesn’t crash for no reason. That means both are also predictable, at least theoretically. In practice, however, such forecasts have so far succeeded only in the rarest of cases. But if Alexander Marx’s project is successful, that will change for children with type 1 diabetes. “We’re working on predictive models that can detect early on if there is a risk of hypoglycaemia during the night,” explains the ETH AI Center Fellow, adding: “When children engage in vigorous physical activity during the day, their blood glucose levels can drop below a critical threshold while they sleep. With a reliable forecasting model, this risk could be avoided.”
Marx is exploring this hypothesis as part of Julia Vogt’s Medical Data Science Group. “I come from more of a theoretical background and have worked mostly with artificially generated data. The AI Center’s purpose is to bring together theory and practice, which I find exciting. I now have to make my theoretical concepts work with real data.”
Marx acquired his academic credentials at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. After completing a Master’s degree in bioinformatics, he stayed on there to write his doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. His thesis examined causal discovery – statistical methods that can be used to create causal graphs from observational data, which make cause-and-effect networks visible.
One way to apply these methods is to use survey data to identify all factors that are suspected of having an effect on a particular variable. A general example would be how a person’s income depends on their age, place of residence, gender, education, marital status or number of children. Based on the correlations found, predictions can then be made for individuals who were not surveyed. Marx clarifies that to do this, it’s not even necessary to define the entire dependency chains; it’s enough to elicit the smallest set of factors required to make a prediction.
With the help of artificial intelligence based on simulated data, Marx used these methods to study how the activities of about 500 selected genes in a human cell are related. Ideally, these methods can be scaled up in the future to include all of a cell’s 25,000 or so genes. Such computer analyses of gene networks would easily and quickly provide biological and medical research with a comprehensive understanding of the processes that take place in a cell. Achieving this through laboratory experiments would require enormous effort, as the scientists would have to switch off each gene individually using genetic engineering tools and then measure how this affects the activity of all the other genes.
For the projects Marx is tackling at the AI Center, he needs to take causal discovery methods to a new level of complexity. Instead of using full observational data sets or synthetic data, as with gene expression, he now works with real data from clinical practice. This makes the task markedly more difficult, as he soon found out: “In reality, individual pieces of information, measurements, or entire data sets are often missing, and how the data is collected also always differs from hospital to hospital and sometimes even from physician to physician.”
The clinical data that Marx analyses for his prediction model in collaboration with physicians at the University Children’s Hospital Basel (UKBB) includes time series of pulse rate and blood glucose levels, as well as information on physical activities, caloric intake, insulin injections and sleep quality. It’s then a matter of filtering the data to exclude any correlations from the model that are not related to the research question.
If the forecasts for a treating physician are to be robust and comprehensible, the number of factors must be kept as low as possible. Either way, it is too early to predict whether the model will be successful in practice: “With our project, we are venturing into areas that we haven’t mastered yet with the methods available.”
In any case, the young researcher has got off to a successful start in Zurich. “When I first came here in the autumn, I felt at home very quickly. The city is very beautiful and the mountains are really close by,” he says. A passionate rock climber, Marx particularly likes being so close to nature, especially the mountains. “Climbing lets me switch off and focus my attention completely on the grips. There’s also the climbing community – I like to do things together with other people.” In Saarbrücken, he was far away from the mountains and so mainly did bouldering indoors. Now that he’s based in Zurich, he’s looking forward to being able to visit alpine terrain more often.
Marx likes the AI Center just as much as he likes the city of Zurich and its surroundings: “The Center is extraordinarily international. There’s also a great variety of subject areas. It’s impressive and inspiring to be able to have peer-to-peer discussions with leading authorities from different scientific disciplines as a normal part of the daily routine.”
The AI Center’s interdisciplinary character is not limited to social interaction, however. Alongside bioinformatician Julia Vogt, Marx has a co-mentor in Peter Bühlmann, who specialises in high-dimensional statistics. These can be used to examine data sets in which many attributes are associated with each object. This includes the diabetes data that Marx analyses. In addition, there is also an established collaboration with the Biomedical Informatics Group led by Gunnar Rätsch, who conducts research at the interface of machine learning and bioinformatics.
Marx himself is active in multiple subject areas. He has another project in which he explores what’s known as multimodal learning. Here, the goal is to find commonalities in data from different sources. For example, he combines results from positron emission tomography (PET), which produces a 3D visualisation of anomalies in tissue metabolism, with results from X-ray-based computed tomography (CT), which reveals density anomalies in layers of tissue.
A combination of the analysis of the two imaging methods, automated by machine learning, could drive major advances in tumour diagnostics. The vision is an AI system that finds the commonalities in the two data sets and applies them to issue reliable diagnoses and prognoses.
At the moment, Marx is looking forward to his first lecture course, which he will give this coming Summer Semester together with colleagues from the AI Center. “I’ve always enjoyed working with students, and the Master’s students at ETH are at a very advanced level. The discussions always generate input that I hadn’t considered myself,” Marx says. His fellowship thus allows him not just to hone his scientific skills, but also to gain initial experience as a lecturer.
Marx doesn’t yet want to venture any concrete predictions about his own future, saying: “After my first experiences here, I’m confident that my time at ETH will prepare me excellently for both career options – academia and industry.”
Author: Daniel Meierhans, ETH Zurich
ETH News
Image source: ETH Zurich / Nicola Pitaro
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The ZHAW is researching with Swiss universities and industry partners how hospitals can implement the digital transformation. The Innosuisse flagship project “SHIFT” runs until 2025.
Modern forms of organization, digital technologies such as virtual reality or artificial intelligence, and the networking of processes and data can turn the hospital into an intelligent system and increase quality and efficiency. For three and a half years, a consortium led by the ZHAW is researching how this transformation to the hospital of the future can be implemented - together with four other research partners, around 20 hospitals and 24 industry partners. The research project "Smart Hospital - Integrated Framework, Tools & Solutions" (SHIFT) runs until June 2025. It has a total budget of 5.7 million Swiss francs and is supported as a flagship project by Innosuisse, the Swiss agency for innovation promotion.
Hospitals are the central and largest players in the healthcare system in terms of costs. "Accordingly, we have a particularly effective lever here to better tap the potential of digitalisation. Within the framework of SHIFT, we can, in a sense, develop a blueprint for the digital transformation of the entire healthcare system," explains ZHAW health economist Alfred Angerer, one of the two co-leaders of the research program.
Digital technologies help hospitals to better cope with challenges such as cost pressure, demographic change or higher quality demands. One example is data-based forecasting models for predicting, planning and optimizing workforce scheduling. In addition, sensors and apps can, for example, help to promote physical activity in patients after surgery and provide healthcare professionals with corresponding data for monitoring treatment goals.
"The 'Smart Hospital' is thus characterised, among other things, by more proactive care for patients and by putting people even more at the center of processes," says Sven Hirsch, co-leader of SHIFT and head of the ZHAW Digital Health Lab. Digitisation will generally increase the possibilities for detecting diseases earlier or even preventing them. "With their help, we can also adapt the treatment even better to the patients. For example, we can discharge some of them earlier from the hospital to their familiar environment at home and still continue to treat them," adds Jens Eckstein, internist at the University Hospital Basel and Medical Director of SHIFT.
The research program comprises three areas: In the first, research is being conducted into how inpatient treatment in hospital and outpatient follow-up care for patients at home can be seamlessly linked with the help of digital technologies. The second is about developing solutions to further strengthen the ability of staff and patients to act in everyday hospital life. The third area concerns the development of effective and efficient hospital management processes.
The Innosuisse flagship project SHIFT is led by the Institute of Health Economics of the ZHAW School of Management and Law, together with an interdisciplinary ZHAW team from informatics, health, data analysis and process design. In addition to the University Hospital Basel, the Universities of Basel and Zurich, the FHNW and the participating hospitals, 24 industrial partners contribute to the integration of the project into practice. With its Flagship Initiative, Innosuisse promotes innovations in areas that are relevant to a large part of the economy and society. SHIFT is one of the 15 research projects approved in the 2021 Flagship call.
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On 1st of April, the “Digital Health Center Bülache” (dhc) was opened. Stefan Lienhard, managing director of the “Digital Health Center” Bülach and co-host of “Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen”, tells us what exactly is behind the dhc Bülach and why it is worthwhile for start-ups, software developers, hospitals, insurers and others to be part of it in order to jointly develop new, practical solutions and thus drive forward the digital transformation in healthcare.
The podcast "Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen" is the podcast on healthcare management and leadership. Alfred Angerer is a professor at the ZHAW for Management in Healthcare and the founder of Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen. In the podcast he interviews exciting people with whom he discusses the current trends. In doing so, he is looking in a forward-thinking direction that does not neglect topics such as digitalization and process optimization.
News
The hospital of the future will be different from the one we know today, and digital innovations will make a major contribution to this. The central question now arises: “How can the idea of innovation be brought into the hospital and implemented accordingly?”
Alfred Angerer's podcast guest today, Maximilian Grimm - Innovation Manager at the Kantonspital Baden (KSB) and Head of the Health Innovation Hub - has been finding answers to these questions for three years now and is actively involved in shaping the KSB into a smart hospital. Always driven by the attitude, "Healthcare is going to change and we want to know what direction it's going in." In his hub, the innovation manager (with a background in business administration and public policy) is primarily concerned not only with developing strategic concepts and viewing innovations as castles in the air, but also with actively driving them forward with visionary and competent partners in the hospital. For this purpose, innovative projects are carried out with start-ups, research partners and others, with the aim of becoming a better hospital, building synergies and learning from others.
Listen into this podcast episode to learn more about how KSB is transforming into the smart hospital of the future with the Health Innovation Hub and what tips Maximilian Grimm shares to pave the way towards a better healthcare system.
The podcast "Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen" is the podcast on healthcare management and leadership. Alfred Angerer is a professor at the ZHAW for Management in Healthcare and the founder of Marktplatz Gesundheitswesen. In the podcast he interviews exciting people with whom he discusses the current trends. In doing so, he is looking in a forward-thinking direction that does not neglect topics such as digitalization and process optimization.