Session 3: Innovation Markets

Summary

The International Cooperation Forum Switzerland's Session 3: Innovation Markets brought together experts to discuss the importance of rethinking traditional pathways from scientific discovery to market applications, especially in the context of global challenges and growth. This session, hosted by Chris Lopkin, featured a panel of experts who shared their experiences and innovative projects addressing water sanitation, medical technology, and sustainable building materials. Key themes included the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration, co-development with local partners, and the importance of adapting innovations to fit local contexts and infrastructures, especially in the Global South.

Highlights

• The traditional pathways from scientific discovery to market application are insufficient in today's world of fast-paced change. 🧭
• The session discussed how to make scientific endeavors more inclusive and responsive to dynamic needs. 🌟
• Liz shared her passion for improving sanitation, aiming to reduce child mortality with innovative toilet technologies. 🚽
• Mao highlighted the importance of designing medical devices that are robust and suited for local conditions, especially in underserved areas. 🏥
• Nan's work focuses on reducing the carbon footprint in building materials using local resources, promoting sustainability. 💚
• Panelists emphasized the role of collaboration, both local and international, in achieving sustainable impact. 🌐
• The forum emphasized rethinking science to be more relevant and impactful across different global contexts. 🌍
• There were discussions on overcoming infrastructure challenges in the Global South to enhance local innovation. 🛠️

Key Takeaways

• Collaboration is crucial! When tackling global challenges, interdisciplinary teamwork and co-development with local partners can lead to effective and sustainable solutions. 🤝
• Addressing water and sanitation (SDG 6) is vital, with innovative approaches to making sanitation accessible and safe, reducing child mortality. 🚽
• Medical technologies need to be adaptable to local contexts to avoid becoming obsolete in rapid-changing environments. Design them for real-world use! 💡
• Sustainable construction with reduced CO2 can make a significant impact on climate change. Innovation in materials can lead to greener buildings worldwide. 🌍
• Empowering local entrepreneurs and communities fosters economic and social growth, helping bridge gaps between developed and developing regions. 🌱

Overview

In the rapidly evolving landscape of innovation markets, traditional pathways from scientific discovery to market application are becoming obsolete. The International Cooperation Forum Switzerland addressed this issue in Session 3, emphasizing how essential it is to adapt and rethink these pathways. Chris Lopkin hosted the session and set the stage for an engaging discussion with experts who are making strides in sustainable practices globally.

The panel featured Liz Soy, an expert in sanitation, who passionately talked about how innovative toilet technologies can substantially reduce child mortality caused by poor sanitation. Mao, a biomedical engineer, stressed the significance of creating medical devices that are not only technologically advanced but also suitable for local conditions, ensuring they don't become relics in hospitals. Nan Landra focused on sustainable construction, using local materials to cut down CO2 emissions and promote circular economies.

A recurring theme throughout the session was the vital role of collaboration, particularly with local communities in the Global South. The experts shared how co-development and local integration are pivotal for genuine impacts, making innovation truly inclusive and globally beneficial. As the forum concluded, the emphasis was clear: rethink and adapt scientific approaches to meet diverse global needs, fostering a healthier and sustainable world for all.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Overview The introduction highlights the core themes of the Forum, focusing on the significance of making meaningful choices and actions. It poses fundamental questions such as what truly matters, how growth should be defined, and how to facilitate growth globally. The session builds an atmosphere of reflection on these essential topics, setting the stage for deeper discussions throughout the Forum.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Panelist Introductions The chapter introduces three panelists known for their distinctive and forward-thinking approaches, who are metaphorically described as not 'swimming with the current.' Chris Lopkin, the leader of the Strategic Foresight Hub, introduces them and emphasizes their vitality and commitment to driving change.
• 03:00 - 08:00: Discussion on Innovation in Science The chapter titled 'Discussion on Innovation in Science' introduces a session held at ETH Zurich, focusing on the need to rethink how scientific discoveries transition to market applications. The traditional pathways are deemed insufficient in today's rapidly evolving world, making it crucial to explore new strategies for innovation in science.
• 08:00 - 16:00: The Role of Collaboration This chapter discusses the importance of collaboration in translating groundbreaking research into tangible innovations that address global challenges. It emphasizes the need for making scientific endeavors more inclusive and responsive to dynamic needs.
• 16:00 - 22:00: Cultural Context and Local Adaptation The chapter discusses the significance of cultural context and local adaptation in research. It features insights from a panel on agile and impactful research methodologies.
• 22:00 - 31:00: Challenges of Implementation In the chapter titled 'Challenges of Implementation', the discussion begins with introductions from speakers Liz Soy and Nle who talk about their background and their impactful work. The format encourages audience engagement, inviting them to submit questions via a platform called Slido, emphasizing its apparent technological magic compared to past generations. The focus seems to be on an interactive and participatory conversation.
• 31:00 - 43:00: Bridging Innovation Gaps This chapter, titled 'Bridging Innovation Gaps,' seems to involve a panel discussion format where questions from the audience are encouraged. Although there is an issue with the internet preventing online participation via Slido, efforts are made to integrate audience questions into the conversation. The chapter emphasizes inclusivity and interaction, suggesting a focus on collaborative problem-solving and the challenges of engaging disparate audiences.
• 43:00 - 55:00: Role of Local Businesses and Ecosystems The chapter discusses fluctuations in internet connectivity and temporary measures employed, such as using public Wi-Fi networks, to mitigate challenges.
• 55:00 - 61:00: Educational Aspects and Knowledge Transfer The chapter discusses the importance of public participation and engagement in educational settings. The focus is on actively involving the audience, as demonstrated in an interaction in a room setting. Despite technical issues with an intern (referred to as "H intern"), the emphasis remains on readiness and willingness to participate. Elizabeth plays a supportive role in facilitating the engagement process.
• 61:00 - 60:00: Conclusion and Takeaways The chapter "Conclusion and Takeaways" appears to feature a discussion around the professional background of a speaker who identifies as a sanitary engineer at ETH in the department of mechanical and process engineering. The speaker emphasizes their commitment to working towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SG6), which is related to clean water and sanitation. This background information is presented to provide context for the upcoming conversation.

Session 3: Innovation Markets Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 but we're really glad that you're here and have you chosen to be here you know the opening session had a few quotes which I thought were quite appropriate to what we're going to be talking about very soon one of the big questions for the Forum itself is what matters and how do you make choices which matter how do you make actions which matter and what is growth how do you grow and how can we help folks grow everywhere and the final quote loved
• 00:30 - 01:00 which is only dead fish swim with the current all the time I think we have three individuals who are sitting here in our panel who one would say Do not swim with the current all the time all three are very alive very vital truly trying to make change happen all the time my name is Chris lopkin and I have the pleasure and the privilege of leading the Strategic foresight Hub here
• 01:00 - 01:30 within the Office of the President at eth Zurich and I will be your host this afternoon for the rethinking science for Innovation markets session the title compels us to acknowledge that the traditional Pathways from scientific discovery to Market application are no longer sufficient in the landscape of our rapidly evolving world and sometimes that evolution is starting to become unrecognizable
• 01:30 - 02:00 able we must all become more prepared to answer the question how can I or how can we better translate groundbreaking Research into tangible innovations that address our Collective Global challenges we must also consider how to make these scientific Endeavors more inclusive more responsive to the dynamic needs of both growing and existing innov
• 02:00 - 02:30 driven economies I'm truly pleased to be we have an incredible panel who will share their understanding and interpretation of just what agile and impactful research can do in our world our time together will be 60 minutes we will conclude at 16:15 as if we're the sbay I'll try it on time I'll make sure we end even if our conversation is hot and interesting
• 02:30 - 03:00 and first I'm going to ask Liz soy and nle to tell us more about themselves and then about their work and the impact which they're having and hoping to have after our conversation up here I will move to engage your questions which you can submit on slido and so you can submit these questions at any time and they'll all appear right here like magic and I'm sure for my grandparents this would have been Magic and I will get to every one of
• 03:00 - 03:30 them that I can I can't promise we'll get to all of them in the panel but we'll get to as many as we can and those of you online we'll also be able to ask those questions through slido and we thank you for your presence with us even if you're not here physically I'll be monitoring those throughout the conversations to try to integrate them into and I'm getting a sign that the slid is not working there's no internet there's no internet well you do know what the T
• 03:30 - 04:00 stands for an eth right I was told that the internet kind of goes up and down in this room periodically so maybe we have to do the old-fashioned thing if you write them down on something for a moment and then when slider comes back up they can join the public Wii Network okay so you can join the public Wi-Fi network
• 04:00 - 04:30 and we we ask you to do that as part of the public here in our room today uh the H intern one doesn't seem to be working for us but please do that so well any are we ready anybody ready in the room for this we get started thank you thanks Liz I appreciate that at least one is all right so um Elizabeth
• 04:30 - 05:00 yeah hi hi what do people in their in the room need to know about you in the context of conversation we're going to have there's a few things so the first is that currently I'm a professor here at eth in the department of mechanical and process engineering but I would call myself a sanitary engineer I would call myself someone who works towards sg6 someone who's Maybe had a background uh related
• 05:00 - 05:30 to toilets and Nos and development much more than a typical mechanical engineering Professor might um my first job when I was 23 was working in Mexico building toilets for a small NGO and just kept the love of toilets going on and on and on did my PhD I was mentioning in South Africa looking at urine diverting toilets and um before I
• 05:30 - 06:00 came to eth I was a professor at the University of Malawi in Malawi um for 5 years and was lucky enough to uh leave that job although it was a wonderful job five years was enough and now I've been here for four years great well welcome thank you very much it's fantastic and so Mao I said I know I didn't say you're ring right it's a a difficult one to to pronounce normally it's so Mako but um
• 06:00 - 06:30 here we say Mako yeah sorry about that go yeah I'm the deputy uh director of the essential Tax Center at epfl or eth loan since we're in Zurich um my background is uh I'm a biomedical engineer by training and I spent um um over 15 years in uh the world of Entrepreneurship I was working with startups I started in the US where I uh started my studies and I concluded my
• 06:30 - 07:00 studies here at gfl uh uh my doctoral studies there after which I continued to work in the field at The Innovation Park there in the area of of Entrepreneurship uh in the life science sector but being from South Africa originally um and uh I always had this urge and and and wish to try and connect and tap into all the uh the resources and all the expertise that I was seeing around myself on campus uh
• 07:00 - 07:30 to try and see how we could you know leverage this to uh at least start to address some of the challenges that we see uh on the continent and this finally gave rise to an opportunity for me to go back to epfl to join hands with uh my colleague uh Dr CLA shenberger who had uh actually uh started the essential Tax Center there and uh we I joined H as the Vice director and develop the center to
• 07:30 - 08:00 um um at least some of the projects one of the projects I'll actually be telling you uh shortly great thanks s and last but not least Nan landra yeah who are you in the context what what does everyone in the room need to know about you wow um I'm nro I'm from Togo which uh before 1960 was considered the Switzerland of afca
• 08:00 - 08:30 not sure if it's still the case I don't think so but um uh I grew up uh in Togo travel in Africa before and uh coming to Europe um where I was hosted by my uncle and uh I got the opportunity to study um at apfl for my M uh my master degrees my master thesis and then do my PhD at H Zurich from at the chair of sustainable Construction um the interest for me was how can we uh
• 08:30 - 09:00 use local resources to build more sustainably therefore the topic of my PhD development of low CO2 clay based building material um found of oxara H spinoff um see of the company have uh 14 people that we work with on the side I I'm interested in uh fashion M uh my
• 09:00 - 09:30 sister does most of the clothes that I wear and I'm quite proud to show it here today go family there you go all right and and uh otherwise music uh and uh traveling as a passion so yeah that's beautiful thank you as you can see we have a a great group of bridge Builders all three of you Building Bridges between time place and cultures I'm looking forward to hearing more about the project so um Liz we have some slides yeah I think right there excellent Oopsy
• 09:30 - 10:00 Daisy tell us about the project um we lost them there we go but I think you you introduced it really well when you talked about or you mentioned from the plenary what matters and for me what matters is sg6 um Universal water and sanitation so if you maybe have your own personal favorite SG I want to convince you that this is I think the most important SG it's one of the ones that I think
• 10:00 - 10:30 matters the most if we're thinking about mortality morbidity and especially child health um on this figure you can see um some of the causes of death the leading causes of death of among children under five and you'll see respiratory diseases and diarrhea as two of the leading causes so this is really just a function of feal matter of poop of human waste getting into uh get getting onto hands
• 10:30 - 11:00 getting into water getting onto food and causing ultimately death in children and this is a very very preventable disease um and very preventable um in terms of Technology you know we've had toilets for a very long time we've had chlorination for water for a long time so the question is why do we still have a child dying every minute from something that is so preventable and so easy to do and this really drives the work that I do in my
• 11:00 - 11:30 group here in the global health engineering group at eth and so one of the things that I wanted to present to you today was something that we came up with it was actually about a series of six different Master students I'm very very lucky to be in the department of mechanical engineering where we have just brilliant mechanical engineers who are able to take these challenges that have been traditionally the field of Health practitioners or epidemiologists and really start to think about what are
• 11:30 - 12:00 the Concrete technical innovations so this doesn't look like much maybe for you right now but what it is is a way of heating up the effluent from a feal sludge treatment plant and killing all the pathogens so when we have feces we put them into a unit where they can be treated they actually release gas during that treatment process and so what we do is we harness that gas and we use that same gas to heat up the affluent kill
• 12:00 - 12:30 the pathogens kill the bugs kill the microbes and then make sure that we have something that when it goes out into the environment it doesn't get onto those little hands and feet of the children who might be at the school where we work or just in the regular environment so you can see here two photos of two of our students um and our collaborators in this we worked with various pit emptiers um in Kenya so the pit emptiers are
• 12:30 - 13:00 actually the men and women who would go to your house and empty the feces from your pit latrine or from your septic tank bring it to our treatment facility and then it's further processed by our team on site and you can see ulia and ludvig um who are both involved in the design and implementation we're still a couple of iterations away from having this commercializable um but it's something that we're hoping to realize in the next couple years that's great thanks l let me a quick question how come no one's
• 13:00 - 13:30 done this before it's an excellent question I think well they pay me the big bucks which nothing but it's okay there's a few good answers and I think you know looking at the picture on the right is one of them this is dirty work um you know when you have the choice to work on underwater robotics or other types of really flashy AI maybe this isn't the career that most people choose um it involves a lot of coordination a
• 13:30 - 14:00 lot of social skills a lot of social science um it's really interdisciplinary and I think getting together the right team getting together the people who are interested in it passionate about it and who are not um who don't succumb to those taboos who recognize that this is one of the most powerful and high impact Health interventions there is that's great yeah great thank you very much maestro how about you I mean so you've got a
• 14:00 - 14:30 whole group also which has been focusing on Innovation yeah what do we got what we see there for example is what we term a a hospital um equipment graveyard which is essentially um mostly uh medical equipment that actually is nonfunctional and as you can see this that statistic there it turns out that almost 70% of all donated U medical
• 14:30 - 15:00 equipment never gets commissioned according to the World Health Organization and uh why is that it's because primarily because most of that of those devices were not actually intended to function in this type of context they were primarily intended for markets in the high income countries and so when those markets are saturated then uh they are exported and look and seek
• 15:00 - 15:30 other markets so in other words the the the the motto is design it for the west and hope that it will be uh fine for the rest so this to us instead of looking at this as the a graveyard or a place where things come to end we saw the emergence and the birth of an opportunity to actually rethink how we conceive um uh you know um um you know the innovation of this type typ of uh
• 15:30 - 16:00 devices if we look at the next slide and this actually led us to really uh how we did this was to really rethink uh you know develop come up with a new framework in which we conduct our work which is predicated on three pillars the first pillar being a cooperation and collaboration uh with the relevant stakeholders in the affected regions where we are able to carry out a a a more accurate uh needs assessment and
• 16:00 - 16:30 definition of the problem and then the type of solution that we should work with and then the second part is actually predicated on interdisciplinarity uh so what I mean by that is that we don't only confine ourselves on on trying to demonstrate technical feasibility of the solution that we want to build but we also look at issues such as a economic feasibility social accept acceptability
• 16:30 - 17:00 and environmental suitability and this is also another key term on in this phase is code development because we continue to work with some of those stakeholders that we uh identified in the first phase and this allows us to uh der risk uh uh uh this uh uh Innovation to a maximum before we then transfer it uh to uh uh uh the field for uh deployment at Large
• 17:00 - 17:30 Scale because our vision is primarily the attainment of sustainable impact at large scale and so here one of the me mechanisms that we look at is that of uh entrepreneurship so we can actually do Tech transfer if there is no private partner or private sector partner that is available to uptake it we can then create our own startups which we've done in this case or we can actually do the tech transfer to an existing one now
• 17:30 - 18:00 what is important what we see there is one of the very first Flagship projects that we actually carried out that was a result of a longstanding call from the the World Health Organization since 1974 where they was actually asking for a a universally accessible x-ray Medical Imaging system so uh to cut a long story short uh that was was the work that we started
• 18:00 - 18:30 in 2012 we had the first prototype in 2015 and the final prototype in 2017 and a a an Enterprise was then created to actually industrialize uh uh that produ uh that that machine it is now uh if we fast forward to do today uh we are looking to actually uh deploy it primarily in subsaharan Africa Prim first and where we want to H where we've decided to have our operational Hub in
• 18:30 - 19:00 Johannesburg and uh we have actually uh currently we have two x-ray centers that are based in the townships in underserved areas in the townships of Johannesburg in Alexandria which you see on your left and Soto and as you can see there we have a a state-ofthe-art uh machine that actually has a turnaround time that is even better than what we have in Switzerland as I'm told and who image quality is even uh Superior or
• 19:00 - 19:30 equivalent or Superior to some of the market standards that we find here now equally important in the whole process is the actual business model uh the question of the business model because um when if you when in bringing this to uh to these regions we instead of actually thinking of selling the machine as is usually the case we uh uh uh the company actually decided to implement a
• 19:30 - 20:00 business model of actually building x-ray centers in the underserved uh areas they would build them themselves and then clients uh and the patients would then come and they would be charged a price that is Affordable and less than what is uh the National Standard and so uh because this allows at least uh a a timely integration or or or deployment of this type of Technology uh without having to wait for
• 20:00 - 20:30 availability of budget and the long sales cycle that are typically uh related to um uh to this type of equipments so um what is important though uh is that when you have a a a a a an x-ray machine that is a very low energy cons consuming and uh and that has all those features of uh of of of suitability ease of use robustness uh people are
• 20:30 - 21:00 naturally interested in in it here as well so uh because it is C marked and it was done according to International standards uh there is actually a demand for that machine now even here in Western Europe and for example here in France so we are very pleased to actually see that we have now been able to put to actually put something on the market that is universally adaptable that machine is capable of functioning even in the most remote regions of of
• 21:00 - 21:30 subsaharan Africa but it is also able to you know uh uh provide an equivalent or even superior quality even here in in in in you know in high income countries that's really great so thank you for that sort of like this on one hand Lea frogging and then re frogging Leap Frog both ways you know I don't know what the right term is the boomerang exactly yeah yeah that's fantastic so nly what about you we have you have also a
• 21:30 - 22:00 fascinating project of quite different yeah different type different scale yeah tell us about your project so um as I mentioned oara is a it spin-off and the challenge we try to solve is the sustainable construction and affordable housing so I'm sure that when you all woke up you woke up in a house today but I'm not sure you have
• 22:00 - 22:30 realized that your how or your apartment or your building is built mainly with concrete and in the concrete you have cement that contribute to 8% of global CO2 emission right um so that's kind of if you are trying to address the climate change issue and uh um uh achieve Net Zero we need to drastically reduce the the impact of the cement the second aspect is that the resource that is is used to produce the concrete correspond
• 22:30 - 23:00 to about 30% of global resources that are currently used and those resource are getting scars such as sand gravel and so on so what oxara have done during my PhD here at e is that uh how can we use waste uh mineral construction waste that are quite available and Earth from the ground that are quite available everywhere and turn it into new cement new product cement that have uh 70 to
• 23:00 - 23:30 90% CO2 reduction compared to Conventional cement and have structural performance for three to four story house building because those are kind of the application that we see in in Switzerland it's 60% of the building is three to four story and in Africa we mainly build one to two story H uh houses so not interest in the high rise structure so that's what we did uh during uh um my PhD here each is to develop what you see here this white
• 23:30 - 24:00 powder like a white magic uh not to say black magic uh um which is a cement free binder waste base so promoting circularity and the decarbonization and um since 2019 that I finalized my PhD we have tested the product not only um in African countries but also in Switzerland with uh different leading Swiss Constructor like a key back if you know they are based in
• 24:00 - 24:30 Zurich H for instance Marty those are leading Swiss companies interesting using our product but also in Rwanda in uh in Cameroon and in Ghana and uh if you look at the next slide here is a first prototype that we did with our product to show that it work and it work in different um area you can use it for bricks you can use it for concrete walls application for flooring and for different things and here we build it's demonstrating that you don't need
• 24:30 - 25:00 regular cement and regular concrete to do all the structure 0% cement used in this uh um uh application the second one is a project that we did um in Dubai which is an installation of our product so they have also their waste and they are trying to reduce the amount of waste so the transferability of our technology not only in the Swiss market but also other Market which is proven that third one that I couldn't show is the Swiss
• 25:00 - 25:30 Embassy project we are doing currently in in Cameron where um the for the construction of it they were looking for low emission cement and then they uh asked us how we can provide uh we can provide that so for this project we have done all the test and now uh the product will be shipped the coming weeks like two containers to start the construction and the long term is how do we set up an infrastructure locally so that you can
• 25:30 - 26:00 produce with the local resources directly so yes fantastic and if you can think of all three of them know really trying to address a profound need actually in all three of you and I found it quite interesting especially with you uh 709 70 to 90% reduction in CO2 in one of the most common Building Materials in the world yeah and that has a profound impact or helping the health of of children and grown-ups all over the world or how do you take this other technology our that we get as a normal
• 26:00 - 26:30 and be able to utilize it and then also the the slingshot back and forth I have a couple of questions and I'm I I see there have three or four questions have come in on slido there it is again and for those who AR I please do submit those each of you have talked about collaboration either directly or indirectly and this is the theme of the conference here right now um what collab abortion was crucial to get the project
• 26:30 - 27:00 over that uncanny valley of oh that'll never work or yeah what what were some of the what was the crucial collaboration who would like to you're you're like going like this yeah yeah yeah I like that yeah um no I I think what's interesting and unique about this project and and really about the way that we work with all of our projects we don't spend a lot of time in
• 27:00 - 27:30 the lab we don't model it to death we don't you know make sure we have the perfect design before we go and start testing it in country because the reality is so unpredictable so when we're working with human excreta we're working with poop you can't predict the properties we don't know how thick or thin or dry or hard or filled with trash or hair it's going to be and so the only way to figure that out is to do it to Pilot
• 27:30 - 28:00 it to fail to iterate to fail to iterate and fail um and so the key collaborators that we had with this were the pit emptiers so the men and women who would bring the feal material to us and the wastewater treatment plant who was allowing us to process and experiment on their site and if we hadn't had that we would have had to use you know very homogeneous nice Swiss feces or sure you know fake poop um which just wouldn't
• 28:00 - 28:30 have been the same no that's great so you also talk quite a lot about a very similar necessity for rethinking the process exactly uh as I mentioned that uh code development is one of the pillers that uh you know we are that actually underpins our work uh if I give you a specific example if you look for example at the X-ray project that I I showed you there um we had chosen a Cameroon as the pilot region the pilot
• 28:30 - 29:00 country to work with so uh for each and every project that we do we typically have two project leaders and in this case um we had one in Cameroon who was a radiologist and we had an engineer here in Switzerland so when you have that type of situation it means that the people in Cameroon have information that we don't have us here as epfl and and and vice so there is an open a you know exchange and a process of learning that
• 29:00 - 29:30 goes both ways and this is very enriching and allows us to really have an honest exchange of what needs to be done and this is the code development is very important I'll give an example and with this x-ray we for example had one of the consoles where you know that the radiographers use to uh try and and and carry out their exams when we tried it with those at the University Hospital of
• 29:30 - 30:00 the Shu they had one configuration that they loved we took it to U Cameroon it was a total disaster so I think it's important that uh code development is is is must be integral must be an integral part of uh of of the process and we actually use that first phase to really nurture this and actually develop the right Partnerships that enable this afterwards so let me follow up with that before none is so there's a question
• 30:00 - 30:30 came in here what's the role of of the global south or the sense of where each of you have been doing your work there their research and Innovation institutions in your projects have you I mean your partners locally what's their role what's there there with the research and their Innovation there in sight in land how who I mean go for you as I was saying I mean has j's got like three universities
• 30:30 - 31:00 right there yeah yes no no but but even during development it's important because the radiologist for example they are the ones who really understand uh how this machine is used what is the actual use case uh uh how different is it from from here so I think and part of this this for example we were working with the University Hospital of Y and so we had the professors there who teach this you know who actually use the you and so they were the ones who were
• 31:00 - 31:30 giving us the input were giving us the specifications great so there was that that collaboration n what about for you I mean you did your PhD here yeah yeah but what about your colleagues in the at home or in other other countries yeah yeah first you mention oara stand for community and for for us it was important that the uh any development or um process of implementation is grounded in this concept of ecosystem codevelopment and co-sharing right um so
• 31:30 - 32:00 um although the main part of the development was done here the implementation we had to collaborate with the local uh industry Partners um and uh in in in oara case specifically we didn't have to collaborate with local universities and so on uh but in the implementation right now uh for the uh Swiss Embassy we work with a local brick
• 32:00 - 32:30 manufacturer and local concrete producer right so we had to find when you but most systems don't like change and you're talking about change each one of us are talking about changing a system dis in a way disrupting a system you get you get resistance local resistance how how are you how are you doing this how are we smoothing this can Liz oh you go ahead Liz go you go
• 32:30 - 33:00 now then then I'll let you you guys so how do you I don't I I think ours is a little bit of a special case in that I think there is a really strong demand for it there's been a massive boom in decentralized Wastewater technology you know you can go to any city in Africa and buy a biogas reactor what you can't buy is a post treatment and so I think for the NOS for the big donors for
• 33:00 - 33:30 governments who are interested in rolling out this technology they're looking for that missing piece so I think um it it will be disruptive in terms of what is produced and what is um available on the market but I think it's certainly demand driven and it's something that people are looking for n you were going to answer then go ahead yeah no no like I I was thinking on on it from like from an academic and the business perspective like um and
• 33:30 - 34:00 what uh H Ford now have set up is this uh e and African University collaboration to kind of bring in uh this or like bring the two institution together or like different University and each together to kind of do the knowledge transfer because key technical problem that are asked here are maybe different to what need to be addressed on the global South so uh we need to address it from their
• 34:00 - 34:30 perspective and through the lenses and the question uh specifically now on the implementation where the business uh is as a as a topic for me it's always um as oxara initially we wanted to have and like um a kind of nonprofit business but we realized that actually the informal sector is like 80% of the GDP of the of country so this foral sector also have certain economic power right so they
• 34:30 - 35:00 they able to buy uh stuff and they have like what is called the informal structure so there is still a structure in this informal area so how do we like um bridge that with the like Western Technical knowledge is for me um a point that I would uh I see quite fascinating in this process of knowledge transfer and to bring technology there yeah so so
• 35:00 - 35:30 how do we so so a question came in which is I think all three of you trying to address is how do we bridge and reink this flow between say eth epfl and other countries and back and how do we rethink this especially how do we scale Solutions the direct question is how what can be done to help bridge the gap between research and scale what's working and what could be done better what is working I mean obviously I think all three of you exemplars of what's working but what
• 35:30 - 36:00 could be better how could it amplify because we need to reduce our carbon we need to reduce death we need to get this your technology how can it happen better faster and I'm not really a slick on head either so well um it's actually probably part of the answer I would give is probably linked to the question you asked before because um it's it is indeed a big challenge of uh you may have your invention that seems to work
• 36:00 - 36:30 very well but the you know the chances of it getting adopted may still uh be a challenge even when it's there so what are you doing I mean what are you doing exactly you so in in our case one of the things that we did in recognition of this challenge is for example when we start a project while we are doing the research I'll give you an example of what we did for the O oxygen concentrator where there was a high uh uh you know child death mortality
• 36:30 - 37:00 especially in the rural areas because of lack of you know oxygen Etc so while we were trying to look at why these uh concentrators fail in those regions and how to make them better we also had a work package that was running alongside where we fitted for example uh uh um 25 that was part of the the Grant application we fitted about 25 District Hospital in the bua county in in the case of Kenya and the goal there was to
• 37:00 - 37:30 really start to introduce the use of on a regular basis of an oxygen concentrator even though it wasn't perfect and also make sure that people are trained are comfortable and are happy with integrating it into their workflow so that when you come with a new innovation that has all the improvements it can readly and seamlessly integrate there so I think because this is one of the challenges that I think uh and needs to be looked at so I think that's a really really
• 37:30 - 38:00 really important point is how it integrates into an existing cultural workflow yeah into existing cultural context right I think n that you were writing a whole lot of notes yeah but first I will start with a A Story So like um um uh and my grandparent were telling me um how uh we start adopting medicine in in in the north of Togo so initially when we getting water that were not treated and we drinking it the local were like were sick and then
• 38:00 - 38:30 um like a western doctor came to Europe where trying to teach the local how to purify which mean like boil it add this and so but they were not agreeing with him and one of the um uh uh someone who was local understood the the western guy what he was saying is like okay you know what in this water there are bad Spirit
• 38:30 - 39:00 if you boil it all the spirit go away so that's what the local understood and got as a concept to improve their health not by telling them all the technical things features of the product right that that said what we need to do uh specifically it's like for me it's uh and I take it from the plenary session before is how do we transfer this knowledge that we
• 39:00 - 39:30 have to the local so that it become an appropriation for of them to do it by themselves yeah because as long as we are the one to say here is the final product you can use it and they do not see the value by doing it themselves it's uh quite uh quite tricky so the IP transfer it's one and then job creation because as soon as you start creating the job there they're interested they are part of the the value chain part of the economy then they start integrating
• 39:30 - 40:00 it also in the livelihood so this is and this is what you're doing yeah exactly yeah shaking your head and you're sh all of you are shaking your head to this one yeah so it's the IP transfer so you kind of you go and you say here I've got a really cool product yeah like it's not that simple because also with t we have boundary like in term of uh regulation in term of Ip regulation and so on so you cannot just go there and and and uh share the IP but uh you need to kind of
• 40:00 - 40:30 find a good local partner who is willing so how did you find your local partner uh like uh me I was lucky I know quite much the people in the region where we are working and some were actually also from H that have studied at H and went back so the African Association that we had here put uh us back in contact and then uh supported us uh yeah in so it's a network so how you can connect and
• 40:30 - 41:00 this is what I'm very often with the International Community and the international organizations can help with that connectivity I mean this is something yes so Liz you look like you wanted to say something and I stopped you a few minutes ago do you remember what it was or I think um maybe just in terms of the roll out and what's what's working and what's not working I think you know I consider myself a public health practitioner I think that in the field of Public Health we can't or should
• 41:00 - 41:30 not um make a profit off of Health interventions so one of the things that we're really interested in with this technology is making it available for replication so if there's someone who's interested in the design in the hardware and the software you know we're very interested in sharing that and we know that you know anyone with a 3D printer and some welding skills can do so much now right it does it's not that we need to sell pre-made technology to have it
• 41:30 - 42:00 disseminated so it's just something that we're very interested in is understanding the the spread and the natural adoption of things that are made open source so thank you Liz I want to I want to come back to the title of this moment here which is the rethinking science right rethinking science what does that say to you right when we think about this especially in this back and forth north
• 42:00 - 42:30 south east west what does that what does that what does that say to you and how can we is there something that you haven't done but you said if you had a magic wand what really really could do do this this group and here we have a lot of people who can make things happen What would your magic wand wish be and this go Liz you're like no no I'm just in to rethink science mhm rethinking science or what they could be doing to help with the
• 42:30 - 43:00 Innovation flows back and forth learning for for for me and um it's a question of how do you make these complex issues or complex uh product simple and adaptable for the the respective region that we are talking about MH um would be the best way to uh
• 43:00 - 43:30 reink for missence an example like yes climate change is a huge topic mhm circularity is a huge topic but here in the west when I go to Cameron people use waste but don't don't talk about circularity H so all the science behind circularity for them it's not it's it's not uh not relevant not part of the language here
• 43:30 - 44:00 it's it's it's part of the language part of the education part of the science right so there it's like uh a a completely new um uh thinking uh to to to address and uh understanding that is really a a key aspect the second is um um the complexity of the science here to there need also to be addressed and
• 44:00 - 44:30 reinking science for me that's uh what I take out of it is how do uh our deep Tech Innovation here translate locally there but explain through the lens of the science knowledge there so that they able to implement and adopt it so contextualize storytelling in a way yeah contextual storytelling but also the the infrastructure because they do not have similar infrastructure and uh science
• 44:30 - 45:00 also come from like from the mechanical electrical engineering process and the tools necessary are completely different so you need to readapt reimagine everything thanks any thoughts from two of you before I go to another question from slido yeah yeah I mean we all acknowledge how powerful science is and the accomplishments it has brought to to to society but at the same time uh it is
• 45:00 - 45:30 sad that we still find uh the huge majority of humankind in the state that they should be and and and science clearly has a role to play there but of course it that all depends on those who actually drive the trends of Science and so we need to probably rethink this whole uh you know you know this whole ecosystem in the context hear you I I'm going to pop
• 45:30 - 46:00 through some questions here and short answers see if you can this a short answer question or maybe not which one is more important for impact genius Innovation or a creative business model deployment strategy short answer business model business model I think it's all it's all of the above you can't say both come on genius or business model
• 46:00 - 46:30 strategy okay pass all right I'm not sure genius is a necessary I think yeah genius isn't necessary persistence is more important persistence is more important yeah okay whoever answered that you asked that you heard it here interesting here a couple more um how can you how do you think we could involve children and young people to co-create Innovation from their perspectives and do you any of you give play a role in your
• 46:30 - 47:00 work we've stumped the panel on this one sorry like I'm not sure what what's the role of children and play in Innovation or and or in your work uh personally I um I grew up building houses that's how I got into the the topic mhm uh of building uh because of clay building with clay and so on so I think it was initially part
• 47:00 - 47:30 of a game to uh help my uncle to build and then it got impregnated in what I'm doing so and here I see quite a lot of kids also playing with clay clay material but it need to be safe for them so yeah okay I think the rest of you kind of going not can to answer that one it's okay okay cool um yeah we don't want people playing with their poop that's not a very good idea I'm with you on that one um here's a here's a
• 47:30 - 48:00 question which I'm hesitating to ask but I'm still going to ask it because it was submitted and if publical people give a thumbs up do you think but potentially my word higher government corruption in Africa hinders the startup Community what are some possibilities for the future in terms of addressing this Challenge and fostering a more supportive environment for entrepreneurship all three of you are working in Africa different Nation s what do you see is some necessary
• 48:00 - 48:30 actions in this domain none of you are politicians but all of you are yeah I think I mean we cannot uh I think U uh uh uh I mean deny the the issue of corruption which is a legacy of other things we won't go into sure 100% um but uh that said it is vitally important uh to actually which to engage with the
• 48:30 - 49:00 locals because they will tell you ahead of time what will or will not work and so for us this is one of the uh approaches that we've adopted to to at least it comes back to the co-creation co-development co-presence exactly which you mentioned before like we we see now and uh that's what I I was saying like startups really great fancy world but
• 49:00 - 49:30 locally like there's micro businesses that you can consider as a startup but they are not called startup right so that's kind of for me uh what we are discussing is like uh yes circularity does great work for for the West what does it mean there and what how how is it Associated interesting and that's a great Point as I mentioned 80% of local
• 49:30 - 50:00 businesses not formal uh informal business are what we call here startup because there's the model who selling something uh on the road to kind of supporting this and this one 80% of the like the GDP in Africa is run by this local economy so it's important to consider them as also a startup then there is the formal startup ecosystem that is where you go and raise uh enough money and so on um yeah we see that now
• 50:00 - 50:30 it's emerging it's growing but not as fast as we have in Europe but more and more of um uh like uh each student that I know were here go back to set up their own business there so um with possibility to access of uh funding through the Europe there the opportunities there here here's here's a really interesting question and I think it's all of you how can we capture Innovation from the Global South and Foster support the innovators why is it
• 50:30 - 51:00 still that the south is providing the context the poop and the north of Technology how can this framework change in the foreseeable future great question answer I mean I would say it's it's an excellent question um and certainly I mean you could find 10 times the number of people from Malawi for example who
• 51:00 - 51:30 are working on similar Technologies I'm here today because I'm a professor here um and this is what I've always done and am trying to contribute with my skills and time um but I think the innovation has taken off and if I can just touch on the the the previous question you know what I see is the limitations for entrepreneurs for startups it's it's not the ideas it's not the Ingenuity it's
• 51:30 - 52:00 not the education it's Internet it's electricity it's fuel for transport it's products being able to import you know machinery and equipment it's the Tariff structure you know there's so many more barriers that entrepreneurs in the South face that we don't um and so we're in a very privileged position that we can work on these topics but certainly we're we're a small drop in the proverbial bucket yeah fly uh I can't claim to
• 52:00 - 52:30 actually have a a good answer to that question but one of the things we have tried to do in our case is to establish for example a joint research lab um which we did with the EOL poly technique of of Y where we had a common theme and we would have Master students both from here and there and and from this we had some amazing innovations that actually would emanate from that side in the
• 52:30 - 53:00 areas of you know digital and incinerators Etc so but I'm not saying that is the the entire response to that question but let me ask a slightly unusual question perhaps if you could if you could do something over again in each of your projects and a lesson you've learned with it what what would that do over be and why if you could do something over again the painful lesson where you get your fingers cut and your knuckles
• 53:00 - 53:30 burned what would it be for others who are thinking about this kind of transfer re this movement between the North and the South Liz you you're shaking your head so's thinking deeply and N is not quite so sure yet no like for me I don't think I would necessarily change uh anything because of uh um the context we are living in like a believe that we took the decision the right the best
• 53:30 - 54:00 decision possible according to the uh the opportunity that were present or the uh yeah but like however I I I would say with respect to um there's clearly a lot of room to improve to grow in general and any uh new uh uh entrepreneur who want want to take uh the knowledge the technical knowledge the science knowledge and
• 54:00 - 54:30 transfer it there I think they are now uh uh training education process and and and business uh model concept uh um workshop and that that he need to be involved in because it's not purely we have a technology here and then it will work there but needs some nuance and need some adaptability and flexibility so but the error we will make it anyway as long as we haven't done our own error
• 54:30 - 55:00 we I'm not sure that we learn from it I I respect that tremendously and we're always learning and part of our mission is also share the learnings as we go along I mean that's the that's the key part so you you you're yeah I mean one of the things we always lamented uh in some of the collaborations we've had especially in the area of technologies that you do the research and there'll be nice demonstrators that are are produced but
• 55:00 - 55:30 then in terms of actually taking that into a product and which can then be deployed there is usually a lack of mechanisms to actually industrialize or produce that locally which then brings it back to the north and where it becomes again monopolized and so one of the things which would be great would be also to start to really strengthen local Manufacturing capacity of certain things there and this this is one of the
• 55:30 - 56:00 subject that we wish we could at least do something but this is something that is a bit beyond what we can do as a university so that some of those Innovations can after being finished can also be industrialized there rather than having been be brought here and then brought here brought back at a higher price with IP Etc right sir yeah great point so let me is there a question I should have asked you I didn't ask you
• 56:00 - 56:30 oh I'm not sry going on I've asked you everything I should have asked you nothing else you want to share otherwise I'm going to I've got to no but to touch on the last Point um and that's kind of this infrastructure Gap that uh we are trying to solve right and uh what we are doing is not to like currently we produce in Switzerland our product and then for project we ship but what we are discussing with the uh swis Development
• 56:30 - 57:00 Corporation and other entities to help us fund a infrastructure project where we can produce our binder locally and not have the transport back and forth otherwise you cannot uh be sustainable and more and and affordable right and this doing that uh for the manufacturing aspect mean that you need also ch strengthen your um um like a researcher
• 57:00 - 57:30 from local researcher because they are the one who going to operate your local plant your local uh manufacturing so it's kind of a completely different value chain and uh which then go back to uh how do you bring these technology smoing in yeah that was exactly one of the questions which was P how do you scale up locally and I think that's a really wonderful point we have mechanisms here and Switz will be able to be able to do that there a few questions here about the pricing structure and the content of O but you
• 57:30 - 58:00 can come and ask him afterwards and talk about that because that's sort of very specific so there about actually six questions specifically around that so your material is quite popular to say um this has been quite fun I've enjoyed this with the three of you quite different and I loved cooperation collaboration co-development and you really understanding that in the circular in the cultural context of the place
• 58:00 - 58:30 rethinking science Innovation markets is a constant topic for us all and it's not merely an academic exercise but a strategic necessary for both emerging and I keep saying existing markets as well this is an absolute necessity for both sides of this coin for emerging markets it presents an opportunity to Leap Frog as we've heard already here traditional development models by leveraging ing scientific innovation as a primary driver of economic growth and social progress and
• 58:30 - 59:00 for existing markets that ures the continued competitiveness and resilience in the face of Rapid technological change we just seen in the news some wonderful examples of some incumbents who were just out out chest moved here by fostering a more efficient and responsive science Innovation ecosystem we intend to unlock new new avenues for regenerative development create more high value jobs and address
• 59:00 - 59:30 pressing Global challenges ultimately shaping which we all want a more prosperous and Equitable future for all I want to thank all of you for choosing to be here of all three of these panels for you online for choosing to be with us and for your questions I'm just pointing at the cameras up there you don't they're not really there but they're there okay I mean let you know and um also a real thank you to our three panelists for sharing your wisdom your insights and your passion for
• 59:30 - 60:00 making the world a better place so thank you so much [Applause]