Michael Jones, the CTO of Google Earth, was one of the Key note speakers at the Swiss Innovation Forum which took place on October 17th in Basel. His keynote and the Keynotes from Heinrich von Pierer (Formed CEO of Siemens) and Mario Moretti Polegato (Founder & CEO of Geox) can be found on www.ch-innovation.ch/video.

I remember two statements from his talk that still make think today when I think about innovation:

Would you have learned to ride a bicycle if your parents didn’t allow you to fall?

Could you fail but still get promoted in your company?

How about your company? How many times could you fail but still get promoted? And if you want to get promoted would you dare to risk more (and maybe fail) or would it be better to become more risk-averse?

Posted in thoughtful | Permalink | 1 Comment »

I guess the my colleagues where wondering what created the “yeah” that I let out when I read on my Blackberry that I am one of the 20 students who will get free passes for lift conference – thanks to the Gebert Rüf Stiftung fellowship program. Thanks to the panel (Professor William Cockayne, Nicolas Nova, Sylvie Reinhard, Bruno Giussani, Cristiana Bolli-Freitas and Jean-Daniel Sciboz) for giving me this chance.

So what is lift?

“LIFT is a series of events intended to facilitate and promote discussion about new technologies and their impact on our society. The conference happens in both Geneva (Switzerland) and Seoul (South Korea) every year, with smaller events happening all around the year.”

So I will be in Geneva from Feb 6-8 (maybe already on the 5^th) and I will cover parts of the conference on my blog. If you want to attend the conference you find all the information you need on www.liftconference.com.

Posted in idea worth spreading | Permalink | No Comments »