Innovation in Switzerland

I was invited yesterday evening at an event organized by the Swiss ambassador in Paris. The event was taking advantage of a roadshow announcing the upcoming Euro 2008 soccer competition that will be held in Switzerland (and a bit in Austria) to come up with the most impressive panel I’ve ever seen in my life on the theme “Innovation : the key to tomorrow’s competititvity” (OK I’m still young, but hey it beat Loic’s web2 where we had Sarkozy and Shimon Peres).
An introductory speech by Pascal Couchepin, Swiss’s president followed by a panel with Bertrand Piccard, Nestle’s president, Jean Louis Beffa (St Gobain), Logitech’s co-founder and EPFL’s president and a specially moving presentation by Bertrand Piccard with a strong tagline: “Innovation happens when we identify a common idea taken for granted for ages and we show that it can be beaten”.
Another major concern they all had was how it’s really importent to be able to find alternatives to petrol as an energy to be able to keep relatively low energy price without destroying the planet ecosystem and while still enabling its economical growth.
Really interesting exchange between all these successful industry captains full of insight and vision about the place of science and research in their industry’s development and stimulating – gives some perspective to my work at WaveStorm.