Group Picture (Domenico Winery)
Left to right: Prof. Martin Vetterli (EPFL Lausanne), Prof. Michael Hengartner (University of Zurich), Susanne Giger (Coop), Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler (Swisscom), Prof. Roland Siegwart (ETH Zurich).

Swiss universities in Silicon Valley

At the beginning of January, presidents from three leading Swiss universities visited the Swisscom Outpost: Professor Joél Mesot (ETH Zurich), Professor Martin Vetterli (EPFL Lausanne) and Professor Michael Hengartner (University of Zurich) explored what role universities play in an innovative ecosystem on-site. This visit was initiated by Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler (Head of Swisscom Digital Business). The group, which also included ETH Professor Roland Siegwart, then traveled on to CES in Las Vegas.

Importance of knowledge transfer

With seven meetings and a networking dinner, the Outpost team put together a nutritious program for the Swiss academics. Various facets were included that make up the unique Silicon Valley ecosystem in terms of education, research and spin-offs.

In addition to the question of what essential role universities play in such a system, the importance of an easy knowledge transfer from academia to the industry was also discussed. A recent real-world example of an ETH Zurich spin-off provided a first-person perspective to this.

Further talking points were the differences between Swiss and American universities, easy founders’ access to relevant players and how an active alumni society fosters the innovation spirit.

Connecting the ecosystem

From Plug And Play Tech Center the group received a quick history lesson on Silicon Valley and Plug and Play’s current role as a massive industry connector. While their goal is to do 1.000 investments per year soon, they do not only have a successful VC strategy. Their ever expanding locations all over the world are often built and run with industry partners, often focusing on a country’s biggest assets. E.g. luxury retail in France, automotive in Germany, and financial services in Singapore.

What founders of university spin-offs need

Entering the world of venture capitalism, one session highlighted differences from the investors’ perspective. Venture capitalists from Silicon Valley shared their experiences from many investments in university spin-offs which have given them a deep knowledge of what it is exactly that these founders need.

Exclusive visit to Lyft Level 5

The visit to Lyft’s Level 5 Engineering Center in Palo Alto gave the participants exclusive insights. This brand-new facility focuses on building Lyft’s own self-driving technology. Rather than build driverless cars from scratch, it is developing a virtual driver using cameras, radar and lidar sensors.

Switzerland and Silicon Valley

The program was launched at swissnex in San Francisco. Their mission is to connect people and ideas from Switzerland and Silicon Valley. During a breakfast session, various exponents explained the significant differences between these two ecosystems, which made it easier for the group to get started.

 Marc Wälti, Palo Alto, January 13 2020

Visiting the Outpost

For the first time since his appointment, the new CTO is visiting Silicon Valley

Since February 2019, Christoph Aeschlimann has been head of IT, Network & Infrastructure at Swisscom. So it was about time to visit the Outpost in Palo Alto. At the beginning of September, Aeschlimann visited Silicon Valley together with Frank Dederichs, head of Enterprise Architecture, and other Swisscom colleagues.

In addition to getting to know the Outpost and its staff, various visits were on the agenda. The first meetings took place at VMware and Dell Technologies in Palo Alto, who have both been important partners and suppliers for Swisscom for a long time. After that, the visit continued to Andreessen Horowitz, one of the leading venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. This was followed by presentations from telco start-ups on the topics of network intelligence and virtualization.

The second day began with a visit to Facebook and a meeting with the Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP). Besides an introduction to TIP, the various project groups focused on topics such as network virtualization, edge computing and machine learning for network operators. Afterwards, it was back to the Swisscom Outpost for a lunch session with all staff members, who introduced themselves and their activities. Finally, two start-ups came to the office to present their solutions in the area of 5G.

As usual with visits to the Outpost, the tour group was invited to an American-style barbecue involving all Swisscom employees in the USA. The so-called Impossible Sausages, consisting of plant-based meat and milk substitutes without any animal-based ingredients, provided plenty of material to keep the conversation going. This too is an invention from Silicon Valley – it’s practically required to have eaten it, or at least seen it…

Picture: (upper row, from left to right) Stephan Massalt, Jeffrey Gantner, Lukas Peter, Frank Dederichs, Simon Zwahlen, Peter Messer, Christoph Aeschlimann, Cornelius Heckrott, Marcus Dahlén, Stefan Petzov; (lower row, from left to right) Jörg Wagner, Roland Bieri, Zohaib Khan and Ned Vasic.

Since 1998, Swisscom has been operating an Outpost in Silicon Valley. With Berlin and Shanghai, two more locations have recently been added. Former and current Outpost leaders look back on twenty fascinating years in which technological development has changed the world significantly. Order the booklet now or download it!

In a multi-part series on our website, we looked back at the Swisscom Outpost’s 20 years in Silicon Valley. The various contributions by former and current Outpost leaders have now been put together in a booklet.

The result is a 62-page publication in English and German with numerous photos and an overview table containing the technological and entrepreneurial developments of the last 20 years.

Order or download it

• Download the booklet here for free
• Order the booklet via blurb.com for the anniversary price of $ 20.00 (excl. shipping and taxes)

We hope you enjoy reading the history of the Swisscom Outpost!

Palo Alto, August 2019

“Swisscom has a place in Silicon Valley”

Roger Wühtrich-Hasenböhler is Head of Swisscom Digital Business. In his editorial, he looks back at the 20-year presence of Swiscom in Silicon Valley and looks ahead to the future of the Outpost.

Who would have thought in 1998 that Swisscom would still have a presence in Silicon Valley 20 years later?

What began as a small outpost for observing ongoing developments related to the Internet now involves the full spectrum of technical innovation and is an integral part of the Swisscom world.

The same year Swisscom was reorganized as a joint stock corporation and, step by step, was partially privatized, the first employees set foot in Silicon Valley, which at the time was still in its early development. Truly a pioneering achievement!

When the Internet bubble burst shortly thereafter and many other telecommunications companies withdrew, Swisscom held its ground and adapted to the new conditions. We were thus present from the very beginning of this new era.

Thanks to this far-sightedness, we were able to experience at first hand the increasing emergence of innovative startups and also shape the rapid technological developments, especially following the introduction of the iPhone in 2007.

Now more than ever, Swisscom has a place in Silicon Valley and enjoys an excellent reputation. The constant care for and ongoing expansion of our network has made us a true participant in this unique ecosystem.

This benefits not just our employees, but also our customers, suppliers and partners in various ways. Through the Outpost, we bring external innovation to Swisscom and thus contribute to the growth of the company.

But not only that: Today, our Outpost has become a hub for the entire Swiss economy. We also represent Switzerland in Silicon Valley and help shape the future of our country through an open innovation process.

In addition to Silicon Valley, we have recently established a presence in Berlin and Shanghai. Together with the established Outpost, this reflects our aspiration to be present in other hotspots and to be on the hunt for emerging trends around the world.

The Outpost is a success story that is able to look back on an impressive past, enjoys a vibrant present and can expect an interesting future. Here’s to exciting years yet to come and path-breaking developments that will change our Swisscom world!

Recorded by Mark Walti, Palo Alto, July 2019. Roger Wühtrich-Hasenböhler is Head of Swisscom Digital Business.

Focus on AI-based Interpretation Handset and Electronic Car

In its fifth year, CES Asia 2019 brought the full tech ecosystem together from June 11-13, 2019 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC). More than 500 exhibiting companies around the world and 125+ innovative startups from China, France, Norway, Switzerland and United States participated in this show.

By collaboration with Swissnex China, Swisscom Outpost China is one of the important sponsors for the SwissTech Pavilion at Startup Park. We welcomed 21 startups from Switzerland to present their innovative technologies focus on AI, Blockchain, IoT, AR, eHealth, Drone & Robotics etc in the show.

Vehicle Technology, AR/VR & Robotics, AI & IoT and Startups are the four main topics in this year’s CES show. The event featured the latest concept cars and connected vehicles from self-driving to all-electric; in addition to the entertainment and the daily housekeeping, the virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) and robotics has been applied to health care, job training, farming, shopping, retail, beauty, sports, education, tourism and much more.

During the 3 days show, we visited all 5 exhibiting centers. So many exciting technologies and products have been presented. Especially the following emerging technology trends have been clearly observed at this year’s show:

5G:
New 5G hardware has been announced by Huawei. 5G is driving innovation across industries, from smart cities to digital health and self-driving vehicles. Across Asia, infrastructure updates continue in anticipation of wide deployment of 5G, which will bring faster speeds, larger data capacity and lower latency.

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

Artificial intelligence techniques, such as machine learning, and object recognition are fueling innovation. This year’s CES featured the companies at the forefront of AI such as Cheeta Mobile, IFlytek, Sogou.  In healthcare, AI is being used for tasks such as reviewing cancer screenings, while in retail, consumers use facial recognition to pay for goods at unmanned cashier-less stores.

Startups:

Startup Park at CES Asia featured more than 125 diverse startups to present their products on a global stage.  “Welcome to Switzerland” at SwissTech Pavilion is the biggest camp at Startup Park to present the leading innovative technologies from Switzerland such as AI, IoT, Robotics etc.

Vehicle Tech:

CES Asia 2019 doubled its vehicle tech footprint on the show floor and featured the latest concept cars and connected vehicles – from self-driving to all electric. China is the world’s largest market for self-driving vehicles. In addition to the traditional car manufactures, we observed newcomers such as Neusoft and Baidu also entering this market to make cars greener, safer and more fun to drive. New forms of mobility will drive innovation in transportation in Asia and around the global, as ebikes and motorized scooters gain larger prominence.

Our Key Observation and Analysis

From this year’s show, we clearly observed two hot spots which already had been matured and well commercialized into the Chinese market:
1. AI-based Interpretation Handset or Tool Kit eg. Sogou and iFlytek
2. Electronic Car especially Chinese brand such as Great-wall Motor, SAIC Motor and HongQi

The application of AR/VR will be the next hot spot widely commercialized into the market, expected the second half of 2019 or beginning of 2020 especially with 5G technology’s strong support.

However, the commercialized application of 5G is still in hot concept stage in China and many exhibitors showed their latest 5G technology concepts such as remote control and support, for example, SAIC Motor’s remote-control driving/repairing from 50km away.

References:
CES Official Website: http://www.cesasia.cn/
CES Official Wechat: 亚洲消费电子展CESAsia
Swissnex China publish on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6544091846509985792

By Judy Wei, Shanghai, July 2019