FORWARD Forum: a unique gathering in support of innovation in SMEs

With more than 850 participants signed up for this year’s first edition, the FORWARD Forum is set to become a landmark innovation event for Swiss SMEs. It is designed to serve as a catalyst for innovation initiatives among SMEs in all sectors and industries, and this year it will focus on digitization support.

SMEs are hard to categorize, but many of them share certain features. The vast majority lack the internal resources they need to innovate, as their managers are forced to juggle priorities while keeping an eye on the competition and on changing market expectations. Professor Marc Gruber, EPFL’s Vice President for Innovation, notes that “in an already complicated situation, the advent of the digital age doesn’t make things any easier. And as their environment grows increasingly complex, SMEs are running up against unprecedented challenges. In this, EPFL has a lot to offer SMEs, which can use our expertise to effectively leverage innovation.”

FORWARD Forum – supporting and encouraging innovation in SMEs
Drawing on their experience in supporting innovation in companies, EPFL’s Vice Presidency for Innovation and its SME Unit, working in conjunction with the Alliance program, have responded to this situation by creating a new type of forum in partnership with Le Temps and PME Magazine. It will focus on three main areas: 1. the experiences of innovating SMEs across all sectors, whether tech or not; 2. SME innovations that emerged out of collaborative projects with researchers or companies; 3. innovation support offered to companies. The objective, as noted by Roland Luthier, the director of Alliance and head of the SME Unit at EPFL, “is to show through concrete examples that SMEs intent on innovating and willing to invest time to learn about existing tools can benefit from the support ecosystem offered by EPFL and, more broadly, by many other research institutes, universities and organizations.”

Inspiring examples of digital innovation, and more
Digitization has naturally emerged as a major issue. The Forum, rather than addressing the issue with broad brushstrokes, will explore possible digital innovations through a series of topic-specific workshops. These topics include transforming traditional companies, the value of the IoT for products, the added value of data mining, cyber security, training employees in digitization, and digital marketing. A major study commissioned by the Canton of Vaud, one of the event’s partners, will also be presented. The study provides, for the first time, quantitative data on the canton’s strengths and weaknesses in the realm of digitization. “If you look at agriculture, tourism, public transport, health care and manufacturing,” says Alain Jeannet, who is in charge of events for Le Temps and PME Magazine, “it is clear that every sector of the economy and of society is affected by digitization.”

Nearly 90 speakers, including SME representatives, experts and innovation visionaries, will share their firsthand experience. The workshops will feature a wide range of SMEs, including Laurastar, Géosatis, Aeschbach, Pomoca, Naef Immobilier, AISA, Swisstranslate and Distillerie Louis Morand & Cie. Speakers include Behshad Behzadi, who leads the team that is developing Google Assistant, one of the California-based company's most innovative and complex projects, and Bruno Bonnell, the pioneering serial entrepreneur in the robotics industry and a French parliamentary deputy from the political party La République En Marche. They will discuss their vision of the digital transformation of the economy.

Participants can also attend sessions on best practices in the areas of collaborative innovation and boosting innovation capacity in SMEs. The program includes workshops on how to run collaborative projects and the possibilities offered by Master’s projects in companies, along with numerous opportunities to recruit graduates, students and experienced alumni. Throughout the day, SMEs’ experiences will take front and center!