EPFL shines at the Innosuisse Business Concept Training

EPFL Post-Doctoral Researcher Anna Krammer, EPFL Senior Scientist Andreas Schüler and EPFL R&D Project Engineer Maxime Lagier join forces with Jean-Christophe Hadorn, Consultant Strategist at UNIL to develop the Solaxer project. Considering that there is more energy used for heat generation in the industrial sector than for electricity worldwide, Solaxer aims to be the first-choice supplier of high-performance receivers for solar heat powered industrial processes. Through eco-friendly and low-cost solar receiver tubes bringing the highest optical performance, they aim to decarbonize industrial heat through competitive solar collector technologies.

During the course of the training, they focused on the development of a market analysis, business plan, and identified distribution channels. Solaxer now plans to obtain seed financing to continue the adjustment and prototyping of the coating line and set-up a pilot production. 

Feet’in, the smart medical insole, is another project presented by EPFL MSc students Yanis Bouadi and Irina Bejan with the support of UNIL Senior Lecturer Nadège Zanou and EHL Bsc student Karl Scheufele. Pioneer in Partial Weight Bearing measuring and real-time motion analysis, the Feet’in insole is a data-driven medical insole that can help doctors design an optimal rehabilitation process for their patients, ranging from hip/knee injury, foot trauma to severe neurological conditions. In the next 6 months the team aims for the Gold standard validation to apply for grants and kick off with the insole production and pilot program.

« Within few months, this course prepares you for many aspects of the startup business by mixing lessons, workshops and personal training with coaches. It gives you keys to better understand the startup environment and pushes you to give the best of you and your team. I highly recommend! ». Yanis Bouadi, Msc

Another notable project, AeroSpec, was led by EPFL PhD student Nikunj Dudani, that with a background in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering and his patented iRAM invention can help identify, measure and analyze source and composition of particulate matter (PM) pollution through an automatic and cheap system. Nikunj recruited Brice Le Bihan, EHL BSc student, and together they developed a market analysis, business & financial plan. In the next 6 months they will initiate prototype development and will focus on collecting data from first market feedback.

"An extremely well structured crash-course on entrepreneurship- from conceptualization to actualization! There is a lot to gain for anyone at any level of prior knowledge. " Nikunj Dudani, PhD Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Given the progress and viability of their innovative ideas Aerospec and Feet’in won 1-year of Audible subscription. 

Lastly, Alberto Garcia, Unil PhD in Comp. Biology joined Ilaria Ricchi PhD in Neuroimaging EPFL and Erica Geneletti Msc in Bioengineering ETH to develop Archimedes, a data-driven medical software feature to help Doctors spot and refine rare disease diagnoses. Their tool increases reliability and accuracy of data collection for faster identification of rare diseases. In the next 6-months the team will work on preparing the initial prototype to validate the tool with GP’s.

For their efforts, Archimedes won a 1-year incubation membership to La Forge Incubator at EPFL Innovation Park.

“Before taking this course I knew nothing on what the word ‘Business’ meant. But thanks to Innosuisse Business concept training I was introduced to this big world learning a lot of meaningful skills useful not only to create my own startup but also to test and validate my ideas!" - IIlaria Ricci, PhD Electrical Engineering

This year, Innosuisse Business Concept Trainings took place in 4 cities across Western Switzerland, training over 129 ambitious researchers and students who developed 40 business projects. These trainings are done with the help and support of university management, deans, professors, and student associations at both EPFL and UNIL. 

Over 6 years, Innosuisse Business Concept Western Switzerland has built a network of over 1500 alumni and generated nearly 100 start-ups including recognized companies such as AgroSustain, CompPair, Urbioamongst others. 

Innosuisse (Swiss Federal Innovation Agency) Business Concept Trainings are a free semester-long course to help innovators across all sectors explore the viability of their business idea or commercialization path for their research. Taught by a network of industry and subject matter experts and coaches, the training provides participants with the opportunity to improve business skills, connect with other entrepreneurs and connect with a wide network of innovators. 

Applications in 4 cities (Lausanne, Geneva, Fribourg and Yverdon) for the Fall Session are open. For more information visit,https://www.science2market.ch/ and apply before August 1.