SA Innovation Summit partners with Switzerland

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The summit will also benefit from an official partnership with Switzerland’s Swiss Start-up Summit, as well as collaborating with the Swiss Embassy as the major international partner.

Switzerland is largely considered to be the world’s most innovative and technologically advanced country - No.1 on the Global Innovation Index for four years running. 99% of enterprises are small or medium size, the country has an extremely low unemployment rate (3.7%), the last general strike has been in 1918, and the country boasts excellent working conditions and a very high buying power.

Over the past eight years, there has already been much cooperation between Switzerland and South Africa through university collaboration in various technology areas, with many high-tech startups launched as a result. In 2016, it’s official - the SA Innovation Summit and the Swiss Embassy are partners in a cross-border international cooperation, where value is expected to be added from both sides in the form of knowledge exchange and network expansion.

Two round tables

One major collaboration involve two round tables at the SA Innovation Summit about market trends in Europe as well as in South Africa in terms of nanotechnology and green innovations. The SA Venture Leaders, a programme co-hosted by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) and the University of Basel, will also have the opportunity to showcase at the summit and link into a match and invest platform that facilitate the raising of funds with the right types of commercial innovations from South Africa.

The second Swiss collaboration in this year’s summit is with a spin-off of full-service marketing agency Digital Marketing Schweiz, the Swiss Startup Summit. Similarly to the SA Summit, the Swiss Summit follows the format of a several month long campaign, culminating in a large final event.

It aims to generate maximum possible benefit for Swiss startups, along with startup service providers, incubators, investors, professional associations, universities, SMEs, students, and anyone interested in the Swiss startup scene. The Swiss model will influence the SA model and plans are made to roll this out into other SADC countries as well in collaboration with SAIS.

Potential Swiss partners

An important part of the concept is the participation of a guest country; each year the Swiss Start-up Summit is also the stage for the startup scene of another nation. In 2016, South Africa is the guest country, and South African startups and students will be given the opportunity to present their projects to potential Swiss partners at the innovation stage.

SA Innovation Summit director, Dr Audrey Verhaeghe, says the partnership is expected to support local innovators by providing global inspiration, knowledge, systems and funding. “The ultimate goal of the Innovation Summit this year is innovation acceleration - scaling and impact for SA-owned ideas,” says Dr Verhaeghe. “What better way to help us bring this vision to life, than to partner with Switzerland, the world’s leading country in terms of innovation?”

The SA Innovation Summit will be presenting a series of events in Cape Town and Ekurhuleni, with the final summit to be held in Gauteng from 21-24 September 2016.