From chocolate to mice, the darknet to facial expressions, chatbots to humanitarians, and so forth

Christian Simm
swissnex (San Francisco)

What is beyond the cliché of Switzerland == chocolate ?

• Is it the numerous and often not well known Swiss contributions to computer science?
• It is the fact the Switzerland was the birthplace of the world wide web?
• Is it the "porous" system, largely unbound by geographies, which encourages transdisciplinarity?
• Is it the century-old tradition of neutrality and humanitarian engagement challenged by the ubiquity of communication devices and social networks?
• Is it the power of artists thinking about the societal impact of IT?

Slides:

No slides from this talk are available for download at this time.

Videos:

• View the Stanford Archive Lectures
• View video by lecture sequence in HTML5. Available after 8PM Pacific on the day of the lecture.
• View Video on YouTube. The YouTube video is uploaded the day following the presentation. You may need to disable your pop-up blocker for this link to work. Or use the direct YouTube link available roughly 24 hours following the presentation.

About the speaker:

Christian Simm is the founder and CEO of swissnex San Francisco ( http://www.swissnexSF.org ). Into the very cooperative environment it offers at Pier 17, along the waterfront he brings his scientific background, an extensive network of contacts on both sides of the Atlantic, and his enthusiasm for "connecting the dots" --linking people and ideas across boundaries. Before moving to California end of 1997, Christian was Director of CAST, the Industrial Liaison Office at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, and was influential fostering Swiss participations in European innovation and technology initiatives. Prior to this position, he was Research Group Leader at Hydro-Québec and co-founded a company in Montréal (Canada). Christian holds a PhD in physics, and postgraduate degrees from IMD and the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is a member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, and was for several years on the board of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. He was nominated in 2010 Une des 100 personnalités qui font la Suisse Romand. He is fluent in French, German, Swiss-German and English.

Contact information:

Christian Simm
swissnex San Francisco, Pier 17, Suite 800, San Francisco, CA 94111
www.swissnexSF.org
christian@swissnexSF.org