Make. Proof. Innovate.

Dirk Wilhelm, Director, ZHAW School of Engineering. Dirk Wilhelm has been Director of the ZHAW School of Engineering since 2019. He holds a master's degree in physics from the University of Göttingen and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich. After completing his doctorate, he worked as an engineer at Alstom Power Systems in the gas turbine development department. He then moved to the biomedical company Bruker BioSpin, where he headed a development department. Dirk Wilhelm is Chairman of the Innovation Program of the Digital Initiative of the Canton of Zurich (DIZH) and a member of the MINT Initiative of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences.

Helmut Grabner, Lecturer and responsible for Entrepreneurship, ZHAW School of Engineering. Helmut Grabner is Professor of Data Analysis and Machine Learning at the ZHAW School of Engineering. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Graz University of Technology and has more than 15 years of experience in machine learning and computer vision. He worked at ETH Zurich, co-founded a start-up and led the Computer Vision and Machine Learning division in Logitech's CTO Office before joining ZHAW. He is particularly interested in innovation and translating methods from cutting-edge research into products.

Raphael Schnyder, Co-Founder, PATON. After an apprenticeship as a civil engineering draftsman and an extended period of civilian service in a Zurich hospital, Raphael Schnyder was drawn to the ZHAW in 2019, where he studied industrial engineering. With the knowledge he gained during his studies and the experience he gained at the hospital, he and two fellow students founded the start-up PATON in 2021, which is developing a new type of patient call system for hospitals. As "Head Patoneer", he performs the tasks of the management at PATON and received the "Entrepreneurial Fellowship" of the ZHAW School of Engineering in 2022. He is also pursuing a master's degree in actuarial mathematics at the University of Basel.

Sebastian Brunner, Software Architect, PATON. After his apprenticeship as an application developer in the trading department of a leading Zurich bank, Sebastian Brunner moved to consulting, where he developed software for the financial sector. Since last year, he has been leading a team of developers from Switzerland and Spain as a senior developer. In 2019, he started his part-time studies in computer science at the ZHAW School of Engineering and joined PATON in 2022, where he is responsible for the technical development and software architecture of the product.

Mirco Egloff, Founder and CEO, loopi. Mirco Egloff completed his Bachelor's degree in Energy and Environmental Engineering at the ZHAW School of Engineering in 2018. He then completed a Master of Science in Engineering with a specialization in Energy and Environment. In addition, he worked as a technology scout at ewz Elektrizitätswerk der Stadt Zürich. In his master's thesis, he worked on a closed-loop concept for baby carriages, which gave rise to the idea for his start-up loopi, which he founded in 2019 and heads as CEO.

Corina Epprecht, Co-Founder and CEO, ClearData. Corina Epprecht studied industrial engineering at the ZHAW School of Engineering from 2013 to 2016, specializing in industrial engineering. Five years later, she founded ClearData GmbH with two fellow students Roberto Barbieri and Alexander Illi. The company specializes in data-related services such as analysis, data preparation and data-driven marketing. The focus is on sustainable solutions and the empowerment of clients. In addition to her work as CEO, Corina Epprecht is currently completing a master's degree in "Innovation and Future Research".

Adrian W. Müller, Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, ZHAW School of Management and Law. Adrian W. Müller is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the ZHAW School of Management and Law and former Head of the ZHAW Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. He is co-founder of various regional and national start-up support programs, such as Start-up Campus Switzerland or the ZHAW Runway Start-up Incubation Program. In addition to his research and teaching activities in the field of Entrepreneurial / Business Innovation, Adrian Müller accompanies executives, teams and companies in tasks of strategic innovation and organizational transformation. He is a lecturer for innovation at the ETH and an accredited coach (International Coaching Federation).

Christian Wohlgensinger, Member of the Board SMG, Consultant Egon Zehnder. Christian Wohlgensinger heads the Swiss Technology and Digital Practice at Egon Zehnder. Before joining Egon Zehnder, he worked for Google as Head of Retail Partnerships in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and before that as Head of Cloud Partnerships in Northern Europe. Prior to that, he was a member of Microsoft's Swiss Executive Board, responsible for SME, Partner Ecosystem and ERP/CRM. He started his career as co-founder of the start-ups Semantum Software GmbH and Constrax Portal AG (today Olmero). Christian Wohlgensinger holds a Master of Arts in Business Administration and an Executive Master of European and International Business Law from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.