All posts tagged: Future

10 Predictions on the Future of Entertainment (AT&T Foundry report)

Published by Gert Christen

AT&T’s Foundry* recently released a study on what the future of entertainment could look like. My summary: Consumers will (finally!) get to choose what is top and what is not (Predictions 1-3) Artists and other content creators will (finally!) be fairly compensated and everybody is a content creator (Predictions 1 + 4) Entertainment will (almost!) be consumed in a seamless and personalized experience across many devices and media (Predictions 5-10)   What I wholeheartedly agree with is the prediction that smartphones will become our personal remote controls to navigate the entertainment experience (Prediction 7). What did I miss from the report? The lack of addressing the user experience in complete seamlessness between devices and places: If my autonomous car shows me the beginning of the latest episode of my favorite TV series while driving me home, why can’t the screen on my fridge continue to play the same episode while I cook dinner? After all, my fridge knows that I just  helped myself to ingredients. And my personal media gateway (Prediction 5) knows about my TV series watching and should propose the continuation at home, on …

Invitation to BRIDGE SF Summit, San Francisco, September 6-9th, 2016

Published by Gert Christen

BRIDGE SF brings public, private, non-profit, and academic institutions together to  drive innovation for a better tomorrow in cities. Organized in conjunction with the San Francisco Mayor’s Office and the University of California, Berkeley, City Innovate  invites policymakers and leading innovators for a four-day event focused on citizen-critical issues. Topics among others are: Mobility in Cities (City of San Francisco, City Innovate and MIT Media Lab) City Planning Best Practices (University of California Berkeley and UI Labs Chicago) City Infrastructure of the Future: (ID3 and CivicMakers) Urban Sensors (City of Los Angeles and Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) Global City Knowledge Transfer (U.S. Department of Commerce and National Resource Defense Council) The Digital Age of Manufacturing (City Innovate) Clean Energy (City of San Francisco and Intelligent City Forum) The full program of the event can be found here. An event brochure can be downloaded. Registration for the Bridge SF Summit here. Looking forward to meeting you at the Bridge SF Summit 2016!

The Future of Currency – According to UBS Y Think Tank

Published by Gert Christen

The Swiss Fintech Association produced a video from the event at BlueLion Incubator, where the UBS Wealth Management Think Tank “UBS Y” kicked off their research into: “What currency will we use in the future?”. UBS Y explained their research methodology publicly for the first time that evening. And the guests attending got to use the methodology to give input to the New Currency Theme. This crowdsourcing approach resulted in over 50 inputs for the UBS Y team. A first digest of the evenings findings can be found here. Thank you Marcus Iofcea, Head of the UBS Y Think Tank, for sharing the unique way in which you look into the future of banking. Thanks to you John Hucker of the Swiss Fintech Association and to the team of BlueLion for organizing the event.

UBS Y Think Tank shares their methodology at BlueLion Incubator

Published by Gert Christen

The UBS Y Think Tank invited the Zurich Fintech scene to BlueLion Incubator and shared their methodology publicly. Markus Iofcea, the head of the think tank introduced the purpose developed methodology how his team explores the needs of society in the 21st century. Two UBS Y researchers discussed their findings on the topics of “New Wealth” and “New Social Interactions”. Afterwards all participants were invited to practice the UBS Y Vision Cone methodology on the newly launched topic of “New Currency”. Here’s the result: It was impressive how this open crowd sourcing approach yielded lots of good input in no time! UBS Y has published a first analysis of the evening’s surprising results here.

Swiss Startups are too modest – Startup-Battle to break the spell!

Published by Gert Christen

Swiss startups are often too modest compared with their international peers Gert Christen, CEO of Startzentrum Zurich and founder of the national Swiss Startupfair: “Entrepreneurial thinking must be learned earlier.” Courage to take risks is a challenge for Swiss society Startupfair and Startup-Battle created to break this cultural spell The decision to remove the support for the cap on the Swiss Franc exchange rate against the Euro, and the unexpected popular vote to restrict so-called “mass immigration”, continue to occupy the news in Switzerland. In addition, ominous news about the industry and the downgrading of growth expectations, are heating up discussions about Switzerland as a competitive country. These negative news seem to drown out the positive impulses coming from innovating Swiss startup companies. Studies see Swiss startups among the most innovative in the world. However, even with such a high ranking, some discomforting deficits are showing upon closer examination – Swiss modesty and perfectionism, are but two of them. Modesty, very well paying jobs as an alternative, and the lack of business ambitions are hampering …

Corporate Innovation at Startup Speed. Necessary and becoming commonplace!

Published by Gert Christen

When corporations cooperate with startup companies they can pursue more innovation projects at a lower cost. BlueLion Incubator facilitates just that with its Corporate Innovation Partnering Program. Collaborations with startup companies can speed up corporate innovation, add flexibility, lower costs, and add a “go get it” culture for higher chances of success. First corporations are reaping the benefits of cooperating with startups. Cooperations between established companies and startups are becoming more commonplace, and the first best practices emerge. BlueLion is leading the way with a dedicated program to incubating corporate innovation projects, “the startup way”. Find more information about the Corporate Innovation Partnering program at BlueLion Incubator or in this cover story of the 2014 Swiss Venture Guide.

“The Future Makers”. Inside the Swiss Startup Scene

Published by Gert Christen

The leading Swiss business magazine BILANZ portrays the Swiss startup scene in the August 2014 issue. A concise and realistic assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of our industry.Gert Christen, CEO of BlueLion was one of the interviewees. The article mentions severalBlueLion Startups: Skybotix, Eaternity and Shrebo. And experts of the Swiss startup scene also gave their inputs, such as Jean-Pierre Vuilleumier of CTI Invest, Beat Schillig of IfJ,Nicolas Berg of Red Alpine, serial tech entrepreneur Dominik Grollimund, Florian Schweitzer of brains-to-venture as well as Dominique Maigret of Swisscom Ventures. Read the full article here: http://bit.ly/1rrFXv1