Z-Forum on Sustainability and Innovation
Important Dates
- Early bird registration deadlineDec 15, 2025
- Regular registration deadlineJan 10, 2026
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Martina Hirayama
Head of State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research;
Martina Hirayama is a German-Swiss chemist, university lecturer and, since 2019, State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI) in Switzerland. In this role, she is the head of 280 employees and is responsible for an annual budget of CHF 4.5 billion. Prior to her SBFI appointment, Hirayama was President of the Institute Council of the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology, Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Innosuisse funding agency and sat on the Board of Trustees of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Prof. Dr. Keyu Jin
Chair of Geoeconomic Research Center and Professor of Finance, HKUSt and Author of Bestselling Book ‘The China Playbook’;
Professor Keyu Jin discusses in her book ‘the New China Playbook’ (Jin 2023) how China was able to address its sustainability challenges by building up local resilience through the promotion of local entrepreneurship and innovation.
Prof. Dr. Bruno Basso
Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University and Founder and of CIBO Technologies;
Professor Bruno Basso has become the leading scholar in the development of financially sustainable practices related regenerative agriculture (Google Scholar Citations since 2020: 16’600). His research enabled many US farmers to become more resilient by minimizing negative impacts on soil health and greenhouse gas emissions while also becoming more productive thanks to the use of new technologies associated with precision farming and AI (Basso et al. 2025).
Mr. Doug Saunders
Award Winning Canadian Journalist, Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy and Author of Bestselling Book ‘Arrival City’;
Doug Saunders, a well-known investigative journalist, carried out research on how migration-induced urban growth can make cities more resilient by providing migrants with the opportunity to become entrepreneurs in the formal economy. He illustrates this in his book ‘Arrival City’ in which he explores the destiny of migrants in several fast-growing megacities, primarily in emerging economies (Saunders 2010).
Ms. Pascale Bruderer Wyss
Vice-President of ETH Board, Founder and Chairwoman of Swiss Stablecoin AG;
Pascale Bruderer is the Founder and Chairwoman of Swiss Stablecoin AG and serves as Vice President of the ETH Board. After a long political career spanning two decades, she left the Swiss National Parliament in 2019 to pursue entrepreneurial ventures. With Crossiety, she helps communities and municipalities build a “digital village square” that strengthens local ecosystems and social cohesion. Through Swiss Stablecoin (SSC), founded in 2022, she aims to contribute to the development of an openly accessible, broadly supported, and fully regulated digital Swiss franc. In 2023, she was appointed Vice President of the ETH Board by the Swiss Federal Council. Pascale Bruderer also serves on the boards of the publicly listed companies Galenica, TX Group, and Orell Füssli. During her political tenure, she was a member of both the National Council (2002–2011) and the Council of States (2011–2019). In 2010, she presided over the National Council and the Federal Assembly, serving as Switzerland’s official “highest-ranking person.” Pascale serves on the Board of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
Dr. Eleni Gabre Madhin
Founding CEO Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, Executive in Residence at Georgetown University, USA;
Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin completed her PhD in Economics at Stanford University and then returned to Ethiopia to launch the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). Thanks to the build up of warehouses for agricultural commodities across the country and the smart and locally adjusted use of digital technologies, more than 5 million small-scale farmers were able to improve their income and invest in the future of their farm by selling their harvest surplus at a decent price. Eleni Gabre-Madhin proves that many of the best ideas on how to promote economic empowerment and enhance local resilience come from the people who know the local context (Canuto et al. 2024).
Ms. Marianne Binder-Keller
Member of the Swiss Council States and the Parliamentary Commission on Security Policy, President of the Party ‘die Mitte’ of the Canton of Aargau;
Ms. Nora Teuwsen
Chairwoman of the Executive Board of ABB Switzerland;
Nora Teuwsen has been Chairwoman of the Executive Board of ABB Switzerland Ltd. and Country Holding Officer of the company since August 2022. In 2024, she was appointed a member of the Board of Directors at ABB Germany. She holds a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Zurich and has both the Swiss bar license and an Executive Master of European and International Business Law from the University of St. Gallen.
The Swiss-German dual citizen and mother of two children was Group General Counsel of SBB from 2013 to 2019. In her career, she has also been a partner at a Zurich law firm and held various leadership positions at SBB, particularly in SBB Real Estate. In 2019, she founded Beyondlegal, a consulting company for legal departments. Nora Teuwsen is also a board member of the “Menschen für Menschen” Foundation and a member of the Board of Directors of Raiffeisenbank St. Gallen.
Sustainability today demands more than diagnosing crises — it requires rethinking how societies adapt, innovate, and thrive amid uncertainty.
We invite authors to contribute to a deeper, more constructive understanding of sustainability, one that moves beyond familiar binaries and embraces the complexity of real-world transitions. To check out more information, see our Topics page: https://www.mdpi.com/topics/3QQF24UKWM
We also welcome conceptual and theoretical contributions from geography, sociology, economics, ethics, philosophy, anthropology, urban studies, and adjacent fields that challenge schematic thinking in sustainability. At a time when uncertainty and change have become defining conditions rather than a temporary disturbance, resilience should not be understood merely as recovery. It should be seen as the capacity to reimagine systems as future foundations for shared well-being. This Topic aims to explore that shift.
Toward an Opportunity-Driven Approach in Resilience Management
Bridging Swiss economic tradition with global foresight, this gathering invites senior scientists, executives, investors, and policy makers to reflect on and reshape the strategies that will define opportunity-driven leadership in an age of disruption. With keynotes by global thought leaders and a site visit to world-class companies in the Zurich Greater Area, the overall objective to the event is to equip its participants with the ability to better grasp not just the risks but also the opportunities associated with the current highly volatile political and economic environment.
The conference is conceived as a bridge-building event designed to improve communication and mutual learning between the local and the global level as well as between potentially rivalrous world regions through cooperation and innovation.
Recent insights from empirical research as well as the world of practice confirm the view that resilience is not a reactive but a proactive concept. It includes the ability of business and society to develop, test and eventually deploy solution-oriented innovations that effectively address emerging challenges related to climate change, environmental hazards, supply chain disruptions, food shortages and energy blackouts and migration-induced urban growth. Joint investments in innovation, in return, enhance the capabilities, agility, and flexibility to cope with disruption. These theoretical considerations have been successfully put into practice in innovative and complex economic ecosystems, often located in unexpected places. The conference aims at giving such decentralized clusters of innovation more visibility to enable decision-makers in government and business to learn from the experience and integrate the insights into their own resilience strategies.
Don't miss the opportunity to join us for dinner on 15 January 2026 at the restaurant Spitz https://restaurantspitz.ch/.
To join us, please add the option as an "extra" when registering. Apéro + Dinner + Drinks are included.
Spitz, Restaurant / Bar / Bistro / Anlässe
Museumstrasse 2, 8001 Zürich
Telefon: 044 221 94 77
https://www.instagram.com/restaurantspitz/
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Dr. Laura Pérez Martín
Ms. Michelle Schuchert
Dr. Ana Sanchis
Conference Email: zforum-1@mdpi.com
For any inquiries regarding the event, please feel free to contact us.
Join us on LinkedIn Events!
If you want to stay updated with the latest information, or if you want to connect with your fellow researchers before, during, and after the event, then be sure to join the Z-Forum on Sustainability and Innovation - LinkedIn Event.
See you there!
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Want to be added to our list of attendees? Register now!