Science, Technology and Policy Alumni Generalversammlung und Alumni Talk

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After a successful first event in September, the STP Alumni organised its first general assembly as well as its very first Alumni Talk. The Alumni Talk series will give the opportunity to a former ISTP student once per year to present his or her policy-relevant work to the other Alumni. We began our series with Philippe Stadler Benz, senior project leader smart city at SBB. He talked about his work at the Smart City Lab Basel.

General Assembly

The two goals of this first General Assembly (GA), shortly after the creation of the faculty group in the summer, were to elect the board members and give the current and future members a chance to express their wishes regarding the general direction of the association for the coming years. It was decided that the incumbents, Amir Mikail, Sebastian Wagner and Scott Reiser will continue serving as board members in 2020 with Scott Reiser as president.

On the second agenda point, the members of the assembly seized the opportunity to express their wishes for the association in 2020. Among the suggestions, the GA expressed its interests for interactive events like, for example, workshops or excursions, in addition to the presentations and apéros. The board will consider this in planning the next events in 2020.

Alumni Talk from Philippe Stadler Benz – Smart City Lab Basel

After this short official part, the event continued with the Alumni Talk. The externe SeiteSmart City Lab Baselcall_made is a joint initiative from SBB and the Canton of Basel Stadt. It should be perceived as an innovation hub for Smart Cities in Switzerland. In addition to enabling co-working and event organisation, the Smart City Lab provides a modulable space for testing prototypes and explorative projects from SBB and its partners, as for example intelligent lighting, sustainable logistics or vertical farming in the city.

On the policy side, it gives the canton of Basel Stadt and SBB a unique opportunity to experiment and innovate in this small market niche with active user involvement applying multi-method and multi-stakeholder approaches.

Philippe’s engaging presentation led to numerous questions and an interesting discussion around experimentation, data governance and the role of a federal agency in policy-related innovation.
We thank him again for accepting our invitation and wish him all the best in contributing to the innovation in the Swiss Smart City sector.

Next Event

We are happy to already announce our next event in 2020. In the context of the ISTP Colloquium series, we are thrilled that Cornelia Kawann, head of market surveillance at the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission (ELCom) has accepted to give a Colloquium on the 28th of April. She will present the work of the Swiss Electricity Commission as well as the challenges lying ahead for the market surveillance at the ELCom. The colloquium will, of course, be followed by an apéro.

In order to stay posted, sign up in MyAlumni, join our externe SeiteLinkedin groupcall_made or visit our webpage. Finally, we welcome all suggestions, feedbacks and will be happy to answer your questions. Should you have any, please don’t hesitate to write us an email at .