Keynote Speakers

Prof. Benoît Dubuis is a Swiss engineer, entrepreneur and academic leader working at the intersection of science, technology, medicine and innovation.

He is President of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW) and President of the Fondation Inartis, where he develops new models for translating knowledge into economic and societal impact. He is also Professor at the University of Geneva, President of the reConnect Institute, affiliated with Institut Pasteur, and Dean of the Sino-Swiss Institute of Advanced Technology. In 2025, he was elected Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

A chemical engineer from EPFL, he holds a PhD from ETH Zurich, awarded the ETH Medal, and completed executive education at IMD. Over more than three decades, his career has spanned industry, academia, entrepreneurship and the creation of major innovation ecosystems. He held senior operational roles at Ciba-Geigy/Novartis and Lonza before joining EPFL, where he founded the School of Life Sciences and became its first Dean. He later co-founded Eclosion, one of Switzerland’s pioneering life-sciences incubators and seed investment platforms. As Executive Director of Campus Biotech Geneva, he helped build a leading ecosystem in neuroscience, neurotechnology, global health and digital health and served as Development Director of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering.

Through Fondation Inartis, he now leads interconnected innovation communities bringing together more than 1,200 people and 70 companies, from advanced prototyping to startup acceleration. His work focuses increasingly on the technologies reshaping competitiveness and sovereignty, from AI and robotics to biotechnology, quantum technologies, energy and advanced manufacturing. He is deeply engaged in connecting Switzerland with international scientific and technological ecosystems, particularly across Europe and China. He is also a member of CAETS (International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences) and Euro-CASE (European Council of Academies of Applied Sciences, Technologies and Engineering), contributing to international cooperation on science, technology and engineering policy.

Across all his activities, one principle remains constant: innovation emerges at interfaces, between disciplines, institutions, cultures and people. His ambition is to create the conditions in which science can move faster from knowledge to action, and from invention to impact.

Director of Gill Westgate Consultancy Ltd.

Dr Gill Westgate is a successful hair and skin scientist with an extensive and varied career obtained in industry (Unilever UK), academia and private consultancy. She has served the cosmetics industry as a consultant for over 20 years and also spent several years in research and knowledge transfer within academia (University of Bradford, UK).