Celebrating 10 years of innovation: Summary
With the theme "Celebrating 10 years of innovation!", the Department of Health Sciences and Technology celebrated its 10th anniversary on September 30, 2022 in the main building of ETH Zurich.
In an entertaining afternoon full of information and surprises, the members of the department learned from each other what has been achieved in the various fields that we work on. After the informative event we raised our glasses to these achievements as well as to the future of the department.
The afternoon program was professionally and charmingly led by Bill Taylor, Professor of Movement Biomechanics and currently deputy head of the department. He first gave the floor to Professor of Food Chemistry and current head of department Laura Nyström, who summarized the past 10 years. During her speech, she gave Wolfgang Langhans, who was the first head of D-HEST and is now emeritus, a few minutes of speaking time via video link - the first of many surprises of the afternoon.
Detlef Günther, Vice President Research of ETH Zurich, then gave an overview of the importance of D-HEST for ETH Zurich and appraised our achievements. He presented the surprised department head with a stone as a gift, noting that it would last longer than the plexiglass trophy which, as a rule, is placed in the hands of all our heads when they take office!
In a rapid succession of videos, short talks and demos, the institutes and their research were presented. The individual research groups gave free rein to their creativity in the run-up to the event and put together videos and other contributions, some of which were funny but always informative, all of which were very well received by the audience.
After the coffee break, the presentation of our study programs was on the agenda. The directors of the Medicine, Food Science and Health Sciences and Technology programs had spared no effort in presenting their programs in an entertaining and humorous manner.
Afterwards, a representative of HAS, D-HEST's association of scientific staff, took the stage and stimulated the audience's thinking in a quiz.
The afternoon program concluded with a panel discussion on "Transfer of Research Breakthroughs to Practice." Chaired by Bill Taylor, the four participants engaged in a lively discussion about the challenges and opportunities of translating research results into practice in a profitable way.
In between lively presentation blocks, DuoCalva provided great entertainment with their cello comedy. The duo was already present at the opening ceremony in 2012 and was happy to perform for us again 10 years later.
We thank all participants for their great contributions and the audience for their open-mindedness and attention!
