Mission Statement
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| "EPFL is one of the two Federal Institutes of Technology in Switzerland. Like its sister institution, ETHZ, it has three missions: education, research and technology transfer at the highest international level." |
Support to entrepreneurs
EPFL is considering innovation and technology transfer as a critical mission of academic institutions. With its Garage, a building for very early stage start-ups, the close-by PSE (Parc Scientifique) and the Innovation Square for established companies, EPFL has all the tools to welcome innovative companies. EPFL generated 15 new start-ups in 2011.
The Innogrants are an internal grant mechanism where the school can support its entrepreneurs before they create their company. Since 2005, 50 projects have been funded and despite the obvious risky status of such projects, more than 28 companies have been founded: Aimago, Aleva, Attolight, Daav, Digital Optim, Excellness Biotech, Enairys, Imina Technologies, Inocs, Jilion, Lemoptix, Madeinlocal, Minsh, Novagan, Ozwe, Prediggo, Routerank, StereoTools, Swissto12. This tool has also an indirect role: encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit. The MICS Spin Fund is a similar tool which supported Scala or Kandou for example. Together with the College of Management of Technology and also with the help of the “innovation ecosystem” including PSE, CTI, venturelab and many others, the Innogrants contribute to encourage young and dynamic people in trying, taking risks in facing uncertainty and sometimes failure.
The organization of the “venture ideas” events have been important as another encouragement tool. Role models, successful entrepreneurs such as Franck Riboud (Danone) Marc Burki (Swissquote), Eric Favre (Nespresso), Aart de Geus (Synopsys), Pierre Chappaz (Kelkoo) and even Daniel Rossellat (Paleo Festival) told their daily challenges will hopefully create vocations among researchers and students. In 2012, the founders of Kandou, Koka and Housetrip will be the first speakers. As a final word, the Innogrants would not have been possible without the support of its generous “friends”: Lombard Odier is the original partner of the Innogrants; in addition KPMG and Helbling celebrate outstanding EPFL innovations.