Creative minds mingled to discuss and exchange ideas at our University as part of the START Summit 2015. And who knows – the next Steve Jobs might have been among them.
On the third weekend in April, the concentration of innovative energy within the walls of our Alma Mater on top of the Rosenberg reached dazzling heights. For the third time START Global’s annual flagship event START Summit was held at Switzerland’s leading business University. Having almost doubled the number of participants, from 350 in 2013 to over 600 in this years conference, START Summit now deservedly lauds itself as Europe’s leading conference for entrepreneurship and innovation. As an unbiased spectator, not particularly versed in the start-up scene, I could not help but notice the impressive metamorphosis that our main building had undergone in the days leading up to the summit. The building’s ground level, common setting for many of the lively debates amongst participants throughout the weekend, was entirely draped in navy blue. Whilst an extensive and very generous lunch buffet took up the center of the main floor, much of the remaining area was occupied by fair stands from established companies, ranging from the ubiquitous Microsoft through one of Zurich’s more renowned corporate law firms Walder Wyss to the tobacco industry’s very own Oettinger-Davidoff.
The 2015 START Summit set out to dwarf the conferences of previous years. Potential members of the organizing committee were actively recruited at the beginning of the academic year and venturesome budgetary targets were set. What at first seemed like an Icarus-esque lesson in modesty, turned out to be a task this team was up to. After having doubled the amount of its members, the newly assembled organizing team worked tirelessly towards mounting a weekend destined to eclipse all foregone events within the world of start-ups. With the budget having tripled in comparison to the previous year it was possible to invite renowned guest speakers, such as Futurist José Luis Cordeiro, HAILO CEO Ryo Umezawa or even Austria’s former chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer.
The participants were well taken care of throughout the entire weekend, enjoying all around entertainment from the early hours of Friday to the very latest on Saturday. The Summit was opened with a speech by Google employee and self-proclamed “World Culture Storyteller”, Omid Scheybani. Grand motivational words about being disruptive and shooting for the moon were spoken, and even if one could criticize the lack of effective substance and the considerable amount of redundancy, the optimism spread across the Aula was admirable. Throughout the rest of Friday, further speeches were held, as for instance by Ryo Umezawa, an accomplished business man from Japan. Owning HAILO, a taxi start-up comparable to Uber with a market value of about 20 million dollars, Umezawa has a career upon which many in the start-up scene look with adulation.
As the first day of the conference went by, conference participants were delighted with interesting and interactive workshops by larger firms, as well as emergent start-ups introducing their innovative ideas. As dusk was approaching over the Rosenberg, the exhausted, but hopefully intellectually fulfilled attendants made their way down the stairs of the main building towards the Mensa, where a traditional Swiss dinner had been prepared for them. To set a celebratory end to the day, a pub-crawl through downtown St. Gallen’s most prominent bars had been organized by the START Global team. As amusing and stereotypical for our University it would have been to watch a ravaging mob of out-of-towners bringing disorder to the idyllic world of a rather parochial Swiss town, the nocturnals amongst conference attendants, worn down and fatigued by a long summit day, were sighted leaving the bars relatively early.
Understandably so, as soon after Saturday’s break of dawn the conference continued. Opened by a speech by Alfred Gusenbauer, former chancellor of Austria, venture capital investor and chairman of STRABAG, the summit was underway again for a second and final day. Simultaneously to the primary conference program, aspiring start-ups had the possibility to meet with potential investors, in the form of a discussion round and a get-together held in the study zone on the third floor of the main building. As the day progressed, Dalton Caldwell, partner at Y Combinator, an American seed accelerator that lends money and assists promising start-ups in the early phases of their existence, as well as Venezuelan Futurist José Luis Cordeiro held compelling speeches in the Aula. After having enjoyed another dinner at the university’s Mensa, the attendants were headed towards the inner city of St. Gallen again for the much awaited and well-deserved START after-party held at Trischli.
As Sunday came, the participants, sponsors and investors left St. Gallen, while the organization team was still working hard to dismantle the facilities that had exclusively been erected for the event. Soon after, nothing but pleasant memories reminded of the vivid and creative weekend that came about our campus last weekend. Memories and the certainty, that even as a person not too intuitively fascinated by the world of start-ups, one could easily be taken in by the innovative and positive atmosphere that prevailed during the Start Summit 2015.
