Lift and ESA join forces to create new business opportunities

Breaking away from a traditional format, ESA, the State Secretariat of Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), the Swiss IAP Ambassador Platform (AP-Swiss) and Lift have joined forces to offer a new design to the annual ARTES Applications Conference. The objective of this conference is to present the latest developments in commercial services and applications of satellites. 

“Lift, the leading innovation conference in Switzerland, is the obvious partner for Switzerland to host ESA’s ARTES Applications Conference and showcase Swiss and European innovation in the satellite applications business. By bringing together the ESA and Lift communities, we hope to create the perfect mix of innovative thinking and powerful technologies to trigger new developments that will make our lives better, safer and more enjoyable”, says José Achache, Managing Director of AP-Swiss. 

“Lift to Space will welcome startups, scientists, researchers, economic actors and innovators. It will explore new business applications benefiting from satellites and stimulate the emergence of new ideas and services through interactive joint breakout sessions” says Amnon Ginati, Head of Integrated Applications at ESA. 

Alongside the workshops and masterclasses, Lift participants will discover an exhibition of the most exciting Swiss and European startups in the space arena. 

On February 4 in the morning, ESA will host a plenary session, inviting executives and politicians to share their visions of the future of space for science, exploration, technology developments and applications for a daily lives.

Joint Workshop Program
“We are co-creating workshops with ESA to allow exchanges and open the way to new collaborations and projects. We are delighted to bring great content from the space topic to the Lift community - and to promote the potential of business and commercial applications around ESA technologies”, says Abir Oreibi, President of Lift.

The “Design Fiction” Workshop is an approach to design that speculates about new ideas through prototyping and storytelling. This workshop, hosted by a group of designers and startup experts, will address several questions regarding the possible results of these emerging technologies, such as sensor systems, in its potential daily use.

The “Business Models in Satellite Data Applications” workshop will take place on the 5th of February to present concrete use cases of space application startups and established players. The objective is to inspire entrepreneurs from the Lift community to get involved and get a better grasp on the business opportunities in this field.

To leverage ESA activities in Africa, a session on “Africa, Finance and Technology” will take place on the same day. In this session ESA projects related to Africa, finance and technology will be presented, followed by discussions with African entrepreneurs.

ESA Masterclasses
ESA will host a number of interesting masterclasses exploring topics such as “Space data for sustainable services”, Building Growth and Value” and “Maritime applications”.