Cutiss’ CEO Daniela Marino wins “Female Innovator of the Year Award”

Female Innovation Forum organized by the Swiss Ladies Drive offers female founders with a platform the share and learn from each other through themed workshops, keynotes and networking. The second edition was equivalently successful with an attendance of more than 200 female founders, aspiring entrepreneurs and enthusiasts as well as business angels and investors.

Following the six themed workshops under the motto: “to make ideas bigger better faster together”, five keynotes and live pitches, the event culminated with the bestowal of two awards: the Female Innovator of the Year which recognizes innovative female-founded startups, and the recognition award for organisations dedicated to addressing current societal issues.

The “Female Innovator of the Year Award” went to Daniela Marino, CEO of Cutiss. The company was particularly awarded for its innovativeness and the technology behind their business. Cutiss, a spinoff of the University of Zurich, is developing a bio-engineered personalized and permanent skin graft «denovoSkin» to treat skin defects including burns. Unlike existing methods which involve harvesting healthy skin to directly transplant on the injured area, Cutiss takes a small tissue of skin from the patient and uses its technology to grow and stretch it to up to 70 times. This mechanism allows for the production of larger skin grafts to cover any size of the injured area with a lower degree of scarring after the transplantation.

Following more than 15 years of research, Cutiss incorporated in 2017 and has since built a tremendous track record which includes expanding its team to 35 employees, capital raise of CHF7.2 million in a Series A round, in addition to funds from EU SME Instrument and other sources. The selection jury was mainly impressed by the Cutiss novelty and the teams’ devotion. As an award, Marino received multiple prizes from FIF partners and supporters.

Bettina Hirsig from Powercoders receives a recognition award
The recognition award was bestowed onto Bettina Hirsig for her engagement in shaping the lives of refugees. Through Powercoders, Bettina and her team provide refugees with a 3 months coding program followed by a 3 to 6 months internship. The goal is to enable trained refugees to secure a permanent job in IT-companies and IT-departments. Currently, more than 100 individuals have participated in the program securing either a job, apprenticeship, internship or have enrolled in further IT studies. Powercoders is active in Berm, Zurich, Lausanne, Basel and Istanbul, Turkey. Hirsig received several prizes including a workshop with the Chief Risk Officer from EY Switzerland.

Photo by Markus Mallaun: Daniela Marino (holding blue sculpture) Bettina Hirsig (holding green sculpture).