Who We Are

The NEO Net­work («NEO» for short) is a stu­dent think tank and net­work ded­i­cat­ed to ex­plore and to ad­dress tomorrow‘s chal­lenges with the lead­ing in­dus­try ex­perts, sci­en­tists and en­tre­pre­neurs at the largest Swiss universities.

To pow­er these en­deav­ors, we are a de­lib­er­ate­ly rich and di­verse stu­dents com­mu­ni­ty of both men and women from every sci­en­tif­ic dis­ci­pline – all con­nect­ed by a shared op­ti­mism to­wards sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy and a com­mon ded­i­ca­tion to ad­vance the sta­tus quo in or­der to shape our com­mu­ni­ties for the better.

NEO (from «néos», an­cient greek) is based on three pil­lars: NEO Keynotes, NEO Net­work and NEO Labs. We con­nect and in­ter­act through our net­work, ex­plore and un­der­stand in our keynotes and cre­ate and im­pact at our labs.

Events

Past, Present and Future

Why

Reason and Purpose

As much as this new era of rad­i­cal tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vances (see fo­cus top­ics be­low) hold the promise to im­prove the state of the world and cre­ate wealth and pros­per­i­ty, they will con­front us with new thorny risks, prob­lems and chal­lenges. You are the young gen­er­a­tion, today‘s high po­ten­tials, fu­ture lead­ers and pol­i­cy mak­ers. As you will steer us through this era, we aim to pro­vide you with a plat­form that en­ables both a con­tin­u­ous and con­struc­tive ex­change about our future.

We en­cour­age you to be part of this move­ment, to think for­ward, to em­brace thought lead­er­ship and to con­tribute with the best of your tal­ents in or­der to ad­vance the sta­tus quo and shape our com­mu­ni­ties for the better.

How

Activities and Endeavors

To de­liv­er on the promise of NEO‘s foun­da­tion­al pur­pose, our ac­tiv­i­ties are based on three in­ter­re­lat­ed pil­lars: The NEO Net­work, NEO Keynotes and NEO Labs. The NEO Net­work is at the core of our ac­tiv­i­ties and pro­vides the peo­ple, the di­ver­si­ty and col­lec­tive in­tel­li­gence need­ed to mean­ing­ful­ly ex­plore and ad­dress tomorrow‘s challenges.

Nur­tur­ing a com­mon and shared un­der­stand­ing is the first vi­tal as­pect to ad­vance present con­di­tions. The NEO Keynotes are de­vot­ed to serve this pur­pose and ex­plore the fu­ture chal­lenges brought about by cutting-edge tech­nolo­gies with the lead­ing in­dus­try ex­perts, sci­en­tists and en­tre­pre­neurs at the largest Swiss uni­ver­si­ties. They raise aware­ness for thorny risks and chal­lenges, en­hance our un­der­stand­ing of caus­es and ef­fects and sharp­en our future-oriented and plu­ral­is­tic thinking.

Know­ing the chal­lenges is one thing; act­ing upon them is an­oth­er. Build­ing upon a shared un­der­stand­ing, the sec­ond step to dri­ve change, are gen­uine ef­forts to­wards cre­ative in­no­va­tion. This is why we pro­vide mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty the op­por­tu­ni­ty to tack­le the chal­lenges they are ea­ger to solve at the NEO Labs. Be­ing unit­ed through the net­work, mem­bers form cir­cles of peers and elect them­selves into the think tank, to em­brace de­sign think­ing, break with ex­ist­ing norms and poli­cies and ex­per­i­ment with new ideas and ap­proach­es – to turn thorny chal­lenges into vi­able opportunities.

Who

Members and Values

Our min­i­mal re­quire­ment for mem­ber­ship is your im­ma­tric­u­lata­tion as a Bachlor, Mas­ter or Doc­tor­al stu­dent at a Swiss uni­ver­si­ty. We wel­come do­mes­tic as well as ex­change stu­dents from all sci­en­tif­ic dis­ci­plines – from law and eco­nom­ics to en­gi­neer­ing and physics to med­i­cine and biology.

Our com­mu­ni­ty is based on val­ues of mu­tu­al trust, re­spect and com­mit­ment. We en­dorse ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and in­clu­sion and wel­come stu­dents ir­re­spec­tive of race, gen­der, na­tion­al­i­ty, dis­abil­i­ty, re­li­gion, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or ori­gin and re­quire all mem­bers to ad­here to these values.

What

Focus and Topics

A new in­dus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion awaits us with an over­whelm­ing breadth of tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs and will con­nect tech­nolo­gies among the phys­i­cal, dig­i­tal and bi­o­log­i­cal spheres; rang­ing from ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and ro­bot­ics, to syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, to ad­vanced ma­te­ri­als and 3D print­ing – to name just few. Our scope of top­ics con­sid­ered is in­ten­tion­al­ly held broad to at­tract stu­dents from a mul­ti­tude of sci­en­tif­ic disciplines.