Start-up culture is still heavily male-dominated, especially in the tech sector. As a female founder working in a technical field, Flückiger is therefore the exception rather than the rule – though the dynamic CTO hopes her career will motivate other women to take the plunge. After 15 years as a member of a football club and a childhood spent playing the drums, she was never intimidated by the fact that most of her fellow students were male. Instead, she says she took their boldness and ambition as a template for her own career, and this attitude has served her well ever since: “Young women need strong female role models to show them that studying at ETH is cool and something they can genuinely aspire to.”
Her determination to get young women interested in materials science was evident even during her student days, when she helped present the subject to secondary-school pupils. Nowadays, her ETH degree earns her credibility and respect among the male members of the start-up scene. For her, it is proof of her achievements, and she is rightly proud of the significance it holds. Flückiger is an enthusiastic member of networks such as “We shape Tech” and “Woman in Tech”, which enable her to meet and learn from women who have trodden this path before her. The young entrepreneur finds their occasional meet-ups over coffee inspiring and motivating, and it reinforces her hope that she, too, could one day be a role model for young women.
