More than 220 projects were submitted for the W.A. de Vigier Award 2018. A jury evaluated the entries and chose 16 companies for the next round. These were then assessed and presented their ideas to the Foundation Board, who chose the ten finalists from which the five winners were selected. The assessment of the projects placed emphasis on entrepreneurial personality, innovative character, macrosocial relevance, technical and financial feasibility, market opportunities and level of job creation.
Alongside AUDATIC GmbH from Zurich, INVOLI from Renens and SUN bioscience from Lausanne were two ETH Zurich spin-offs.
Wearable muscles for people with limited mobility
Myoswiss
has developed the Myosuit, a layer of wearable muscles that support everyday activities. The solution combines robotics and functional textiles in a comfortable product that weighs less than five kilograms. Innovative algorithms combined with sensor and actuator technology control the supporting forces while the user is moving. The Myosuit also made it to the final of the Spark Award in 2017.
A new generation of cables
Cables are fragile, which can be a problem, particularly in applications such as medical devices and factory robots.
nanoleq
has developed a fundamentally new kind of cable technology. Under mechanical stress, the FlexOne cable has a lifetime up to a hundred times longer than that of a standard cable, while retaining its high flexibility. nanoleq’s target markets are medical technology, high-end audio applications and robotics.
