Design – from a scientific viewpoint
The guests of honour at the Rethinking Design reception were also impressed by the variety of the objects on display. They then listened to a discussion on the topic of design, conducted by several of the ETH professors involved in the exhibition – Kristina Shea, Philippe Block, Gisbert Schneider and Simone Schürle – in a full-to-capacity pavilion. Their conclusion: the demands made on the design of objects change over time, whether in relation to appearance, use or efficiency. “In our era of increasingly scarce resources, it is important that scientists and engineers take sustainability into account as early as the design phase,” said architecture professor Philippe Block. After the panel discussion, guests had the opportunity to view the exhibition and grill the researchers. The exhibition covered everything from game design and a virtual reality tour through ETH’s Robotic Fabrication Laboratory to new materials, such as an “artificial tree” that converts CO2 and light into solar power, lightweight fibres that could replace steel cables, and a new material that could be used to construct computers in future.
ETH hosts official WEF event
The public exhibition was only one part of ETH Zurich’s involvement at the WEF: the University also organised various events for invited guests. The first of these was the panel discussion “The Ethical Imperative”. Moderated by Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of
Nature
, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon (European Research Council), Brian P. Schmidt (President of the Australian National University) and ETH professor Gabriela Hug discussed the necessity and feasibility of an ethical code for science. Other panels, organised with the support of major IT companies such as Microsoft and Google, focused on a topic of central importance to the future of humanity: artificial intelligence. The panellists agreed that we should not be led by fear: new materials and new technologies have always changed human civilisation – and thereby helped it to progress.