MTEC News Archive

D-​MTEC wishes you happy holidays and a fantastic start to the new year! 2024 has been another exciting year in our community. Lean back and enjoy this video​collage with some highlights from last year. We are back on 6 January 2025.

The Entrepreneurial Leadership Seminar (ELS) offers MSc MTEC and MAS MTEC students a hands-on, collaborative experience. They work with project leaders and senior executives to tackle an organisation's real-world challenges. In 2024, they went to UBS to explore the transformative potential of AI in banking.

For two decades, Professor Frank Schweitzer explored complex social and economic systems at D-MTEC. Before retiring in early 2025, he reflects on what complexity research offers academia, organisations, and students – why understanding structural dynamics and resilience matters. Sebastian Wagner-Vierhaus interviewed him shortly after his farewell lecture.

A new theory challenges how firms manage AI. Gudela Grote and colleagues published the paper in the Academy of Management Review. They argue that developers, users, and managers must share control and accountability through dialogue, negotiation, and careful design. The result could reshape how we trust AI.

Vocational education can enhance youth employment and income while driving systemic change in education systems. A research project co-hosted by D-MTEC’s Chair of Education Systems revealed that robust social institutions, effective collaboration between schools and employers, and long-term reforms are essential for a lasting impact of vocational training.

Matej Svaral is the latest recipient of an ESOP fellowship to pursue his Master’s at D-MTEC. He’s not one to do things half-heartedly. Besides studying, he actively participates in the community as MSA co-president and has an ironclad plan for a leadership career after his studies. That may have something to do with being a triathlete, too.

Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez, a senior researcher at ETH Zurich’s Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec), has secured an Ambizione fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Over the next four years, Nuñez-Jimenez will lead a team in developing a modelling framework capable of simulating policies for net-zero emission technologies from a new perspective.

Are stablecoins actually stable? Former MSc MTEC student Alexander Magnússon has been awarded a 2023 Student Award by the SEW-EURODRIVE Foundation for his Master’s thesis, which explores the stability of stablecoins. His thesis presents a framework that can be used to analyse the issuance of stablecoins backed by risky collateral, offering valuable insights into their stability and potential in the evolving crypto market.

On Sunday 21 April, 34 members of the MTEC Department braved inclement conditions to join some 16,000 other amateur and professional runners competing in the Zurich Marathon, Half-Marathon, and 10K Race. Despite the adverse conditions, the D-MTEC team put in inspiring performances.

On 13 March 2024, feMTEC, Women in Data Science Zurich (WiDS), and Women Techmakers Zurich hosted a panel discussion titled “Impact the Future – Shaping the Next Tech Revolution” in honour of International Women’s Day.