MTEC Day 2021

On 22 October 2021, the MTEC Department honoured its MSc, MAS and doctoral graduates at this year’s MTEC Day. MTEC Day is an annual event that brings together graduates, alumni, faculty and key stakeholders from business and academia, with the aim of strengthening the personal and professional relationships between them.

26.10.2021 by Simone Giusti

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A total of 250 graduates, alumni, faculty members and guests participated in the celebrations, which took place at the ETH Main Building. Due to the ongoing pandemic, attendance at MTEC Day was restricted to graduates with one accompanying guest, with separate events held for MSc/doctoral and MAS graduates. Family and friends were also able to watch the graduation ceremony via live stream. A reception with talar shooting, where graduates could dressed in the traditional gown, was held afterwards in the Alumni Pavillon.

D-MTEC Professors Peter Egger, Ursula Renold and Stefano Brusoni gave speeches congratulating the graduates on their achievements. The keynote speaker, Alison Martin, CEO EMEA and Bank Distribution at Zurich Insurance Group, delivered an excellent commencement speech entitled “Leading with Purpose”. In two other inspiring speeches, D-MTEC graduates Niklas Friederici and Dr Özge Karakas shared experiences and impressions from their D-MTEC studies.

Awards and Prizes

MTEC Day is also an occasion to honour outstanding academic work, including Master’s and doctoral theses.

The Willi Studer Prize and the MAS Excellence Award are awarded to the students with the best overall academic performance, based on their Grade Point Average (GPA). This year’s recipients were:

MSc graduate Marc Leibundgut (Willi Studer Prize), whose Master’s thesis, “Resilience of value network configurations during the Covid-19 pandemic”, was supervised by Professor Torbjørn Netland, Chair of Production and Operations Management
MAS graduate Raphael Seebacher (MAS Excellence Award), whose Master's thesis, “Towards Predicting Hardware Failure”, was supervised by Professor Stefan Feuerriegel, Chair of Management Information Systems
MAS graduate Gianluca Vinzens (MAS Excellence Award), whose Master’s thesis, “Innovation as a strategic value booster at Inventage”, was supervised by Professor Stefano Brusoni, Chair of Technology and Innovation Management

ETH Medals are awarded to the authors of the best MSc Master’s theses and outstanding doctoral theses. This year’s recipients were:

MSc graduate Masha Khoshnama for her Master’s thesis, “New Forms of Democracy: The Case of Co-Voting”, supervised by Professor Hans Gersbach, Chair of Macroeconomics: Innovation and Policy
Dr Burcu Küçükkeles for her doctoral thesis, “Practicing Repurposing in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Uncovering New Uses for Potential Resources”, supervised by Professor Georg von Krogh, Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation
Dr Gabriel Loumeau for his doctoral thesis, “Essays on the Economic Geography of the Public Sector”, supervised by Professor Marko Köthenbürger, Chair of Public Economics
Dr Hélène Schernberg for her doctoral thesis, “Essays on Risk and Time – with Applications in Insurance and Finance”, supervised by Professor Antoine Bommier, Chair of Integrative Risk Management and Economics

Welcome to ETH Alumni

Towards the end of both ceremonies, Dr Isabel Spicker, D-MTEC Coordinator Short Courses, Alumni Relations & Mentoring, officially bid farewell to the graduates and invited them to stay in touch with the department. Luka Manola, ETH Alumnus and Board Member, ETH Alumni Engineering & Management (EAEM) and Siddhartha Arora, President of MAS MTEC Alumni, welcomed all the graduates as ETH Alumni.

Farewell

After the official graduation ceremony at Audimax, the Head of Department invited all guests to a reception in the Alumni Pavillon where the traditional talar shooting took place. The MTEC Department was extremely proud to have been able to hold this graduation ceremony despite the difficult circumstances. The department encouraged all graduates to stay in touch, and to explore the various offerings of the D-MTEC and ETH Alumni organisations.