With the ultimate goal of developing innovative mitigation techniques, the international geotechnical engineering community has made substantial efforts to gain deeper insights on geotechnical hazards. For the state of practice to advance, academics need to join forces with practitioners.
The Winter School aims to bring these two groups together, to question the status quo, and to propose out-of-the-box solutions. The programme will combine:
(a) Keynote lectures by international experts from the academia and the industry;
(b) Seminars on state-of-the-art numerical and physical modelling techniques;
(c) Presentations by the participants;
(d) Panel sessions, where the participants will have a “debate” with industry and academia experts on the applicability of their ideas; and
(e) Special session on start-ups, on the process of product development, from initial conception to founding of a new company.
It is envisaged that this novel setup will not only expose the participants to different points-of-view, but will also allow cross–fertilization of ideas between the academia and the industry. Industry experts will have an opportunity to gain an overview of the latest developments, but also to contribute in shaping these ideas so that innovations can have a better chance of finding their way to practise. The Special session on start-ups aims to further emphasize the path from innovation to application.
The participants will benefit from this chance to learn from, and challenge, senior researchers and industry experts, interact with each other, engage in critical thinking and to build international networks.
More information can be found at:
https://geotechnics.ethz.ch/en/ws2020.html