Background
In the face of COVID-19, healthcare providers are reporting needs for various medical equipment and other technical solutions. Researchers realized that Swiss academia could use its expertise to help cope with these needs and to try to prevent a dwindling of reserves, as well as keeping supply chains upright. Healthcare workers should not be held up by trying to find solutions.
helpfulETH is part of the ETH Task Force.
The initiative helpfulETH started as an idea by the Feasibility Lab for Healthcare Innovation. The Feasibilty Lab was founded in January 2020 by Mirko Meboldt (Professor for Product Development and Engineering Design) together with Professor Detlef Günther (Vice President for Research and Corporate Relations) at ETH Zurich. The Feasibility Lab’s motivation is to promote interdisciplinary engineering projects between healthcare stakeholders and ETH researchers.
Dr. Stephan Fox, who leads the Feasibility Lab, realized the need for a major project to support healthcare stakeholders in the COVID-19 challenge and started by reaching out to Universitätsspital Zürich. Simultaneously, other institutions within the ETH Domain had started similar initiatives and parts of healthcare had begun reaching out. It was clear that the best way forward was to join forces.
Equally convinced that helping healthcare in the face of COVID-19 is a borderless goal, Professor Andreas Mortensen (Vice President for Research), Professor Ali H. Sayed (Dean of the School of Engineering) and Professor Jan S. Hesthaven (Dean of the School of Basic Sciences) at EPFL Lausanne, instantly showed their full support to contribute to the initiative. Professor David Atienza Alonso (Director of the Section of EE (SEL) and Head of Embedded Systems Laboratory (ESL) at the School of Engineering) takes the leading role in coordinating and defining the EPFL team joining helpfulETH and connects to the initiatives already taken by the EPFL.
The initiative helpfulETH is growing daily and is happy to witness the coming together of the scientific community! helpfulETH is pleased to now call itself an initiative by the ETH Domain and all of Swiss academia, with the aim of placing the capacities and engineering expertise of Swiss academia and Swiss industrial partners at the disposal of the Swiss healthcare system in order to offer as much support as possible to tackle COVID-19.
Our philosophy
Mission statement:
Our aim is to remove hurdles faced by medical practitioners in connection with COVID-19 as quickly as possible by connecting them to capable engineering teams.
«If you need to be right before you move – you will never win. Perfection is the enemy of the good»
(Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO Executive Director)
Having an impact
- We provide solutions that help at least 1 person
- We aim for being able to help with our talents & skills
- We share our solutions with all medical practitioners
Atmosphere of open doors
- We take every opinion seriously
- We tackle difficulties as a team
- We have an environment of cooperation
Making clear decisions and leading as an attendant
- We keep the scope in mind of removing hurdles as quickly as possible
- We communicate early and transparently
- We follow the agile project leadership principle: support and enable
People of helpfulETH
It takes a lot of capable and committed people to start and keep an initiative like helpfulETH going! We are growing all the time!
Below are some of us in a giant screenshot and you can also find the names of all current members. The list of names is updated weekly.
In order to see who is on which project, please refer to our projects page.
We have a big townhall meeting every week – here’s some of us!
Lead of helpfulETH: Professor Mirko Meboldt (ETHZ) and Professor David Atienza Alonso (EPFL)
Alexander Lutz, Anna Ehgartner, Stefanie Dennis, Lauren Clack, Johannes Heck, Konstantinos Magkoutas, Benjamin Geisser, Felix Wang, Stefan Bertschi, Zuzi Hajickova, Kiran Kuruvithadam, Viviane Gamboni, Urs Hofmann, Niko Tachatos, Michael Kummer, Florian Bütler, Ronny hoffmann, Michael Röttcher, Patrick Steiner, Gabriel Engelhart, Katja Sonderegger, Fabian Stelling, Melina Mast, Lea Helfenstein, Stefan Schmid, Harry Woodfin, Max Wegmüller, Marianne Schmid Daners, Stephan Fox, Stephan Wegner, Jan Zimmermann, Stefan Boës, Marcel Gort, Elise Aeby, Carina Känzig, Marvin Breuch, Daniel Kirschenbaum, Mathis Först, Marc Widmer, Tom Gerber, Christoph Lindinger, joan puig, Pietro Maoddi, Yubina Kim, Nazila Rasoulzadeh Dabagh, Robin Hanhart, Philipp Stücklin, Mirko Meboldt, Sarah Luo, Kerrin Weiss, Bardia M. Zanganeh, Melanie Wiesel, Ralph Rosenbauer, Claudia Boschung, Verena Maria Jeske, Amilie Duong, Christian Vahlensieck, Jean-Claude Schwarzen, Frederick Waldern, Christoph Klahn, Julian Ferchow, Luca Schaufelberger, Phyllis Hofmann, Julian Hengsteler, Marcel Schmid, Simon Baur, Lewis Jones, Fabian Engler, Oliver von Rotz, Marc Meyers, Katya Lomakina, Christian Wassmer, Christian Pihuave, Oliver Harley, Julia Posselt, Konstantin Schulz-Schönhagen, David Ochsner, Cornel Dillinger, Mahmoud Jafargholi, Nadja Meister, Andrea Veciana, barbara jeroncic, Thomas Roth, Kristina Shea, Jan Aidel, Kashish Mallick, Sam Zurcher, Marco Giordano, Ulrich Samuel Nino, Carlos Vigo, Daniele Cipriano, Stefan Gstöhl, chris luebkeman, Robin Kämpf, Sara May, Mohammad Ismael Nouraddini, Anders Hagström, Larissa Schefer, Philip Stark, Julius Klaas, Nino Delmedico, Anna Maria Stallmann, Christian wolf, Doruk Efe Gökmen, Matthias Fischli, Lin Boynton, Luca Di Tizio, Kordian Caplazi, Patrick Hörnlimann, Andrei Jipa, Jean Schmitt, Manuel Breit, Lorenzo Scazziga, Christoph Zuidema, Carole Rapo, Thierry Backes, Philipp Scherrer, Tobias Gatschet, Sinan Ulugöl, Lauren Price, Kai von Petersdorff, Bettina Müller, Tobias Peteler, Noemi Kaufmann, Timo Schneider, Mariia Naumenko, Jonathan Huegi, Charlotte Kukowski, Aaron Müller, Eleonora Secchi, Melanie Hannebelle, Patrick Jiranek, Martin Batliner, Jonas Windhager, Enrico Scoccimarro, ole mueller, BinBin Pearce, Monique Borcard-Sacco, Florian Moser, Roland Haas, Patrick Beutler, Marcus Kuhn, Alex Walzer, Andreas Michalski, Ralph L. Wunderlin, Berk Nergiz, Patrick Bedarf, Lars Gerchow, Gokula Englberger, Sophie Lohmann, Annalisa Stefanelli, Martin Dubach, Tony Laenzlinger, Elodie Bobillon, Pius Durrer, Jonathan Benhamu, Matthias Studiger, Sébastien Guarnay, Nicola Graf, Fernando Ardana, Viktoras Kulionis, Till Batt, martin roesch, Jonathan Perraudin, Fabio Meier, Charon Orjela, Luca Bosetti, Simon R., Robin Jahn, Dorothee Kurz, Nicole Deubelbeiss, Eduard Wagner, Julian Swoboda, Shannon Doyle, Lena Herting, Hannah Niese, Georg Gruetzner, Esteban Finol, Blaise Morel, Felix Gast, Samuel Cotture, Stéphane Clerc, David Atienza, Madhav Sachdeva, Pascal Rothe, Flavio Hagenbuch, Nicola Küng, Francesco Ferri, Martin Gonzenbach, Peter Ruth, Prince Tiwari, Pietro Odaglia, Luca Hasler, Hanspeter Keel, Marc Wettstein, Marin Lercher, Antoine Gagliardi, Uria Alcolombri, Celeste Carruth, Leonie Muggenthaler, Marcel Gygli, Nic Schätti, Michail Tsopelas, Patrick Frigg, Agustin Musi, Jasmine Tac, Ramis Schiegg, Bernhard Glas, David Walsh, Pouya Pourjafar, Theo Deutschmann, Lotti Speglitz, Johannes Weichart, Alexandra Ion, Xiaobao Cao, Giovan Battista Cavadini, Carmen Steinmann, Johannes Vögerl, Stefan Keller, Michael Scharfstein, Martina Vera Schuppisser, André Fattet, Gerber, Sandrine, Theo Dressler, Georg Müller, Bal Jagpal, Jasmin Stoff, Peyman Khodadust Gamechi, Prasad Pulikal, Aleksandra Kim, Menippos Vouzas, Julian Haug, Julian Wolf, Vladimir Rott, Matthias Studiger, Cleo Serban, nicolas baumann, Sebastien Actis-Datta, Stefan Rietmann, Anna de Vries, Oliver Zurin, Ramona Achermann, Tiziano Di Pietro, Lorenz Riess, Robert Becker, Cameron Boggon, Yeji Wi, Marianna Diamantopoulou, Angela Patricia Leon, Andre Jankowitz, Thomas Dysli, Parham DAVA, Daniel Epprecht, Zhong Yin, Aruna Ponnusamy, Aj Thomas, Patricia Künzle, Nicole Liviero, Leon Hinderling, Roland Winkler, Rebecca Frank, Mark Melnykowycz, Athanasios Nenes, Alix Pham, Nadine Schneider, Sebastian Gautsch, Robin Hänni, Dominique Pioletti, Jens Lauber, Philippe Dominique, Christos Lataniotis, Florence Blanckarts, Felipe mejía, arzije asani, Maria Pensa, David Gut, Jana Bünder, Joris Burger, Elisa Espin, Michael Schönbächler, Gregor Jundt, Marc Pfyl, Andri Bisaz, Marguerite Fauroux, Ankit Jain, Tobias Jäggi, Lea van der Geest, Tabea Patt, Nicolas Meneses, Gery Büsser, Mikas Urbonavicius, Paul Kindt, Xeno Büsser, Torbjørn Netland, Samuel Staubli, Lucrecia Almaraz-Sonder, Alexander Däpp, Georg Fantner, Anna Sulzer…
Institutions of helpfulETH
Our members come from academic institutions, industry and healthcare. Below are the logos of our members:
Initiative Partners
Project Partners
