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Threads of Innovation: Weaving Tech into Fashion's Future

Challenge Metadata

Challenge Description

DESCRIPTION

The Innovation Booster Fashion & Lifestyle empowers operational, technological, and social innovations developed with and for the Swiss Fashion and Lifestyle sector.

Leveraging the Leading House community and network, the Innovation Booster Fashion & Lifestyle creates a unique ecosystem enabling the dissemination of radical solutions to the challenges of the sector.

CALL FOR CHALLENGES SPECIFICATIONS

PROBLEM STATEMENT

We are searching for impactful and transformative innovation hypothesis to help the Swiss organizations and society adopting new radical approaches to technologies and cultural shifts, while embracing digitalization and enhancing resilience, agility, and adaptability in an ever-evolving global landscape.

The Fashion industry is struggling to keep up with the rapid acceleration of technology development. We want to foster a deep understanding of the current issues, supporting the co-creation of new potential radical solutions that might enhance industry response to a fast-moving technological and cultural environment.

In considering eligible innovation hypothesis, we report hereafter a list of topics and challenges to be addressed:

AI AND GEN AI

3D-BASED TECHNOLOGIES

OMNICHANNEL, PHYGITAL EXPERIENCES & IMMERSIVE MULTIMEDIA

DATA INTELLIGENCE

ROBOTICS

YOUR BENEFITS

    1. Participate in a transformation journey contributing with new innovation hypothesis and the possibility to co-create and test new potential and radical in the Fashion & Lifestyle Industries
    2. Pitch to a dedicated jury with the opportunity to be funded with up to CHF 28'000.- to test the potential of your idea for its desirability, feasibility or viability (e.g. desirability assessment, realise feasibility study, POC realisation)
    3. Get the support of top Industry experts and methodological best practices
    4. Participate to events, dedicated workshops and trainings on innovation topics

HOW DOES IT WORK

STEP 1:

    1. Fill in the form to join the program (https://share.hsforms.com/1qDHHl70cSw-8GSu1k6ycuA4m7jf)
    2. In the form describe your innovation hypothesis defining it briefly in the dedicated field
    3. Confirm your availability to participate in-person in the mandatory workshop on May 6th – ‘Challenge Your Ideas’ in Lugano
    4. Submit your Innovation Hypothesis on the jointcreate platform by April 16th clicking on "Submit" botton on the top right.

Required fields:

STEP 2:

    1. Your submission will be evaluated by the Innovation Booster Team
    2. You will be notified with the result
    3. Innovation Teams formation will be facilitated to find the best research or implementation partner if not already present;

STEP 3:

    1. Participate in the Co-creation Workshop 'Challenge your ideas' in Lugano May 6th 2025
    2. Industry problems and challenges will be explored to discover the underlying assumptions;
    3. Collaboration among different stakeholders and experts will support you with Design Thinking methodology to co-create ideas for radical solutions.

STEP 4:

    1. Submit your idea by May 25th, 2025*

*Guidelines will be shared during and after the 'Challenge your ideas' Workshop to ensure a proper submission before the deadline.

STEP 5:

    1. Once all the Innovation hypothesis will be gathered, the jury of the Innovation Booster Fashion & Lifestyle program, which includes experts and decision-makers from the industry, will vote for the best ones to join the final step of the competition, the Pitch Day.

STEP 6:

    1. An optional virtual workshop, Innovation Arena, will take place on June 5th to help you to enrich and refine your idea, preparing for the Pitch Day.

STEP 7:

    1. Pitch Day: on June 17th submitted ideas will be pitched to the program Jury and the selected 5 winning ideas will be awarded with ≈ CHF 27'000.-.
    2. The awarded ideas will be announced on June 27th

IMPORTANT: Participation in the Workshop 'Challenge your ideas' on May 6th is mandatory for ideas to be eligible to access the Pitch Day and receive funding.

An Innovation Hypothesis is a potential new approach to solve an existing Industry problem, to be further explored and developed with the help of experts and fellow innovation team members during a dedicated workshop.

This is a call for challenges and not a call for ideas.

The program focuses on the very first stages of the innovation funnel to seek new approaches to solve current Industry problems with the objective of idea testing.

WHO CAN APPLY

You can apply if you are a:

    1. Start-up/Scale-up
    2. SME
    3. Large organisation
    4. Any company offering products, services or process implementation
    5. Non-profit organisation
    6. Association
    7. University research institute
    8. Non-commercial research centre
    9. Departmental research institution
    10. Federal research institute

NOTE: Innovation teams must be formed to Pitch the idea and be funded. Innovation teams consist of at least one research partner and one implementation partner. Please state in the form if you already identified an Innovation team partner.

APPLY NOW!

Tell us more about how you would like to address a mentioned industry challenge and participate in the Workshop 'Challenge your ideas' on May 6th in Lugano to:

    1. Develop a new product, service, process or business model
    2. Make a positive impact on the Swiss Fashion & Lifestyle industry and society
    3. Be aligned with our core values expressed in our Manifesto: Sustainability, Diversion, Inclusion and Equality, User-centric, Trustworthy and Collaborative
    4. Have the opportunity to work with industry experts and leading researchers in Switzerland and co-create new potential and radical innovative ideas
    5. Be funded and test the potential of your idea

For more information, please contact us at: info@ibfashionandlifestyle.ch