28 September - 2 October, 2026
Geneva, Switzerland
Monday, 28 September 2026
| 20:45-22:15 |
Science, Knowledge and Truth - challenges and opportunities |
| Ghassem Asrar, Barbara Ryan, Peter Head, Marie-Christine Sawley, Michel Speiser |
| Emcee: Michael McKay |
Tuesday, 29 September 2026
| 08:30-09:00 |
Introduction - Dr. Bob Bishop, President & Founder, ICES Foundation |
| 09:00-12:30 |
GREEN STRATEGIES: comparative visions of Europe, China, US |
| Chair: Prof. Peter Head - Chair Trustees, The Ecological Sequestration Trust; Visiting Prof. Univ. of Bristol; UNDRR GAR Advisory Board; ICES Expert |
| The Evolution and Impact of the EU Green Industrial Strategy and Green New Deal - Dr. Arnulf Jäger-Waldau - Senior Expert and Scientist in the field of Renewable Energy and the Energy Transition |
| The Global Green Industrial Revolution, 2010–2026: China from the 12th Five-Year Plan (2010) to global green-technology leadership (2026) - Prof. Li Zheng - Dean of the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development, and Head of the Low Carbon Energy Laboratory, Tsinghua University, China |
| The US Green Strategy, 2010–2026: Reduced technology costs, rising electricity demand, and the decisions that connect them - Dr. Thomas Hauser - Retired Director Computational and Information Systems Lab Utah State CU Boulder and NSF NCAR |
| Panel discussion and Q&A - Prof. Peter Head, Dr. Arnulf Jäger-Waldau, Prof. Li Zheng, Dr. Thomas Hauser |
| 13:30-16:00 |
OCEANS: marine health, dynamics & energy imbalance |
| Chair: Dr. Marie-Christine Sawley - Advisor HPC/Exascale ICES; former Director Exascale Lab Intel; former CMS CERN; former Director CSCS; member of the SATW |
| From Science and Simulation to Stewardship: Wave Making for Healthy Oceans - David E. Shaw - Ocean Ambassador, CEO of Black Point Group |
| The Ocean and Us - Prof. Alex David Rogers - Deputy Director of Strategic Science Programmes and Partnerships at National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton, UK |
| Challenges and Opportunities in Repairing the Ocean - Prof. Carlos M. Duarte - Distinguished Professor of Marine Science at the King Abdullah University of Technical Sciences |
| The Ocean and Earth's Energy Imbalance in a Changing Climate - Dr. Benoit Meyssignac - CNES and Laboratoire d'Études en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS), Toulouse, France |
| Ocean deoxygenation in the open and coastal ocean: prediction, observation and trend assessment - Prof. Marilaure Grégoire - Professor in Ocean Modelling, University of Liège, Belgium |
| 16:30-18:15 |
SPACE PANEL I |
| Chair: Prof. Scott Hubbard - Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University |
| Commercial Space and the New Entrepreneurs: A US Perspective - Prof. Scott Hubbard - Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University |
| From Ocean to Space - Dr. Gaëlle Giesen - Engineer at CNES, deep diver and formation skydiver |
| Earth from Space — 50 Years of Seeing and Understanding a Changing Planet - Prof. Michael Rast - Director, International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Bern, formerly ESA |
| 21:00-22:00 |
KEYNOTE |
| Space as if you were there - Prof. Claude Nicollier holds a degree in astrophysics from the University of Geneva, flew airliners for a few years with Swissair, and was also a Captain pilot in the Swiss Air Force. Selected as one of the very first European astronauts, Claude flew four major NASA Space Shuttle missions from 1992 to 1999, including two visits to the Hubble Space Telescope for servicing the instrument in the space environment. He was leading the Flight Test Team of the Solar Impulse project. Claude Nicollier was nominated professor of Space Technology at EPFL in 1994, and has been teaching Space Mission Design for 18 years in this institution. |
Wednesday, 30 September 2026
| 08:30-09:00 |
Introduction - Dr. Bob Bishop, President & Founder, ICES Foundation |
| 09:00-12:30 |
HUMAN WELL-BEING |
| Chair: Hon. Dr. Michael Armitage MD - former Advisor, Qatar Minister Public Health; former CEO AHIA; former South Australia Minister of Health / Information Economy / Aboriginal Affairs |
| Simulation as Evidence: In Silico Methods in the Regulation of Medical Technologies - Prof. Alex Frangi - Bicentennial Turing Chair in Computational Medicine, University of Manchester |
| The Architecture of Trust: from digital public infrastructure to equitable AI - Matthew Keks - Technical Officer, Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI (DDA), World Health Organisation (HQ - Geneva) |
| AI-Guided Therapeutic Discovery - Prof. Avner Schlessinger - Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, Mt Sinai, New York City |
| Reimagining the Future of Health and Wellness - Bill Quinn - Futurist and Strategic Advisor, Tata Consultancy Services, Arvada, Colorado |
| 13:30-14:30 |
SPACE PANEL II |
| Chair: Prof. Michael Rast - Director, International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Bern, formerly ESA |
| Humans in Space - Prof. Claude Nicollier - flew four major NASA Space Shuttle missions, astrophysicist and Professor emeritus of Space Technology at EPFL |
| Space Engineering - Dr. Florian Kehl - Director of Space Research at ETH Zurich | Space |
| Astrobiology and Mars: Current Discoveries and Programs - Prof. Scott Hubbard - Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University |
| 15:00-22:00 |
FIELD TRIP TO CERN |
Thursday, 1 October 2026
| 08:30-09:00 |
Introduction - Dr. Bob Bishop, President & Founder, ICES Foundation |
| 09:00-12:30 |
CRITICAL ISSUES OF ENERGY AND RESOURCES |
| Chair: Prof. Daniel Favrat - Prof. Emeritus EPFL; EPFL Energy Center; member of SATW and the French Academy of Technologies; former Esso Canada; former CERAC (Centre Européen de Recherche Atlas Copco) |
| Clean Energy Technologies in China's Energy Transition - Prof. Li Zheng - Dean of the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development, and Head of the Low Carbon Energy Laboratory, Tsinghua University, China |
| Future of nuclear fission - Prof. Andreas Pautz - Head of the Paul Scherrer Institute Center for Nuclear Engineering and Sciences, Professor at EPFL |
| Prospect of power needs for digital applications (and a bit more) - Prof. Jean-Claude André - Founder of CERFACS, first director of CNRM, Toulouse |
| The challenge of powering the AI revolution - Prof. Mario Paolone - Professor, Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory, EPFL |
| The exergy of Earth resources - Prof. Alicia Valero - Professor at University of Zaragoza, Spain |
| Round table - Prof. Daniel Favrat, Prof. Li Zheng, Prof. Andreas Pautz, Prof. Jean-Claude André, Prof. Mario Paolone, Prof. Alicia Valero |
| 14:00-15:00 |
AI & SCIENCE |
| Chair: Dr. Michel Speiser - ICES Chief Data Scientist; former IBM Research |
| BioAIRad: Biodiversity monitoring of the airspace with radars - Dr. Michele Volpi - Lead Data Scientist, Swiss Data Science Center |
| Automating Earth System Model Parameterization Development with Agentic AI - Dr. Kara Lamb - Research Scientist, Columbia University/LEAP |
| Recent Breakthroughs in AI Weather Forecasting Models - Dr. Firat Ozdemir - Senior Data Scientist, Swiss Data Science Center |
| 15:00-16:00 |
QUANTUM COMPUTING |
| Chair: Dr. Marie-Christine Sawley - Advisor HPC/Exascale ICES; former Director Exascale Lab Intel; former CMS CERN; former Director CSCS; member of the SATW |
| Building a Quantum Future - The Munich Quantum Valley - Prof. Erwin Laure - Director of the Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF), Garching, Germany |
| Real science enabled by the convergence of quantum computing with HPC & AI - Prof. Peter V Coveney - Director of the Centre for Computational Science (CCS), Associate Director in the Centre of Advanced Research Computing, Honorary Prof of the University College London |
| A New Era of Computing: Hybrid AI-Quantum Algorithms in Quantum-Centric Supercomputing - Dr. Teodoro Laino - Distinguished Research Scientist at IBM Research - Zurich |
| 16:30-18:00 |
CONVERGENCE OF AI, QC & HPC IN WEATHER & CLIMATE |
| Chair: Prof. Dr. Thomas Ludwig, Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ) |
| The Next Generation System at DKRZ - What you will (not) get for €30M - Prof. Dr. Thomas Ludwig, Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ) |
| Paths of convergence and divergence for AI, QC and HPC in the UK's weather and climate ecosystem - Prof. Simon McIntosh-Smith - Professor of High Performance Computing, Director of the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS), University of Bristol, UK |
| Application and potential timelines for quantum computing in earth system modelling - Per Nyberg - Chief Commercial Officer, ORCA Computing |
| Towards Quantum(-assisted) forecasts: Quantum Reservoir Computing for Weather and Climate prediction - Dr. Felix Tennie - City-St. George's, University of London, UK |
| From AI/QC Breakthroughs to Reliable Weather Forecasts - Prof. Dr. Oliver Fuhrer - ETH Zurich, MeteoSwiss |
Friday, 2 October 2026
| 08:30-09:00 |
Introduction - Dr. Bob Bishop, President & Founder, ICES Foundation |
| 09:00-12:30 |
UNCHARTED DOMAINS |
| Chair: Dr. Bob Bishop, President & Founder, ICES Foundation |
| General Expanse Tension Theory: A Quantum Field Framework for Gravity, Cosmology and the Atomic Realm - John Holland - Independent Thinker |
| Society 5.0: From the Internet of Bodies to Neurotechnologies and Cybernetic Societies - Prof. Dirk Helbing - Professor of Computational Social Science, ETH Zurich |
| Nature's Way - a reality hypothesis and implications - Mike Horner - ICES Advisor, Member of ANPA, Former Research Manager DEC |
| Round table - Dr. Bob Bishop, John Holland, Prof. Dirk Helbing, Mike Horner |