“It was great to see how the participants “Over the two days, I increasingly lost developed their projects in a very short track of which projects were actually going time period of just 1.5 days, resulting in an to be implemented and which had been impressive outcome.” ‘invented’ by our doctoral students.” Anna-Elina Pekonen, Innovation Office, Dr. Andreas Baumgartner, coordinator of University of Basel the SNI PhD School it’s not the end of your career — indeed, the opposite and the individual support from Pekonen and Campos, might be the case,” explains Pekonen. Moreover, the two inspired impressive results from all participants at the successful company founders Adrian Bertschi and Gilbert end of the two-day course. Elizaveta Maksimova from Koch talked live about ups and down at their companies, the team of Professor Jonathan de Roo (Department of providing participants with vivid and speci昀椀c insights Chemistry) was the most convincing in her closing pitch. into the subject matter. In the two afternoon sessions, With a clear presentation and a competent demeanor, the workshop then centered around the development of she won over the jury — consisting of Pekonen, Campos each participant’s own business idea and the preparation and Baumgartner — with her startup idea and secured of a closing pitch that could win over potential investors. the prize for the best pitch. In preparation for the workshop, all participants With this new course, the SNI promises above had already developed a business idea as well as an initial all that budding researchers will give thought to alter- version of their presentation — in most cases, based on native career pathways and will increasingly evaluate their own research in wide-ranging disciplines. The con- the applicability of their scienti昀椀c 昀椀ndings, learning tent and guiding structures conveyed in the workshop, to recognize how these 昀椀ndings could help overcome future challenges. Elizaveta Maksimova won over the jury (Anna-Elina Pekonen, Mauricio Campos and Andreas Baumgartner (not in the picture)) with a pitch for her business idea. (Image: A. Baumgartner) “I further developed the academic ideas from my dissertation project and felt very comfortable thinking about the next step to founding a startup. The SNI Rhetoric Workshop I attended last year really helped me deliver a convincing It was an intensive two days in which doctoral students from the SNI PhD presentation.” School gained extensive insights into the world of founding a startup. Elizaveta Maksimova, SNI doctoral student at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Basel and winner of the pitching competition SNI INSight December 2024 25