And an information age, the Swiss Re Institute becomes an important touch point as the clients
try to figure out where are the new opportunities, what are the new technologies, what are the
new data, what are the new ideas.
At an event like this, you get to see the bigger picture of what's going on in the outside
world, the level of change, the speed of change.
There is an incredible variety of topics being covered, and expertise, and I think the thing
that strikes me the most is the level of expertise that Swiss Re brought in to complement their
own expertise.
We are the coordination point for a lot of external partnerships with academics, and
also professional associations.
We can pull that all together and find the cutting edge applications of new research.
We've seen experts from academia, we've seen experts from partners that we're working with,
and we've seen experts from within the Swiss Re Institute, and across Swiss Re, bringing
their knowledge to the table and then interacting very deeply with clients.
Our collaborations and the partnership with Swiss Re allow us to go beyond typical academic
collaborations, and also allow us to translate some of our research findings into the real
world.
What was so engaging about the symposium is it wasn't just sitting and listening to presenters,
it was also having experiences with the facilitators themselves in some of the breakout sessions,
as well as the market stands where we could see new technology.
And all of this taking place in the context of a large amount of networking where we can
talk to clients, we can talk to academics.
The Institute was able to be in the midst of a lot of these different discussions.
Swiss Re is probably one of the main re-insurer we go to with ideas that we've come up with,
and we welcome when they come to us with their ideas.
They're by far the most advanced in terms of thought, thought leadership.
Swiss Re is one of the larger companies in the reinsurance market period.
Has a scale that most of us don't have, no matter how aspirational we may be.
They have the opportunity then, to bring a lot of resources to questions, that the questions
may be important, we just don't have the ability to answer them or even investigate them the
way that Swiss Re does.
One the things that's really changed over the past few years is how closely academia
and industry has started working together.
We learned early on that the best way to really understand and do great research was not to
close the doors and windows and try to imagine what technology would do or how business was
changing, but to interact as much as we could with the people who are on the ground making
those changes.
It's been a very fruitful partnership.
For scientists, we always value inter-disciplinary meetings or inter-disciplinary conferences
because it's a chance to see maybe your own work through a new lens.
It's actually absolutely crucial that academics and scientists are connected to industry,
to be sure that there's a two-way communication and that the science is getting translated
into practice.
What stops most insurance companies from being innovative in a way that will position them
for the next decade, is they don't know how to start.
My experience with Swiss Re is that they have the courage to act.
In all the years that I've been involved with Swiss Re, the idea and the motivation to start
the institute is really one of the most exciting things I've seen us do.
The pride I have in representing our organization and what we've been able to accomplish in
society, is it really is accelerated by the presence of the Swiss Re Institute.