Crans-Montana: a testing ground for innovation projects

The Association of Crans-Montana Municipalities (ACCM) is approaching the School of Management of the HES-SO Valais-Wallis in order to create a testing ground to encourage the emergence of innovations. Crans-Montana is making its infrastructure and know-how available and the university is sharing its skills in research and innovation. The result is several concrete events and projects in the field of the digitalisation of services.

An interdisciplinary approach to foster innovation

To create a real field for experimentation, to make the population aware of certain technologies, to initiate collaborative innovation approaches or to launch digitisation processes through pragmatic projects; these are the objectives of the partnership launched by the ACCM's economic promotion department and the HES-SO Valais-Wallis.

Experimenting with the digitisation of services

Geographical proximity has always favoured exchanges between the two entities in several fields such as tourism, economics and information technology. Nearly 1'000 students and more than 150 researchers work at the School of Management in Sierre. Specialising in the digitalisation of services and located in the heart of a dynamic region, close to the realities of the field and multidisciplinary, the Haute école de gestion de la HES-SO Valais-Wallis wishes to encourage exchanges with the ACCM.

First concrete results

The collaboration between the Association of Municipalities of Crans-Montana and the School of Management of the HES-SO Valais-Wallis has led to several concrete collaborations. By way of example, the two institutions have collaborated on various events such as the World XR Forum, the Brain Surprises and the Empowerment Summit, in which around fifty students and professors from the HEG took part. Concrete research projects have also been initiated, such as this one with the company SMC, which consists of equipping buses to create a 4G/5G test platform for the development of new IoT and Smart City services. Other collaborations are already under discussion.