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On Tuesday – Wednesday, 29–30 September 2026, the ETH Zurich Center for Law and Economics (CLE), in collaboration with RegHorizon, hosts the seventh edition of the ‘AI Policy Summit 2026‘ at the ETH Zurich Main Campus Building in Zurich, Switzerland. Day 1 is hybrid, while Day 2 is in-person only.
The summit is held under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), Alain Berset. It is an official pre-event for the Geneva AI Summit 2027, and for the second consecutive year the flagship event of the Zurich AI Festival. This year’s key themes are ‘Policy for Innovation and Competitiveness‘, ‘Policy for Transition and Transformation‘ and ‘Road to Geneva 2027‘.
DAY 1 – TUESDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2026
09:00 CEST (07:00 UTC) — SUMMIT OPENING
Ayisha Piotti – Head, AI Policy Summit; Managing Partner, RegHorizon
Elliott Ash – Chair of Law, Economics, and Data Science, ETH Zurich
09:10 CEST (07:10 UTC) — WELCOME REMARKS I: CANTON OF ZURICH
Fabian Streiff – Head, Office for Economy, Canton of Zurich
09:15 CEST (07:15 UTC) — WELCOME REMARKS II: SWITZERLAND
Balz Abplanalp – Ambassador, Head ATEC Division, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
09:20 CEST (07:20 UTC) — WELCOME REMARKS III: COUNCIL OF EUROPE
Hanne Juncher – Director of Security, Integrity and Rule of Law, Council of Europe
09:30 CEST (07:30 UTC) — SETTING THE SCENE
Stefan Bechtold – Professor, ETH Zurich — ‘Innovation & Competition, an Academic Perspective’
Lajla Fetic – Head AI Public Interest & Policy, appliedAI Institute for Europe, Germany — ‘State of AI Capabilities and European Readiness’
09:50 CEST (07:50 UTC) — PANEL 1: POLICY FOR INNOVATION: MAKING IT REAL
Wan Sie Lee – Executive Director & Cluster Director, AI Verify Foundation, IMDA, Singapore (online)
Andrea Renda – Director, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels
Piotr Sankowski – UN Scientific Panel on AI; Prime Minister’s Office, Poland
Abhishek Bapna – Google DeepMind
Khushal Wadhawan – Manager AI Policy, IndiaAI Mission, MeitY, India
Guillem Martinez Roura – AI and Robotics Programme Officer, ITU AI for Good
Moderator: Laura Galindo – Privacy Policy, Meta
11:00 CEST (09:00 UTC) — GERMANY: BOOSTING THE AI ECOSYSTEM – FROM BREAKTHROUGH FUNDING TO PUBLIC DEPLOYMENT
Hans Michael Strepp – Head of Office, Bavarian State Ministry of Digital Affairs
Raphael Leuner – Research & Business Analysis, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, Germany
Ralf Junge-Pearl – Project Lead, DigitalService / Agentic AI Hub, Germany
Moderator: Lajla Fetic – appliedAI Institute for Europe, Germany
11:40 CEST (09:40 UTC) — PANEL 2: BUILDING TRUSTWORTHY AGENTIC SYSTEMS
Paul Nemitz – Professor, College of Europe; Advisor, European Commission
Angela Müller – Executive Director, AlgorithmWatch CH
Alexandra Wander – Responsible AI, ZEISS
Michael Schorpp – Head Digital Innovation & AI, Boehringer Ingelheim
Royce Wee – Director, Privacy and Data Policy, APAC, Meta
Rudra Chaudhuri – Vice President, Observer Research Foundation, India (online)
Moderator: Dominick Romano – Founder, Drainpipe.io
12:30 CEST (10:30 UTC) — AI & DEMOCRATIC RESILIENCE: PROTECTING POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
Agnieszka Pomaska – MP, Head of Polish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe
Vadim Pak – Policy and Legal Advisor, Council of Europe
Clément Étoré – Founder, Bulle (Finalist, CoE No Hate Speech Hackathon)
Moderator: Tatiana Monney – Head of Unit, New Democratic Pact, Council of Europe
14:00 CEST (12:00 UTC) — KEYNOTE & Q&A: MINISTER LIISA-LY PAKOSTA
Liisa-Ly Pakosta – Minister of Justice & Digital Affairs, Estonia
Moderator: Ayisha Piotti – ETH Zurich CLE
14:30 CEST (12:30 UTC) — GLOBAL UPDATES: CHINA
Lan Xue – Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University (online)
Moderator: Daniel Dobos – Co-chair, AI for Good Impact Initiative
15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC) — GLOBAL UPDATES: EUROPEAN UNION
Axel Voss – Member of the European Parliament (online)
Moderator: Daniel Naeff – Entrepreneur, Board Member, ETH AI Center
15:30 CEST (13:30 UTC) — GLOBAL UPDATES: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Taylor Stockton – Chief Innovation Officer, U.S. Department of Labor (online)
Moderator: Elliott Ash – ETH Zurich CLE
16:20 CEST (14:20 UTC) — PANEL 3: ROAD TO GENEVA 2027
Presentation (India): Sudeep Shrivastava – COO, IndiaAI Mission, MeitY, India
Liisa-Ly Pakosta – Minister of Justice & Digital Affairs, Estonia
Martin Tisné – CEO, Current AI; AI Action Summit, France
Thomas Schneider – Ambassador, Head of International Relations, OFCOM, Switzerland
Hoda Baraka – Advisor to the Minister, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Egypt
Wan Sie Lee – AI Verify Foundation, IMDA, Singapore (online)
Moderator: Ayisha Piotti – ETH Zurich CLE
17:20 CEST (15:20 UTC) — SWISS HIGHLIGHTS
Raphael von Thiessen – Programme Lead AI, Office for Economy, Canton of Zurich — ‘Building AI Policy through Public Dialogue’
Melhem Daoud – Digital Infrastructure and AI, digitalswitzerland — ‘Swiss AI Action Plan’
Moderator: Manuel Kugler – Data & AI, Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW)
17:50 CEST (15:50 UTC) — MANAGING AI-DRIVEN ECONOMIC CHANGE
Ekkehard Ernst – Chief Macroeconomic Policy, International Labour Organization
Beatrice Weder di Mauro – President, Centre for Economic Policy Research; Professor, Geneva Graduate Institute
Jovan Kurbalija – Executive Director, DiploFoundation; Head, Geneva Internet Platform
Moderator: Danny Buerkli – Director, Windfall Trust
18:30 CEST (16:30 UTC) — CLOSING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTION TO DAY 2
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