Connecting Education and Technology for Lasting Change

Roman Bruegger, Managing Director, Swiss EdTech Collider

Roman Bruegger, Managing Director, Swiss EdTech Collider

Key Milestones Shaping a Career in Education Technology

My journey has always been guided by a curiosity for how people learn and how technology can empower that process. Before joining the Swiss EdTech Collider in 2017, I gained valuable experience in the financial industry, international development and innovation management as well as the education sector – both in Switzerland and abroad, where I learned how ecosystems thrive when diverse actors collaborate around a shared vision. Stepping into the role of Managing Director at the Swiss EdTech Collider in November 2017, I saw an opportunity to help shaping Switzerland’s emerging EdTech landscape by creating a neutral, trusted space where EdTech startups, researchers, schools, educators, corporates, and policymakers could be brought together. Over the years, building bridges between different worlds has been both a great challenge as well as a very rewarding milestone of my career.

Building Unity and Purpose through Leadership

For me, collaborative leadership is about convening, mediating, and translating between worlds that often “speak” different languages: in education, startups focus on technology, teachers on pedagogy, researchers on evidence, and policymakers on regulation. At the Swiss EdTech Collider, my role is to create a space where these perspectives don’t clash but complement each other. By acting as a trusted mediator and ensuring transparency, mutual respect, and evidence-based dialogue, we build the bridges that allow a shared mission - improving learning outcomes - to come into focus. And this is precisely what we strive to achieve with our two Swiss-wide initiatives – the Swiss National EdTech Testbed Program and the Lighthouse Evidence-Oriented Research Initiative – where we bring all stakeholders together. In my view, innovation in education can truly take place only when technology and pedagogy speak the same language.

Navigating the Challenges of Supporting 80+ EdTech Startups

Founders in EdTech face a unique double challenge: achieving educational impact while building a sustainable business model. Unlike in other industries, adoption in education is often slower, with long sales cycles and cautious decision-makers. Many EdTech startups also struggle with access to funding, evidence-building, and international visibility. At the Swiss EdTech Collider, we aim to help them navigate these hurdles by connecting them to other EdTech peers to share their experiences, to schools and educational institutions who would like to discover and test new educational technologies and provide valuable feedback, to researchers who can validate impact, to corporates who can open new markets, and to investors who understand the specific dynamics of EdTech. In essence, we try to shorten the learning curve by providing a community, expertise, and opportunities that would be difficult to access individually.

“Innovation in education can truly take place only when technology and pedagogy speak the same language”

Taking Swiss EdTech Global

Switzerland holds a distinctive position in the global EdTech landscape. Our startups often combine cutting-edge research from world-class universities with a strong commitment to pedagogical rigor and evidence-oriented practice. This strength is rooted in Switzerland’s robust education system, which is deeply embedded in society and widely respected. For EdTech startups working with public schools, success requires addressing the country’s linguistic and curricular diversity across German, French, and Italian. For those focusing on higher education, corporate learning, and training, the Swiss Dual Education System offers a unique advantage. By combining classroom instruction with practical, on-the-job training, it creates fertile ground for developing solutions that are not only innovative but also highly practical and directly relevant to workforce needs. This unique combination makes Swiss EdTech startups also interesting internationally in areas such as adaptive learning, assessment technologies, and workforce upskilling. At the Swiss EdTech Collider, we aim to help unlocking this potential by fostering partnerships across education, connecting startups to European and global EdTech hubs, and facilitating collaborations with multinational companies. By doing so, we try to ensure that Swiss innovation not only thrives locally but also contributes to shaping global best practices in education technology

Building High-Impact Initiatives with Purpose and Market Fit

High-impact initiatives can only succeed when all key stakeholders move in the same direction. For us, that means building bridges between educators, researchers, startups, corporates, and funding bodies right from the start. We don’t usually launch programs in isolation - we co-design them with those who will ultimately use, validate, and support them. Two examples are our “Swiss National EdTech Testbed Program”, where public schools can test new tools with our pedagogical guidance at no cost, and our “Lighthouse EdTech Research Initiative” in collaboration with the EPFL LEARN Center for Learning Sciences in Lausanne, which pilots evidence-oriented research in education. Both programs embody our approach: address concrete needs in schools, ensure scientific rigor, and involve EdTech startups and education stakeholders in the process. This collaborative model not only creates stronger outcomes for learners but also builds the trust and shared ownership needed to sustain impact over time. And in education - especially when it comes to technology - trust is the true currency that determines whether innovation will take root and last.

Navigating the Dual Demands of EdTech Growth

My advice is to embrace the complexity rather than treat it as a trade-off. Educational impact and commercial viability do not necessarily mean opposing forces - they are two sides of the same coin. A solution that does not genuinely improve learning outcomes will not sustain in the long term; equally, without a viable business model, even the most impactful solution will struggle to reach learners at scale. Founders should start early with learning science and evidence-building, not as an afterthought but as a core part of their value proposition. At the same time, they should engage openly with users - schools, universities, companies - to truly understand their needs. The most successful founders I’ve seen are those who manage to listen deeply, adapt quickly, and never lose sight of why they started: to make learning better for people.