What happens when a bold idea and spin-off from ETH Zurich meets the industrial backbone of Detroit and the Great Lakes region? That’s the question behind Rimon Technologies’ recent exploratory visit to Michigan—an effort to understand how their AI-driven knowledge platform could support a region undergoing one of the most significant economic and workforce transitions in recent history.

Rimon is rethinking how industrial professionals access and share knowledge. Their platform, designed for service technicians and engineers, combines video-based knowledge capture with an AI-powered chat tool called Digital Walter, modeled after the archetypal expert who’s been on the job for decades and knows everything. Built around a digital knowledge cycle, Rimon’s system ingests company documents, identifies gaps, captures frontline expertise through wearable cameras, and delivers just-in-time support in the field, reducing onboarding time and preserving institutional know-how.

With its deep manufacturing roots and growing innovation capacity, Michigan offers fertile ground for this kind of transformation. The state is investing in reindustrialization, hardened infrastructure, and clean energy; it has experienced robust U.S. manufacturing job growth since 2020, home to over 40,000 engineers, and leads the nation in clean energy patents per capita. For innovative Swiss startups like Rimon, the region presents a real-time laboratory for bridging generational knowledge, accelerating workforce onboarding, and supporting the future of industrial resilience.

I spent nearly eight years working at ETH Zurich, an institution I continue to champion as an ETH Ambassador and founding member of the ETH Circle. Today, I’m based in Detroit—a city reimagining itself through a new wave of innovation, resilience, and creativity. My current work centers on advancing socially impactful initiatives across borders, and I’m deeply interested in how we build stronger bridges between global centers of excellence like Zurich and rising innovation ecosystems like Detroit.

In this conversation with Rimon’s co-founders—CEO Kordian Caplazi and CSO Michael Blickenstorfer—we explored Rimon’s roots at ETH, their evolving mission, the future of workforce knowledge, and what it takes to lead across generations, geographies, and paradigms.

ETH Roots & Innovation DNA

Giroux: Remon began as an idea at ETH Zurich and evolved into an official ETH spin-off. Looking back, what do you think ETH – and Switzerland more broadly – does uniquely well to support the birth of bold, transformative companies like yours?

Kordian: ETH gives you a solid foundation for tackling hard problems. There’s this Swiss mentality of precision and going deep – not just chasing trends, but really digging into complex topics. That mindset helped us stay focused on supporting people in the field such as technicians, mechanics, operators, right from the start. ETH gave us the tools to approach those challenges with rigor.

Michael: And beyond ETH, Switzerland has a strong innovation environment. Even small companies are often world-class in their niche. Plus, the government and associations offer real support and innovative programs, grants, and testing opportunities. It lowers the barrier to try things, to experiment, to de-risk. That ecosystem helps ideas become companies.

From Zurich to the Great Lakes

Giroux: You recently visited Michigan and the broader Great Lakes / Midwest region in the U.S.. What drew you to this part of the world, and what kind of alignment – or contrast – did you see between what’s happening here and what you’ve experienced in Europe?

Michael: It was my first time in the region, and what struck me was the openness and energy. There’s real momentum around reinvention, especially in Detroit. People are motivated, collaborative, and there’s an ecosystem forming around innovation and manufacturing that feels grounded and forward-looking. It’s not just about startups, it’s about legacy companies evolving. That fits perfectly with our mission.

Kordian: People tend to think of Silicon Valley when they think innovation, but for us – working on industrial challenges – the Great Lakes/Midwest makes more sense. ETH has a strong mechanical engineering department, and there’s a natural connection here with what companies are doing in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois. It’s an overlooked but exciting landscape.

The Workforce Shift

Giroux: Industrial companies are facing generational shifts – experienced workers retiring, new employees onboarding fast. How does Rimon help bridge that gap and retain critical knowledge?

Kordian: Our users have always been the same, people working with machines, fixing, maintaining, and commissioning them. But the way we support them has evolved. We started with AR glasses, but it wasn’t practical and we found that people didn’t want to wear tech all day. What we learned in the field was that the real challenge wasn’t the interface. It was the expert, the “Walter” in every company, who had all the knowledge and was constantly interrupted, always in demand. We built our platform to digitize Walter and to capture and share that expertise so it doesn’t get lost.

Michael: The challenge is twofold. Fewer young people are entering these technical jobs, and those who do often don’t stay long enough to become experts. Baby boomers stayed 30 years; today it’s 3–5 years. So how do you transfer that deep, intuitive knowledge quickly? That’s what we’re solving and making it possible to retain and pass on what matters, without relying on tribal memory.

Culture Inside Rimon

Giroux: How are you thinking about these same generational and workforce dynamics inside Rimon? What kind of culture are you building?

Kordian: We use our own product internally. If someone fixes something, we say, “Great, now record it.” It’s about making knowledge accessible across the team, not siloed. That creates independence and resilience. We’ve seen it play out, when someone’s sick or on vacation, their knowledge is still there, available.

Michael: It also changes the meaning of knowledge. It’s no longer “mine.” It becomes “ours.” That mindset of co-creation, of shared responsibility and shared growth, that’s what we’re trying to build.

Building Bridges Between Ecosystems

Giroux: Do you see a model for how ETH – and Swiss innovation more broadly – can better connect with ecosystems like the one emerging in Detroit and the Great Lakes region?

Michael: Honestly, I’d love to see more structure there. Right now, so much depends on personal connections. It would help to have clearer pathways like more clearly defined resources, soft-landing programs, industry introductions, etc. There’s huge potential, but we need to make it more intentional.

Kordian: ETH has a big mechanical engineering base. The Great Lakes region is full of companies that need and have that expertise. But no one talks about it. Everyone’s still focused on Silicon Valley. We should be sending founders to Detroit for two or three months to explore the ecosystem. That’s how you build real bridges.

The Long View

Giroux: Looking ahead five or ten years, what do you hope people will say about Rimon, not just in terms of success, but in how it helped reshape how we work and share knowledge?

Michael: That we helped companies stay competitive in a shifting world. That we empowered people, preserved expert knowledge, and gave companies a way to evolve without losing their edge.

Kordian: That we made knowledge alive. That we helped make companies wiser, where knowledge isn’t static or siloed, but shared and valuable. Where someone new can join and do meaningful work, fast.

Closing

As someone shaped by both Zurich’s precision and Detroit’s momentum, I believe the future of innovation depends on building bridges – between ideas and impact, institutions and industries, cities and the world. Rimon’s journey is a reminder that bold thinking can travel… and that the future of work may very well be written in the collaboration between places like ETH and the Great Lakes. Even their name – Rimon, Hebrew for pomegranate – reflects a belief in abundance, in seeds of knowledge coming together to form something whole. The question isn’t just where ideas begin. It’s where we choose to take them.