About

What does Vitality mean to you? To us? What does vitality mean for our societies? And for our planet?

How can Switzerland and Japan join forces to foster a vitalized future in the face of common challenges: climate change, ultra-ageing societies and digital transformation?
Be part of the conversation!

On the road to EXPO 2025 Osaka-Kansai, the Vitality.Swiss program explores solutions and scenarios for a vitalized future along three themes: Healthy Life, Sustainable Planet and Human-centered Innovation. Through a variety of events and content, the program provides a platform for dialogue and co-creation on the road to the Swiss pavilion at Expo 2025. An initiative of the Embassy of Switzerland in Japan together with the Consulate of Switzerland in Osaka / Swissnex in Japan, the Science and Technology Office Tokyo, the Swiss Business Hub Japan, Switzerland Tourism Japan, and Presence Switzerland, Vitality.Swiss is officially registered as a Team Expo co-creation partner.

Focus on

  • Food system & Nutrition
  • Precision medicine
  • Medtech & Healthtech
  • Work-life balance
  • Sport & Well-being
  • Life science
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  • Circular economy
  • Decarbonisation
  • Transition finance
  • Regional vitalisation
  • Sustainable tourism
  • Resilient cities
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  • Creative city
  • Future architecture & digital fabrication
  • Mobility
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Cutting-edge tech & Pioneering R&D
  • Design at large
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Vitality Ambassadors

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Sou Fujimoto

Architect

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Sou Fujimoto
Architect

“Vitality for me is the Resonance of Nature and Architecture, Private and Public, Harmony and Chaos, Simplicity and Complexity, Diversity and Unity”

Graduated from the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering at Tokyo University, he established Sou Fujimoto Architects in 2000. Among his recent renowned projects is the 1st prize for the 2014 International Competition for the Second Folly of Montpellier, France (“L’Arbre Blanc”). Additionally in 2015, 2017 and 2018, he won several international competitions with 1st prize in various European countries. In Japan, he was selected as the Expo site design producer for the 2025 Japan International Exposition (Osaka/Kansai Expo). In 2021, he was selected as the designer Co-Innovation University (Tentative) in Hida Takayama city. Among his latest and ongoing projects are the SQUARE, HSG Learning Center at the University of St. Gallen, and the “Meet” project in Airport City Zurich.
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Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter

Member of the National Council, President of the Parliamentary Friendship Group Switzerland-Japan

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Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter
Member of the National Council, President of the Parliamentary Friendship Group Switzerland-Japan

“For me, Vitality stands for a positive attitude of strength and energy and for a healthy lifestyle, an important commonality shared by Switzerland and Japan”

Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter, as a member of the National Council, is particularly active in the economic field. Additionally, she is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee as well as a member of the EFTA/EU delegation, President of the Basel Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a board member of Economiesuisse, the largest economic association of Swiss companies in the country. She is President of the Switzerland-Japan Parliamentary Group and Co-President of the "Swiss Abroad" Parliamentary Group. Through her activities, she plays an important role in promoting bilateral relations between Switzerland and Japan. She was in Japan last November as part of Switzerland's Foreign Affairs Committee’s official visit to Japan.
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Seishiro Eto

Member of the House of Representatives, Chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group Switzerland-Japan

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Seishiro Eto
Member of the House of Representatives, Chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group Switzerland-Japan

“My Vitality comes from listening to children’s dreams. It is our responsibility as adults to watch over them, nurture and help them realize their dreams”

Seishiro Eto is a member of the House of Representative in the Diet since 1983 and Chairman of the Switzerland-Japan Parliamentarian Friendship Group. Mr. Eto was first elected to the House of Councilors in 1977, and has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1983. He has served in a variety of positions, including Director General of the Defense Agency, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
As chairman of the Switzerland-Japan Parliamentarian Friendship Group, he was instrumental in the group's first official visit to Japan in 2017. Eto serves as a bridge not only between Japan and Switzerland, but also between Oita Prefecture and Switzerland through his role of guest speaker for the Swiss fair on the occasion of the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon.
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Maya Minder

Artist, Curator, Chef

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Maya Minder
Artist, Curator, Chef

“Vitality is a movement, not a stillness. Health, the joy of living and growing. Enjoying not only one’s own liveliness and resilience but also the lives which surround us”

Maya Minder is an artist, curator and chef working in the field of Eatart. Culinary delights are at her table of not yet digested topics of cultural hybridisation and human coevolution. She uses storytelling, performance and installation as a way to unite people around a table of shared meals. Cooking together for staying together. As a specialist in the lacto-fermentation, she works with bacteria, fungi, plants and algae while applying biological knowledge into her kitchen, into film making, craft and material research. She uses wild fermentation as a metaphor for human agitation of processing raw nature into cooked culture. Following feminist histories, she takes art science and queer theories to combine them with her practice as an artist. linktr.ee/mayaminder
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Kenta Kojiri

Dancer and choreographer

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Kenta Kojiri
Dancer and choreographer

“The inspiration for a life of well-being? Physical expression that can resonate with others; refining one’s sensibility; liberating oneself. Dancing and performing along these principles constitute my vitality”

Kenta Kojiri won the Apprentice Scholarship at the Prix de Lausanne in 1999. In 2003, he became the first Japanese male dancer to join the Netherlands Dance Theater 1 led by choreographer Jiri Kylián. Since leaving the company in 2010, he has been active as a dancer and choreographer in Japan and abroad, focusing on the creation of “Study for Self/portrait” and Kenta Kojiri + Yasuhiro Morinaga’s “The Threshold,” among others. His work revolves around themes of ‘recording’ and ‘memory’, which have been the basis of his creative work to date. He explores expression across genres and generations, with the aim of developing a broader relationship between physical expression and the environment. He has choreographed operas and musicals, taught and navigated at the Saitama Dance Laboratory, coached the Japanese national figure skating team, and worked as an Artist in Residence at Dance Base Yokohama and Honokuni Totohashi Arts Theatre PLAT. His work “Kizuki-au” was commissioned for the Vitality.Swiss launch project “Kizuki-au 築き合う－Collaborative Constructions” on August 1, 2022. 
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Marcel Hug

Paralympian Wheelchair athlete

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Marcel Hug
Paralympian Wheelchair athlete

“Vitality means when my body, mind and soul develop together and come into harmony. That is what sport helps me to do again and again”

Known as “Silver Bullet” for the silver helmet he wears when competing, he won the triple crown in the 1500m, 5000m, and 800m track races at the Tokyo Paralympics. Wheelchair-bound from birth due to spina bifida, he started wheelchair athletics in 1996 at the age of 10, competing in his first junior race. In 2004, he represented Switzerland at the Athens Paralympics, winning bronze medals in the 800m and 1500m, and was the newcomer of the year at the Swiss Sports Awards. A professional athlete since 2010, in 2018 he won the Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award at the Laureus World Sports Awards, also known as the “Academy Awards of Sport.” A leading Swiss athlete in Japan, he has won the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon (full marathon T34/53/54) nine times by 2021, setting a new world record of 1 hour 17 minutes 47 seconds at the 2021 event.
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Takeuchi Tomoka

Snowboard Olympic champion

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Takeuchi Tomoka
Snowboard Olympic champion

“Dreams do not always come true with hard work. But vitality is driven by dreams, goals, meeting people, and most importantly learning from our mistakes and successes”

In 1998, at the age of 14, she was so impressed with the Nagano Olympics that she decided that her dream was to compete in the Olympics in snowboarding. Then in 2002, while still in high school, she competed in the Salt Lake City Olympics, finishing 22nd in the parallel giant slalom. She went on to compete in three consecutive Olympic Games in Torino, Vancouver, and Sochi. In Sochi, she won a silver medal, becoming the first Japanese female snowboarder to win a medal, and she competed in her fifth Olympic Games in Pyeongchang in 2018. Outside of the Olympics, she has also made a name for herself in the snowboarding world, taking first place at the 2012 World Cup and a bronze medal at the 2015 World Championships. She also announced her return to competition in 2020 after a hiatus, and in 2022, she achieved the feat of competing in the Beijing Olympics for the sixth time, the most in the history of women’s Winter Olympics.
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Prof. Dr. Christian Schwarzenegger

Vice President Faculty Affairs and Scientific Information, University of Zurich, lawyer

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Prof. Dr. Christian Schwarzenegger
Vice President Faculty Affairs and Scientific Information, University of Zurich, lawyer

“Vital societies are the ones that develop solutions. They foster a higher quality of life and attract talents and businesses”

He is the Vice President Faculty Affairs and Scientific Information at the University of Zurich, and has also taught at two Japanese universities (Aichi and Niigata) from 1994 to 1999. His research focuses on victim surveys, family violence, and public perception of crime control as well as computer crime and cybercrime. He also conducts research projects on community crime prevention with the city of Zurich’s police department. He has been an expert on more than 50 crime documentaries for Swiss Television (SRF), most recently in “Death on the Matterhorn” (SRF/ BBC 2015). Until 2020, Christian Schwarzenegger was responsible for International Affairs. He launched the first internationalization strategy for the University of Zurich (2014-2020), which included various new international services as well as strategic partnerships and networking activities, including joining Universitas 21. Furthermore, he is responsible for the new project “Building the University Library,” which began operations in 2022, and systematically integrates the libraries of more than 30 faculties and institutes.
Through his experience, Prof. Schwarzenegger embodies a link between Switzerland and the world, in particular Japan.
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Seiichi Saito

Head of Panoramatiks

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Seiichi Saito
Head of Panoramatiks

“Vitality for me is about how we connect relevant solutions to common problems. In every country, we should search for, find and implement solutions together”

After studying architectural design at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, he moved to New York City in 2000 to work for the Arnell Group, a subsidiary of the Omnicom Group, and returned to Japan after being selected as an artist for the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in 2003. In 2006, he founded Rhizomatiks Co., Ltd. (today, Abstract Engine Co., Ltd.). He leads the company’s architecture division, Panoramatiks, and undertakes numerous projects for corporations and governments as a planning and implementation advisor. From 2018 to 2022, Saito served as vice chair of the jury for the Good Design Award. He is the People’s Living Lab Creator for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan. panoramatiks.com
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Dr. Matthias Leuenberger

Country President of Novartis in Switzerland

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Dr. Matthias Leuenberger
Country President of Novartis in Switzerland

“Vitality is about building the right healthcare framework for the future, which resonates with the EXPO theme and the Vitality.Swiss program”

In his function as Country President of Novartis in Switzerland, he serves as Chairman of the Executive Committee of Novartis Switzerland, is responsible for the company’s political relations in Switzerland and represents Novartis in the business associations Interpharma, scienceindustries (President), economiesuisse (Vice-President) and HKBB (Chamber of Trade and Commerce for Basel-Stadt and Baselland).Before joining Novartis, he spent 9 years working for Boston Consulting Group in Zurich and Tokyo. novartis.com
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Yuzuha Yoshida

Student at Sophia University and Participant in the Support Our Kids program in Switzerland in 2020

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Yuzuha Yoshida
Student at Sophia University and Participant in the Support Our Kids program in Switzerland in 2020

“My Vitality comes from meeting people. It gave me strength after the Great East Japan Earthquake and expanded my worldview during my Swiss homestay.” Yuzuha Yoshida, Student and Participant in the Support Our Kids program in Switzerland in 2020”

Yuzuha, born in Fukushima Prefecture, is a sophomore at Sophia University. She participated in the “Support Our Kids Switzerland Homestay Program,” a joint program of the Swiss Embassy and Support Our Kids, which supports the independence of children affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. She spent two weeks in Switzerland as a reconstruction ambassador representing the Tohoku disaster area. She volunteered at the Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympic Games and visited international organizations such as IFRC, UNOCHA, and IOC to learn about humanitarian issues, and also to present her own experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake. This experience sparked her interest in international affairs, and she is currently studying international relations and civil society theory at Sophia University’s Faculty of Global Studies.

Until Expo 2025

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