Lausanne – June 9th, 2026 – At the intersection of human experience, innovation and leadership, the 1st Edition of the HumanX Summit by EHL welcomed 800+ participants with more than 40 sessions from keynote speeches, panels, immersive workshops, startup pitches and co-creation challenges, on 19th and 20th May at EHL Hospitality Business School in Lausanne.
A New Platform Where Human-Centric Innovation Takes Centre Stage
The summit gathered leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, investors and students from more than 40 countries across 5 continents. An international lineup of 80+ diverse speakers from hospitality, science, sport, health, academia and other, and Coca-Cola HBC, Canton de VAUD and Canon Marketing as main partners, as well as other 26 supporters.
The EHL HumanXSummit 2026 focused on empathy, emotional intelligence, wellbeing, regeneration and experimentation as value creation in a world increasingly shaped by technology.
The summit also marked important milestones:
- The launch of the EHL Centre of Excellence for Human Intelligence and Leadership (CHIL), whose mission is to help individuals and organizations flourish. Informed by applied research, it aims to offer practical applications at the individual, team, and organizational levels, fostering human-centric, high-performing, and sustainable workplaces.”
- The release of the second edition of the EHL Well-being Report (available HERE), a practical guide for hospitality organizations, highlights a powerful insight: guest well-being and employee well-being are inseparable. The findings suggest that fostering psychologically healthy workplaces is not only essential for employee flourishing, but also a critical driver of guest satisfaction, trust, and long-term business success.
- The launch of the EHL Ventures Growth Program, a fresh new initiative for start-ups in growth stage in Switzerland and beyond. It will bring revenue-stage ventures, with human-centric innovations, from early traction to scalable, international growth, with clear market validation.
- The Investor Track, co-hosted with SICTIC and BAS, bringing together +70 venture capital firms, angel investors, corporate venture teams and innovation leaders. 15 selected startups pitched and engaged in curated discussions and direct exchanges with investors around what defines real investment readiness today.
- An immersive lunch experience “Taste the Future” showcased 14 startups highlighting new approaches to food production, sustainability and hospitality.
- Four EHL HumanXAwards were presented to ventures and individuals in recognition of their outstanding initiatives towards a more human future:
- The HumanX Pioneer Award honored Fundación Gastronomía Social from Chile for redefining gastronomy as a tool for social inclusion and community empowerment.
- The HumanX Leader Award recognized Patrick Honauer, serial entrepreneur (Gastrofutura, Food Networks, Sarvaguna Nepal, Kaiserhof, SGM) whose purpose-driven leadership demonstrates how clarity, integrity and long-term thinking can transform organizations.
- The Startup Investors Award went to ID Geneva, selected for its strong investment readiness, disciplined execution and credible path to scale.
- The Human-Centric Innovation Award highlighted PolaSight for developing technology that elevates wellbeing and accessibility through thoughtful, human-first design.
Discussions throughout the summit reinforced that the future is not a choice between technology and humanity, but the ability to combine both. It became very clear that as AI reshapes industries, hospitality capabilities such as empathy, care, emotional intelligence and anticipatory leadership become increasingly valuable. Leaders also emphasized the need for agility, experimentation and continuous learning to navigate an increasingly complex and non-linear world.
Building on the momentum of this inaugural edition, the HumanX Summit will return for its 2nd Edition on 11th and 12th May 2027. Save the date.
About EHL:
EHL – originally founded in 1893 as École hôtelière de Lausanne – is a hospitality and business education group, recognized as the global leader in hospitality management. The institution brings together a vibrant community of 4,000 students from over 120 nationalities across three campuses in Switzerland and Singapore. At EHL, we educate hearts, hands, and minds, shaping confident, versatile, and resilient leaders for careers in hospitality and other experience-driven industries.
About EHL HumanX:
At its core, HumanX stands for Human Experience, Excellence and Experimentation. It’s a space to explore how empathy, creativity, and human-centric thinking can shape the way we lead, work, and live. HumanX embodies the evolving story of what it means to be human in a rapidly transforming world. The “X” represents the intersections where humanity meets change and technology, where innovation meets emotion, where the past meets the future, and where new forms of connection – both digital and human – are continuously redefined. It also represents the experience itself: how we feel and relate in an increasingly complex environment.
