About

Professional Background

Ferdinand Felder co-founded his first high-tech company, Phocone AG, in 2011 with the support of an ETH Pioneer Fellowship. As CEO, he focused on strategic direction and securing funding to drive the company’s growth. Following its integration into a larger corporate group, he transitioned to lead the Zurich office, taking on both business and technical responsibilities. His expertise and interests spans early-stage prototype and product development, process deskilling and automation, and preparation towards transfer of production. Since 2020, Ferdinand has worked independently in software and hardware development, as well as consulting in these areas. He holds a PhD in Physics and a MAS in Management, Technology, and Economics, both from ETH Zurich.

Why 3000?

During a brief period in the early 90’s, humanity was united in choosing ‘2000’ as the most en vogue addition to any product or company name. That golden age is long gone. Starting from Windows 3.1 we jumped around to 95, once more to 2000, back to 7, skipping 9. This mix of actual versioning and loosely date-related naming spread into other areas, generating a vast variety of buzznumbers: Web 2.0, Industry 4.0, Office 365, Web3, Society 5.0. The next big number is obvious – 3000. And it has already started …

“Production 3000 embodies this forward-thinking vision,
representing the cutting edge of innovation.”