The fourth edition of the Digital Competitiveness Summit took place yesterday, co-organised by digitalswitzerland, EPFL and IMD.

What does it take to make a sustainable digital future?

As part of this event, the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2021 was presented, with a special focus on Switzerland. Switzerland defended a strong position with its 6th place overall ranking and remains in an excellent standing in an international comparison. Analysis focused on the results and discuss how Switzerland can stay competitive within a fast-changing environment.

Switzerland’s ranking positions

An evening of inspiration and engagement

A warm introduction and welcoming words was offered by Rüdiger Urbanke, Dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL, Jean-François Manzoni, President of IMD and Natacha Litzistorf, Municipale de la Ville de Lausanne.

Jean-François Manzoni

The welcoming speech was one to trigger question and debate: “To digitalise or not to digitalise? That is not the question” and delivered by, Nuria Gorrite Présidente Conseil d’Etat Vaudois.

The Summit welcomed Prof. Arturo Bris, Director of the World Competitiveness Center and Professor of Finance at IMD who gave a Presentation of the Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2021, with a specific focus on the Swiss results.

Prof. Arturo Bris

Three leading experts in digitalisation also took to the stage and shared key statements from the academic, economic and political fields in a panel discussion.

  • Öykü Işik, Professor of Digital Strategy & Cybersecurity, IMD
  • Cédric Moret, CEO, Elca
  • Adèle Thorens, Member of the Council of States, Les Verts, Vaud

It was also an exciting launch of Digital Day 2021 with a special video message from Guy Parmelin, President of the Swiss Confederation.

Guy Parmelin
Diana Engetschwiler, Senior Director / Head of Public Dialogue + Digital Day

The last six weeks have been very busy with a wide variety of learning and dialogue activities leading up to Digital Day on 10 November. One of the most important initiatives during this period is the ‘Upskilling Commitment’ made by our partners. 

We invited partners to dedicate 1-4 hours of time to all or a selected number of employees to join in Digital Day activities. This means anything from online talks to physical events happening at more than 20 Swiss-wide locations. We extend a warm thank you to the following partners for their dedication and commitment to our learning initiative: Accenture, Amt für Wirtschaft Kanton Schwyz, APG SGA, Atos, Chain IQ, Cisco, Civic Lab, Club de Ginebra, Cognizant, digitalswitzerland, eFachausweis, ELCA group, ewz, EY, Federal Council (Foreign Ministry Switzerland, FDFA), Green.ch, Hays, Heads! International, HES-SO, Huawei, IBM Switzerland, IMD, JobCloud, KPMG, Kudelski, LEXR Law Switzerland, Microsoft, Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund, Miraex, Moneycab, Pro Juventute, Ringier, RUAG, Sherpany, Siemens, Sir Mary, Snowflake, Swiss21.org, Swisscom, swissICT, SwissSign, UNICEF, Università della Svizzera italiana, We Talents, Wenger&Vieli, Zentralbibliothek Zürich.

By reaching a very high number of Swiss citizens, we can have a real impact on the upskilling of the Swiss population. To date, 45 members have committed and in addition 156,000 employees have been reached.

Explore all results of the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking here.

All images courtesy of Alain Herzog.