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The second edition of the Digital Health Academy kicked off on 16 May at Westhive in Zurich, marking the start of the 6-month academy program. digitalswitzerland wants to enable strong collaboration between thought leaders in the ecosystem to push the barriers of healthcare in Switzerland with the help of AI.
The Digital Health Academy is back. In collaboration with Swiss Healthcare Startups, we relaunched our 6-month cohort based program for AI-driven digital health scaleups who enable patients to better understand and monitor their health. We are proud to announce that five scaleups will be participating in this year’s edition alongside our valued partners: ELCA, Ergon Informatik, HKT Design, IBM, MME Legal, PersonalPulse, Swiss Post and Salesforce.
The participating scaleups will benefit from:
We are very happy to give you a sneak peek of our five selected scaleups chosen for digitalswitzerland’s Digital Health Academy 2024.
AllesHealth is a comprehensive hospital and patient management solution enabling clinician efficiency, remote patient monitoring and personalised healthcare research. The holistic health management platform empowers patients to be in control of the care they receive and enables them to own their own health records.
CNS Therapy enables chronic patients to be pain-free using a neuromodulation device and behavioural therapy without medication, surgery, implants or cannabis. The solution combines physiological approach (cardiac gated stimulation) with psychological approach (eLearning-based behavioural therapy guided by biometric data) to eliminate chronic pain, restore the autonomic nervous system and increase life quality. It is low risk, non-invasive and highly successful.
Exploris Health provides impactful AI-based diagnostic and therapy solutions, which focus on significant improvement of the most challenging areas of diagnostics and therapy while reducing healthcare costs. The first product, Cardio Explorer to detect Coronary Artery Disease has already been launched (CE-marked). Further multi-marker algorithms are already in the pipeline (Heart Failure, Breast/Prostate Cancer).
Mobile Health offers a patient-centred software application which enables patients to record their well-being and symptoms as well as vital parameters and medication intake in a structured and standardised electronic way (ePROs). Patients can also automatically record their vital signs using various medical devices. The doctor receives a structured, clinical grade picture of the patient’s condition and the current and historical course of their therapy. The doctor’s decision-making is supported by AI modules.
Pathmate develops digital coaches to support people with chronic diseases and makes them accessible through its own certified coaching platform. Pathmate’s mission revolves around the fusion of medicine, behavioural psychology and data science to empower individuals on their health journey. At the heart of their solutions is a chatbot that informs, motivates and guides users to improve and take charge of their health.
Are you interested to learn more about the Digital Health Academy?
Switzerland is one of the most innovative countries in the world, but when it comes to digitalisation of its healthcare system, the process of implementation is very slow. Nevertheless, the Federal Council is currently supporting the transformation with its Health2030 Strategy and its digital health promotion programme Digisanté. A central pillar of this digitalisation process is the electronic patient record (EPR) which has faced many hurdles to be implemented and adopted successfully due to the fragmented Swiss healthcare system.
Switzerland has three main regions, which are home to digital health innovations: canton of Zurich, the Arc lémanique region and the Great Basel Area. These locations place Switzerland as a great digital health market where companies and startups choose to settle. 357 digital health startups were identified in Switzerland by the Swiss Healthcare Startup’s directory guide spanning through the entire patient journey (from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and monitoring). This correlates with the constant increase in investment in such ventures. However, these organisations face many hurdles, especially with reimbursement of their solutions, as the mechanism is complex and reimbursement for digital health solutions is not transparent.
According to our population survey, conducted in 2022, 68% of the population want to be owners of their personal health data. It is therefore key to empower patients more to better understand and use their health data through training, education and awareness-raising measures. Swiss Health Data Space, is a new initiative going in this direction, as it recruits pioneers who want to test and explore the digital healthcare infrastructure in Switzerland while keeping full control and ownership of their health data.
Digital health ecosystems are slowly emerging, for example networks of different organisations and solutions across the healthcare sector that share a digital infrastructure to ensure a seamless experience for patients. These networks increase transparency and efficiency in communication between the different actors. One such example is the Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map.
Already now, numerous Swiss solutions support the overall patient empowerment, such as the four scaleups that were part of the Digital Health Academy’s 2023 cohort: Decentriq, heyPatient, Soignez-moi, and TOM Medications.
Eventually, the future of healthcare should be human-centric, fostering education and empowerment of the population to better understand their health data and navigate their digital health journey. Citizens should collaborate more with healthcare professionals, as this will strengthen their relationship and trust, as well as ensuring the continuum of care. Additionally, innovators and investors need to build symbiotic relationships as strategic investors provide valuable resources to innovators who are navigating the complex healthcare landscape; this will ensure long-term impact. Last but not least, public authorities need to set national standards and a clear framework for digital health in Switzerland, ensuring that solutions to our current problems are based on the same standards.
Switzerland is recognised as one of the most innovative countries in the world, highly ranked for many years in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness (WDC): it was ranked 5th in 2022 and in 2023 it can hold its position once again (IMD World Competitiveness Center, 2022). Similarly, Switzerland ranks 1st in the Global Innovation Index (Dutta et al., 2023), with the Index highlighting the significant R&D investment of Swiss global corporates, led by life science giants Roche and Novartis.
The Swiss healthcare system is one of the sectors in which Switzerland still lags behind in terms of digitalisation, as underlined by the “Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Digitalisation Index” (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2019), where it was only ranked 14th.
Digital health refers to the use of information and communications technologies in medicine and other health professions to manage illnesses and health risks and to promote wellness (Ronquillo et al., 2023). It has a broad scope, spanning through the entire patient journey (from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and monitoring) and includes mobile health apps, electronic health records, wearable devices with sensors, telemedicine and personalised medicine. Digital health has various benefits such as accessibility, accuracy, time saving and cost reduction.
The COVID-pandemic played a massive role in digital health’s growth worldwide, as new solutions were developed to support the healthcare of the population through the crisis, and a necessity to switch to at-home or minimal contact care models. Certain countries have been able to implement the necessary infrastructure and regulations required to digitalise their healthcare systems such as Estonia, Canada, Spain, Israel and Denmark. Their governments have made clear commitments to supporting the development of the sector.
Switzerland is also trying to win back lost times by developing the digital health sector positively through various innovative solutions.
The Federal Council is currently supporting the digital transformation of healthcare in Switzerland through different ways. In the Health2030 Strategy, it defined the new health policy priorities, setting digital transformation as one of the main objectives (Federal Office of Public Health, 2019). In addition, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) are jointly developing on behalf of the Federal Council, the digital health promotion programme Digisanté (Federal Office of Public Health – Digisanté, 2023).
Switzerland is facing complexities in the introduction of digital solutions such as the electronic patient record (EPR) (Patientrecord.ch). Due to its fragmented healthcare system and cantonal policies, its law has recently been placed in consultation to identify the optimal changes required for it to finally be adopted successfully by the population. As the governmental solution is taking a lot of time to be installed, healthcare players identified opportunities to launch joint consortiums to provide a digital health platform. The two biggest consortiums are Compassanna (Bluespace Ventures AG, 2023) and Well (Well Gesundheit AG, 2023).
In recent population studies, it was clearly identified that the Swiss population is willing to share their health data digitally (Pletscher & Lerch, 2022) and onboard a digital health journey (Sternberg, 2022) given it has clear added value.
Switzerland’s digital health landscape has expanded in various areas over the years: telemedicine, wearables, patient records, healthy ageing, mental health, femtech, value-based healthcare and personalised medicine.
Three principal regions are home to digital health innovations: Canton of Zurich, the Arc lémanique region and the Great Basel Area.
Zurich is the home to major technology companies, key universities in Switzerland (ETH, UZH, ZHAW) as well as many hospitals. In recent years, Zurich has grown its digital health footprint through the development of digital health hubs and incubators such as Digital Health centre in Bülach, Bluelion, and HealthTechPark in Schlieren.
L’Arc lémanique has also expanded massively, especially around Lausanne and Geneva due to the presence of EPFL, university hospitals (CHUV and HUG) and campus of Biotech Innovation Park and Biopôle.
Last but not least, the Great Basel area is a flourishing region, where pharmaceutical companies and medtech are closely located to the university hospital. DayOne from Basel Area has also recently grown massively and is leading a four-year Innosuisse Innobooster around digital health, the Digital Health Nation Innobooster.
These ideal locations position Switzerland as a great digital health market where companies choose to settle, and startups choose to be founded.
The digital health startup scene is also growing massively in Switzerland with 357 digital health related startups and scaleups identified in Swiss Healthcare Startups’ digital directory in October 2023 (Cortex – Swiss Healthcare Startup, 2023). Many incubators and acceleration programmes support the emergence of startups such as the Digital Health Nation Innobooster (Basel Area Business & Innovation, 2023).
Investment into Swiss digital health startups has been steadily increasing until this year, reaching 30 investment rounds in 2022 (8% of all rounds) totalling close to 200M CHF (5% of all capital invested to Swiss startups in 2023). Just over 50% of these funds were invested into digital health startups in canton Vaud (Swiss Venture Capital Report, 2023).
One major hurdle which the startups in digital health are continuously facing is their business model, as reimbursement of digital health solutions in Switzerland is still not a transparent process. In comparison, Germany’s DiGa legislation is in place since the end of 2019 (BfArM, 2023), Belgium’s mHealth app reimbursement since 2021 (Agoria and beMedTech, 2023), and France’s PECAN legislation was approved earlier this year (2023) (Farah et al., 2023). Health applications in Switzerland that follow specific rules can be reimbursed by the basic insurance as stated in the Information Sheet provided by the Federal Office of Public Health (Federal Office of Public Health, 2022).
According to digitalswitzerland’s 2022 study, which is based on the results of a population survey on the needs and fears towards the digitalisation of the Swiss healthcare system, citizens are willing to share their data digitally, given it has clear added value such as better usability (Sternberg, 2022).
It must also offer enhanced prevention, improved diagnosis and treatments and lower healthcare costs. One major finding from the study is the correlation between the level of education and the level of digital literacy and health literacy in Switzerland.
Careum Foundation, combined both terms into a new term, digital health literacy, which is defined as the degree to which individuals are able to obtain, understand and judge health information from digital sources and use it to make decisions about their health. Careum Foundation worked on a two-year study project on health literacy (2019-2021) where they found that 72% of the Swiss population has difficulties in dealing with digital information and services and accordingly has very low levels of digital health literacy (De Gani et al., 2021).
Giving equal access to digital health competences in Switzerland should be a key focus to enable the population to feel empowered over their health data. More awareness-raising measures should be developed to support this.
68% of the population want to be the owners of their personal health data (Sternberg, 2022). Citizens want to be in control of their health data, know who has access to it and give consent to how it can be used for research (swissethics, 2021). The electronic patient record (EPR) is going in this direction as each individual has control over who can access their health information. The Federal Act on the electronic patient record, which states the framework conditions for the EPR has recently been put in revision to be adapted and ensure a successful adoption and use within Switzerland (Federal Office of Public Health – EPRA, 2023).
Furthermore, a new initiative was launched at the end of 2022 with Swiss Health Data Space, which recruits pioneers who want to test and explore the health data landscape in Switzerland while keeping full control and ownership of their health data (Verein Gesundheitsdatenraum Schweiz, 2022).
The future of healthcare should be human-centric with a key focus set on educating and empowering the citizens to better understand their health data and navigate their digital health journey. This enables the patient to stay in better control of his health, their wellbeing, and therefore stay healthier longer.
Digital ecosystems have disrupted many industries such as mobility, retail or media over the last years. In recent years, they have also started to appear in the digital health sector as networks of diverse organisations and solutions across the healthcare sector. They are connected by a shared digital infrastructure which ensures a seamless patient journey combining in medical data and patient generated data. These ecosystems enable disparate siloed solutions to be connected to ensure the patient has access to the best prevention, diagnostic, treatment and monitoring possible.
A digital health ecosystem ensures clear added value for the different actors (Deetjen et al., 2020):
Crucial for such digital ecosystems is the need to identify and articulate positive network effects across different user platform view, and to grow the critical mass that each one has an immediate benefit from participating in such platforms (Zhu & Iansiti, 2019).
Additionally, digital ecosystems increase transparency and efficiency in communicating between the different players to improve the overall value for the system.
digitalswitzerland has therefore created a Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map to illustrate the different digital solutions focussing on enhancing the digital patient journey and digitalisation of the healthcare system in Switzerland. This representation enables the different players to remove the gaps, identify synergies between themselves and enhance collaboration.
The Q4 2023 map illustrates more than 80 different players distributed along the five different categories: data interoperability, health monitoring, healthcare interactions, medical data history, prevention/ awareness.
Figure 1 – The Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map – Q4 2023
Switzerland has a great number of digital health solutions which support the overall empowerment of patients to better understand their health data and navigate their health journey. We will introduce the four key scaleups of the year: Decentriq, heyPatient, Soignez-moi and TOM Medications.
The challenge
To address the most pressing challenges in healthcare today, organisations require access to data beyond their borders. Between clinical notes, lab tests, medical images, sensor readings, genomics, electronic health records and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), copious amounts of real-world data (RWD) are generated daily, hiding a wealth of potential insights that could lead to better treatment and diagnosis — if they would be connected. Switzerland is at the forefront of healthcare innovation, possessing a wide ecosystem composed of pharmaceutical companies, leading hospitals and startups. However, the data is often siloed due to privacy concerns and poor data interoperability, making it hard for organisations to access and utilise it. This poses a dilemma for data custodians, like hospitals, who must balance patient privacy with the potential life-saving benefits of collaborative data use.
Solution
Decentriq combines confidential computing technology with a data clean room (DCR) framework to create a comprehensive platform for secure data collaborations at scale. This platform addresses the healthcare industry’s challenges by assuring both data privacy and data usability. It allows for rapid setup of data clean rooms that merge data from various sources without ever exposing any raw data and without any special equipment needed on-site.
Confidential computing technology provides hard proof that data is always under the data custodian’s control and never accessible by anyone else — not by other organisations participating in the collaboration, nor Decentriq, nor the cloud provider. Finally, advanced privacy filters ensure that retrieved results won’t unintentionally reveal private information.
Impact on the patient
The use of RWD greatly accelerates research and development, as well as legislative decision-making processes, resulting in quicker access to more effective treatments in the market. When treatments become more targeted and administered more promptly, patients experience improved outcomes. Hospitalisations are minimised, and care providers can potentially intervene even before they become necessary thanks to improved diagnostics models. This means patients benefit from more efficient and proactive healthcare solutions.
Testimonies
“Decentriq’s unique solution gives us the ability to bring diverse datasets together for research while strictly preserving patient privacy. By facilitating secure analysis, their innovative approach holds the promise of improved patient outcomes and a more collaborative healthcare ecosystem.”
— Prof. Dr. med. Dirk Müller-Wieland, Director of Center for Cardiological Studies, University Clinic RWTH Aachen
Team
Decentriq was founded by Maximilian Groth and Stefan Deml in 2019 in Zurich. They lead a team of 35 people from the company’s headquarters in Zurich and are distributed across more than 10 European countries. The company’s mission is to foster data collaboration, even with the world’s most sensitive data.
Collaboration & Partnerships
Data clean rooms powered by confidential computing have enabled the following use cases:
Development of tools to enable earlier treatment of rare diseases
Using Decentriq, data custodians from hospitals make rare disease datasets available — offering a comprehensive perspective of the patient journey without revealing patient row-level information or risking patient reidentification.
Linking clinical trial data with RWD
With Decentriq’s DCR technology, pharmaceutical companies can combine patient data, match it to clinical trial data, and analyse the data to create more targeted treatments — all while preserving patient privacy.
Enabling transformative healthcare networks
Decentriq is providing core infrastructure enabling iCARE4CVD consortium partners to bring together data on over one million cardiovascular disease patients while ensuring patient privacy.
Research of this magnitude has the potential to transform care for the 60 million Europeans, and many more around the world, impacted by cardiovascular diseases.
Future vision of healthcare
Decentriq’s vision for the future of healthcare is one where more organisations can collaborate on health data while resting assured that this data will remain private. We look forward to seeing how these collaborations can result in pioneering research and advances in diagnostics, treatment, and patient care.
The challenge
Doctors use 80% of their time for administration, while patient-faced processes are mostly still paper-based. Healthcare costs explode and puts healthcare service provision at stake. A joint study from McKinsey and ETH concluded that Switzerland can reach annual savings of CHF 8.2 billion per year through the use of patient-centred digital health solutions (Hämmerli et al., 2021). The potential health impact and medical utility are substantial.
Solution
heyPatient streamlines processes, relieves staff members, thus improves healthcare outcomes and reduces costs.
Impact on the patient
heyPatient’s impact on patients is significant, as it digitally accompanies patients along their journey across various healthcare providers, simplifies interaction, thus improves healthcare outcomes.
Patients’ Testimonies
Here are two quotes that capture this impact:
“With heyPatient, I no longer have to spend hours managing my healthcare appointments and paperwork. It has made my healthcare experience much more convenient.”
“heyPatient is like having a personal healthcare assistant in my pocket, it helps me manage my health by making everything from appointments to communication with healthcare staff much easier.”
Team
heyPatient’s dedicated team consists of 12 individuals with a diverse range of expertise, who have achieved remarkable success in building a strong offering and establishing an awarded, market-proven healthcare SaaS-solution (Swiss made software) with highest customer value.
The co-founders Matthias and Regula Spuehler, both serial founders, lead in the role of CEO and COO with a strong commitment, owning over 75% of heyPatient AG.
Every team member is an expert in their field, allowing heyPatient to quickly develop and deploy value-focused services and solutions for their customers.
Collaboration & Partnerships
heyPatient is dedicated to collaboration and has achieved significant success:
Future vision of healthcare
heyPatient’s future vision for healthcare centres on the simplification of interactions with increased patient-centricity, efficiency, and digitalisation. This encompasses:
The challenge
It happens often that one is sick and cannot reach their General Practitioner (GP) or they do not have an available appointment for treatment. What can be even worse, is to wait countless hours in an emergency department (ED). Soignez-moi.ch has a solution to help patients in such situations.
Solution
Reaching out to a doctor has never been that easy. Soignez-moi provides a simple solution to treat everyday symptoms that drag patients down. Soignez-moi’s medical questionnaire is free of charge and its triage indicates if someone can be treated remotely or a physical consultation is required. By design, Soignez-moi is a patient-centric and fully digital company where the patient decides his journey and is in charge of their data. They are the only provider in Switzerland that can send prescriptions directly to patients, thus allowing them to choose freely where they want to get their medicine. Their triage module is also extremely customisable and allows hospitals to improve patients’ flow in the emergency department. By better defining the level of emergency ahead and thanks to their modular approach, a hospital can better plan certain cases (pre-defined symptom or group of symptoms), or refer patients to various care centres, depending on infrastructure and available personnel.
How it works
Soignez-moi provides a simple and intuitive solution:
Business Model
For a flat fee of CHF 59 reimbursed by the mandatory health insurance (if any, the exam/test are also covered by mandatory health insurance).
Impact on the patient
The impact on patients is huge since they have direct access to a doctor within a couple of minutes and thus can be treated and relieved. The best way to ensure that a solution has a real impact on people is to perform a survey. Soignez-moi therefore send a satisfaction survey one week after the consultation of a patient ended. 40% of their patients filled in this questionnaire and more than 95% rate their experience with 4 stars .
Patients’ Testimonies
“Fast, proactive and efficient. I would use the service again without hesitation given the difficulty of obtaining a physical appointment with a general practitioner.”
“It was really fast and I really appreciated the doctor I had on the phone, very understanding and attentive!”
Team
Soignez-moi has a very seasoned team that supports their vision. Just within the founders, they have more than 50 years of healthcare experience. The team includes a dedicated team of developers all coming from Lausanne. Their medical protocols have been validated scientifically by the Notfall Zentrum of Inselspital, thus giving credibility to the work performed by their doctors.
Collaboration & Partnerships
Soignez-moi have treated more than 23,000 patients over the last three years and have been able to conclude renowned partnerships in the Swiss French part. They are the telemedicine provider for Réseau Delta (>950 registered GPs), Medbase Romandie, Hôpital la Tour, Hôpital de Réseau Neuchâtelois, Hôpital Jules Gonin, etc.
Future vision of healthcare
The future of healthcare for Soignez-moi.ch is a dynamic landscape where advanced technologies, personalised medicine and patient engagement converge to redefine the delivery of services. From AI-driven diagnostics to genomics-based treatments, this future promises a holistic and interconnected approach focused on prevention and individual well-being.
The challenge
Only 10% of patient’s disease therapy is monitored today by doctors, hospitals or insurances. 90% lies in the darkness of the patient’s privacy. Uncontrolled. Unobserved. What is seen as a crucial problem in advancing the future of medicine is not access to accurate real-life data. All patient information is captured in specific time-boxes, and we have no idea how patients behave and what happens in their everyday lives outside of the surveillance of doctors and pharmacists. Currently, there is a black box of information about patients, which is needed in order to truly deliver personalised medicine.
Solution
TOM Medications wants to advance personalised medicine, by building a real-world evidence platform, the «TOM insights» platform. At the core of their technology lies high-quality real-world data, sourced from the TOM app. These patient-generated data undergo rigorous analysis to yield intuitive insights into various aspects of healthcare, including disease progression, patient experiences, medication adherence, disease burden, treatment pathways, treatment effectiveness, and the cost of care.
Recognising the need to capture previously untapped information, they designed the TOM app with a focus on engagement, drawing from feedback from over 20,000 patients. This approach has resulted in a highly engaged patient community, with an app stickiness of up to 71% surpassing even social media giants like Twitter (41%), and comparable to Facebook (66%), and WhatsApp (84%). Patients use TOM as their companion throughout their disease management, resulting in an enormous pool of patient health data over a long period of time.
Through this commitment to gathering and analysing authentic patient experiences, TOM Medications drive healthcare advancements firmly rooted in real patient journeys. This approach paves the way for a personalised approach to healthcare, ultimately reshaping the way care is delivered and experienced.
Impact on the patient
Patients are already benefiting from being able to use the TOM app 100% free of charge and 100% anonymously to manage their disease, leading to more positive treatment outcomes for patients and a higher quality of life. The insights generated from the TOM Insights platform will add to the benefits since it aims to advance developments of more personalised medicine for patients. Thus, patients will get treatment tailored to their needs and improve their health.
Patients’ Testimonies
“Since I’ve been using TOM, I’ve been taking my medication more consciously and consistently! The fact that the app informs me when the medication is almost used up is awesome! I would definitely recommend it!”
“I had recently lost track of when I needed to take which medication and whether I had already taken it. Before I tried TOM, I had tried other medication apps, but I find that TOM has been much more thoughtfully created. It really has thought of everything and it helps me a lot in my everyday life.”
Team
The team of TOM Medications currently counts 12 people, composed of pharmacists, data engineers, software developers, UX designers and business developments. Having such an interdisciplinary team is necessary to bring their vision to life. Apart from their team, they are excited to have their advisory and management board consisting of experts from the healthcare industry and science, successful entrepreneurs, as well important stakeholders, such as Galenica and Sanitas, which are their go-to partners in building a product that really fulfils a current need in the market.
Collaboration & Partnerships
TOM Medications collaborate with a two-digit number of partners from the healthcare sector, be it pharma, insurance, or research institutions. And all these collaborations have the patients’ health improvement in its centre. For instance, they collaborated with Sanitas to create an adherence programme, worked with Galenica and Mediservice to digitalise pharmacy services in the TOM app, and with the Diabetes Center Berne they collaborated in Real-World-Data.
Future vision of healthcare
Their company’s vision is clear: personalised medicine is the future of healthcare, enabling healthcare providers to shift the emphasis in medicine from reaction to prevention. But personalised medicine needs data to do so. And especially (hard to get) patient-generated data to create unique real-world insights. These insights can lead to breakthroughs in treatment strategies, the identification of previously undetected adverse effects, and the development of novel therapies tailored to individual patients’ needs. With more than 200 million patient-generated data already at the heart of the TOM evidence model, they are at the forefront of the transformation of the Swiss healthcare system.
Human-centred and patient-centric design principles strive to put people at the centre of their solutions, particularly with respect to being aligned with their needs in the context of the local healthcare system(s). A majority of the population will not have been involved in the initial design phases of new digital health solutions, yet have an important role to play in refining these solutions – either through direct feedback or simply by letting the companies behind them leverage their user data to improve.
To engage with new solutions, there are often some fundamental prerequisites that enable an integrated user experience. One such enabler is the electronic patient record (EPR), which will become the gateway to many future digital health solutions. The sooner people begin to use their EPR, the sooner we reach a critical mass of people able to access digital services.
Fostering digital health literacy is therefore pivotal. Ensuring the Swiss population, especially the elderly, feels safe, and comfortable navigating these digital technologies is essential. Widespread education in the form of workshops, training programmes, and user-friendly interfaces are imperative to bridge the digital divide, as well as encouraging dialogue between those who have had initial experiences with these solutions and those who are still learning about the benefits and convenience of digital healthcare delivery.
Moreover, collaboration with healthcare professionals is also key. Building trust between patients and digital health providers can be achieved by involving local doctors and nurses in telehealth initiatives. This collaborative approach ensures that patients receive a continuum of care (including all providers from pharmacy to at home nursing by the intermediary of the hospitals) combining the advantages of both digital and traditional healthcare services.
Such collaboration can be initiated by the patients themselves too; this will encourage providers to start or continue their digital transformation initiatives. By engaging with digital health tools, the Swiss population can open the dialogue as to the pros and cons of these technologies, and together address the key questions of data privacy, data ownership and usability.
Adopting new digital health tools when in good health is a good way to become familiar with solutions before they are needed in a care setting. Once onboarded, patients can comfortably benefit from the services they offer such as online information resources, telemedical consultations or opportunities to plan and track diagnostic and therapeutic information in support of care pathways.
Digital health innovation is rarely a short-term journey. While initial (angel) investors and grant funding can help initiatives to get started, the road ahead to patient impact and profitability will be long and complicated due to decisions on which market segments and solutions to prioritise.
Therefore, dilutive and non-dilutive investors must seek long-term impact rather than short-term gains. Correspondingly, innovators must be prepared and equipped to articulate this impact in terms of savings and improvements to different healthcare stakeholders.
The Swiss economy is investing heavily in hardware and software, especially in digital technologies as stated in ETH’s survey (Wörter, 2022). This is particularly the case in the digital health area with an important growth in funding of digital health companies and therefore an increasing number of venture funds entering the sector. In startupticker VC report’s survey, it was identified that more than half of the investors invest in digitalisation topics in the healthcare sector (Swiss Venture Capital Report, 2023).
While this year, 2023, has clearly been challenging in the Venture Capital sector, particularly for those seeking first-time investment, an increasing number of active Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) funds have begun seeking earlier stage investments. CVCs are often in the strategic position of aligning their portfolio companies with their respective corporate strategies, and therefore have an opportunity to seek close integration of innovative solutions through collaboration; both in terms of teams, customers, and data interoperability.
To increase the impact of digital health innovation in Switzerland, a symbiotic relationship between innovators and investors of any kind is crucial. Investors can provide mentorship and resources beyond monetary support, aiding innovators in navigating the complex healthcare stakeholder landscape.
Open interfaces enable other solutions to connect and securely share data via international standards such as HL7 FHIR. Such solutions enable greater scalability as new collaborations can be integrated via these standards. This also results in an imperative for established companies to explore how to enable such data interoperability and move away from siloed data models. Cuore from Swiss Post is just one example of a platform that enables data interoperability (Swiss Post Ltd, 2023).
In this way, innovators have the opportunity to leverage the ecosystem mindset and encourage regional and national initiatives that increase skills and enable technology which is required in key areas such as connectivity of devices within care settings. Identifying solutions that deliver mutual benefits in the realm of digital transformation can provide industry-wide benefits as a positive externality from the implementation of one specific innovation.
In this spirit, there is an imperative to be inquisitive about what is holding back the integration of digital health solutions and ensure even with limited resources that innovators are addressing environmental, social, and governance topics in addition to their technical solutions.
In the coming years, the Swiss regulatory framework around digital health is poised for significant evolution. Public authorities need to set national standards and a clear framework for digital health in Switzerland together with international regulatory bodies and industry stakeholders.
Moreover, beyond setting standards, public authorities also have a role to ensure that different players collaborate within the ecosystem to avoid Swiss citizens being obliged to use multiple disconnected applications and services. The human-centred design principles of the innovators should be considered by policymakers.
Data security and data privacy should be at the forefront of the discussions as it is important to ensure that all solutions follow strict regulations and ensure that the citizens’ data are handled appropriately. The FOPH has launched a group of experts focusing on Data management and standardisation in Switzerland (Federal Office of Public Health – Digisanté, 2023). It is key that all the different digital health solutions, which are developed, are based on the same standards and follow the international FAIR norms. The Swiss Personalised Healthcare Network has made considerable progress on making health data FAIR for secondary usage (SPHN, 2023).
The different health solutions need to use structured interoperable data for the different systems to be able to communicate with one another efficiently. This is the only way possible to ensure that we move away from siloed solutions into ecosystems and networks of solutions that interlink with one another. Like this, each actor will be able to focus on its key added value and bring their own expertise to the healthcare ecosystem.
Furthermore, there should be a concerted collaborative effort to establish clear guidelines and standards for digital health solutions such as telemedicine practices, home monitoring devices, and digital therapeutics. This clarity is essential for both, providers and patients, ensuring that services are safe, reliable, and accessible across the country.
The Swiss healthcare system is ready for digital transformation. Due to its great location and presence of diverse key healthcare partners, Switzerland has all the required tools to grow steadily in the digital health sector. However, this will only be possible if all the different healthcare players – patients, providers and public authorities – collaborate.
Startups and scaleups are a very important part of the innovation process of healthcare in Switzerland, and they will continue to play an even greater role in the upcoming future as thought leaders of our evolving digital health ecosystem.
Empowering Swiss citizens to better understand and own their health data as well as better navigate their health journey are critical to ensure equal access to digital health knowledge and positive patient outcomes for the population. Digital health solutions, such as the ones who took part in digitalswitzerland and Swiss Healthcare Startups’ Digital Health Academy 2023, are the innovators of today and tomorrow; they are the new digital health players who will enable us to achieve the next steps of digitalising the healthcare system in Switzerland by working together with the patients and other healthcare actors.
In the future, citizens should become an even stronger partner in designing and testing digital health solutions to ensure their needs are met. Innovators and investors will need to partner up to ensure that long-term impactful and interoperable solutions thrive in the healthcare ecosystem.
This is a collaborative publication between the different scaleups from the Digital Health academy and digitalswitzerland’s team.
Authors:
Romain Boichat, Co-founder and COO, Soignez-moi
Redona Hafizi, Co-founder and Head of Pharma, TOM Medications
Maria Scoz, Healthcare and Life Sciences Business Developer, Decentriq
Phil Norris, Senior Manager Scaleup Enablement, digitalswitzerland
Regula Spuehler, Co-founder and COO, heyPatient
Jade Sternberg, Senior Project Lead Digital Health, digitalswitzerland
Supported by:
Diana Hardie, CEO of Swiss Healthcare Startups
Susanne Gedamke, Managing Director, Swiss Patient Organisation
Milan Vopalka, Head Healthcare, Public Sector Switzerland , Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Theodor Wilhelm, Head of Strategy and Business Development and Member of the Executive Board, Post Sanela Health AG
About the Digital Health Academy:
In collaboration with Swiss Healthcare Startups, digitalswitzerland launched the first edition of the Digital Health Academy, a 6-month cohort based programme for scaleups working to empower the patients to own and understand their health data better. Decentriq, heyPatient, Soignez-moi and TOM Medications were part of the 2023 cohort and, through this academy, were positioned as thought leaders in the digital health space. As part of the programme, they were mentored by experts, benefited from in-depth workshops, a matchmaking bootcamp with corporates and the chance to join ecosystem events such as Digital Health Day (Zurich) and AI for Life (Geneva).
About digitalswitzerland:
digitalswitzerland is a nationwide, cross-sector initiative that aims to transform Switzerland into a leading digital nation. Under the umbrella of digitalswitzerland more than 200 organisations, consisting of association members and politically neutral foundation partners, are working together to achieve this goal. digitalswitzerland is the point of contact for all questions relating to digitalisation and is committed to solving a wide range of challenges. Learn more about digitalswitzerland.
The Swiss healthcare system: entering a new digital era.
A visualisation of the pioneering solutions that inspire a digital health ecosystem” is published!
Zurich, 13 December 2023
Although great care has been taken in the preparation of this publication, the author and contributors involved are not responsible for the accuracy of the data, information and advice provided, nor for any printing errors.
All rights reserved, including translation into other languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transcribed and/or translated into any computer language, including any information processing language, in any form without the prior written permission of the authors.
The rights to the trademarks mentioned remain with their respective owners.
Coordination of the publication: Melanie Holenweger and Jade Sternberg (digitalswitzerland)
Graphic design: Nina Holenstein (www.niniparati.com)
digitalswitzerland is partnering with the Association Swiss Health Data Space to test the current digital healthcare infrastructure in Switzerland and enable citizens to gain valuable information on their health and thus, take control of it. By participating in this initiative, citizens and healthcare professionals will experience the benefits of the digital side of the healthcare system. They will also identify what is required to improve it through secure and effective use of structured health data with a human-centred focus.
In the 20th century, highly motivated astronauts went through intensive preparatory training to explore space. They showed great willingness to take risks and challenge themselves. What does this have to do with digital health, you might ask? We are looking for pioneers willing to explore the health data space to request and store their own health data. We encourage citizens and healthcare professionals to participate actively by testing and improving the digital healthcare infrastructure themselves – it’s only with the direct involvement of the people that we can ensure that the human is placed at the core of the system.
This so-called “expedition into the health data space” is looking for two types of stakeholders for a rapid digital transformation of the healthcare infrastructure:
Embarking on this expedition as a Salutonaut, you will play an active role and gain much information on your own health. You will do this by:
The costs to become a Salutonaut are 500 CHF. This includes the medical checkup fee as well as the membership fee for the Swiss Health Data Space association.
By becoming an active member of this expedition, you will experience the different health tools, test the current solutions, identify their advantages and help formulate the important regulatory and technical requirements, which are currently lacking to bring the healthcare infrastructure to the next level: a human-centred digital health data space.
This opportunity offers a unique experience to obtain medical history to access new health services for yourself and share it with your family. You will be able to better understand and take control of your health data and make a difference alongside other pioneers.
digitalswitzerland’s Digital Health team is joining the expedition to lead by example and push the barriers of the healthcare system in Switzerland!
Are you interested to join the initiative?
Find additional information about our various activities on our Digital Health programme page.
The Association Swiss Health Data Space creates the legal, technical, economical and organisational conditions necessary for operating a people-centred health data space for the entire of Switzerland and to provide knowledge transfer to promote transparency, acceptance and trust. The association builds on existing solutions and wants to create the right conditions for the future solutions to meet the key technical and functional requirements. The health data spaces which are promoted are compatible with the European Health Data Space.
The world’s largest tech showcase, GITEX Global, took place again from 10 to 14 October. This year, the world’s largest tech fair attracted over 4,500 companies and 100,000 attendees, ranging from visitors and entrepreneurs to scientists, state officials and more. A Swiss delegation of 20 C-level executives participated at GITEX Global to represent the innovative capacity and technological expertise of our country as well as to strengthen international bonds.
The Swiss Delegation of 20 C-level executives to GITEX Global in Dubai was warmly welcomed by Stefan Metzger, Managing Director digitalswitzerland and Andreas Kaelin, Senior Advisor digitalswitzerland. Together they laid out the economic relationships between Switzerland and the Arabian Gulf, which is the 10th largest Swiss export market. As IMD highlighted in the recently published World Digital Competitiveness Index, the UAE continues to knock on the door of the top 10 most digitally competitive nations, excelling at their regulatory and technological frameworks, which both rank 3rd in the 2022 report. The country therefore offers a great opportunity for Switzerland to learn from and improve our technology ranking.
Frank Eggmann, Consul General of Switzerland in Dubai, welcomed the delegation by highlighting how GITEX can catapult Swiss ventures looking to scale up their customer base, develop corporate partnerships, and win investment. GITEX Global is the world’s largest tech show in its biggest year ever, attracting over 4,500 companies and 100,000 participants from across the globe.
Safia Agueni, Chapter Founder of Women in Tech Switzerland, introduced a cohort of senior tech executives from multinational companies representing a range of industries, highlighting the importance of diversity in technology leadership and digital transformation projects. The local chapter of Women in Tech UAE joined the Swisstech SWISS Pavilion and toured the broad range of Swiss spin-off projects, startups, and scaleups.
The Swisstech SWISS Pavilion at GITEX Global 2022 was opened by Massimo Baggi, Ambassador of Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Groundbreaking applications in the fields of Metaverse, AI, Web 3.0, Blockchain, 6G, Cloud Computing, FinTech and Big Data are the focus of the action.
Stefan Metzger, Managing Director digitalswitzerland: “GITEX is an excellent opportunity for Swiss companies and especially for startups in the deep tech sector to generate attention, tap into new markets and establish contacts with potential investors. In this way, we support the main goal of the Swisstech initiative: to position Switzerland as an outstanding innovation and technology center and an attractive location for investors and foreign companies.”
eGovernment and digital health in the Gulf
One spacious hall in GITEX is a showcase of the latest tech being developed and deployed by national and regional governments. Many of these are based on the fundament of an electronic identity card (eID), where governments have put significant resources into streamlining the process of obtaining an eID and building eGovernment services that enable residents to quickly complete administrative processes online.
Ali Juma AlAjme, Director of Digital Health at the Ministry of Health and Prevention, presented some of the advancements in Electronic Health Records, including giving patients the right to share their health data, creating a unified protocol for digital health companies to use, unified supply chain interfaces, and introducing new guidance for telemedicine later this year. All of this with the aim of enabling faster and more interoperable innovation in digital health that will benefit the patient journey.
Innovation across Dubai and the UAE
To complement the extensive spectrum of tech on show at GITEX Global, the Swiss delegation also visited two key sites that demonstrate Dubai’s forward-looking approach to innovation and sustainability.
The Dubai International Finance Center (DIFC) is a free zone, home to an independent regulator, judicial system based on the English common law framework, and benefiting from the high labour mobility into the region. DIFC houses an Innovation Hub, where Ralf Glabischnig, Founder of Crypto Oasis, explained the bridge between Switzerland’s Crypto Valley and the Crypto Oasis of over 1,450 organisations making up the fast-growing blockchain ecosystem in the UAE. The Crypto Oasis 2022 report summarises the governments, investors, corporates and startups that operate in the DIFC, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), and others.
Swiss clean tech company Hitachi Zosen Inova is working in an international consortium including Dubal Holding, ITOCHU Corporation, BESIX Group and Tech Group. Under the leadership of Roni Araiji, Managing Director Middle East, they are building the world’s largest energy-from-waste facility, capable of treating 1,825,000 tons of municipal solid waste per year – an impressive 45% of Dubai’s current waste. The 200 MW of electricity generated will be fed into the local grid as baseload energy, in line with Dubai’s Integrated Energy Strategy 2030.
Swisstech @ GITEX Global 2022 hosted the following scaleups, startups, and research institutions:
Please find our archive of press releases.
If you represent a magazine, newspaper or another kind of media entity, or have other media related inquiries, please get in touch.
Email our Head of Communications & Marketing: ottavia@digitalswitzerland.com
December 2024
10.12.2024 – digitalswitzerland reacts to the federal government’s technology decision: “Redefining trust in the digital space”. Read the press release in German.
September 2024
17.09.2024 – Federal cost-cutting measures should increase digital efficiency. Read the press release in German.
May 2024
30.05.2024 – Franziska Barmettler becomes the new CEO of digitalswitzerland. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
07.05.2024 – 6th Digital Gipfel Schweiz: 100 personalities from business, education and politics discuss artificial intelligence. Read the press release in German and French.
October 2023
12.10.2023 – Cybersecurity affects everyone – because the focus is always on people. Read the press release in German.
06.10.2023 – Digital sovereignty and critical infrastructure – where are the limits? Read the press release in German.
05.10.2023 – The electronic patient dossier is at a crossroads. Read the press release in German.
May 2023
26.05.2023 – digitalswitzerland: Strengthen regions, increase impact. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
December 2022
14.12.2022 – The Swiss population is ready for a digital healthcare system. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
October 2022
27.10.2022 – Those were the Swiss Digital Days 2022. Find the press release in German, French and Italian.
04.10.2022 – Study on digitalisation in Switzerland: Great willingness – little movement. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
03.10.2022 – Swiss Digital Days 2022 are coming to Eastern Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Read the press release in German.
September 2022
28.09.2022 – IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking: Switzerland once again among the top 5 worldwide. Read the press release in German and French.
27.09.2022 – Swiss Digital Days 2022 are coming to Ticino. Read the press release in Italian.
20.09.2022 – Digital sustainability and secure browsing: Swiss Digital Days are coming to the Romandie. Read the press release in French.
13.09.2022 – Augmented reality glasses and e-scooters: Swiss Digital Days are coming to Zurich. Read the press release in German.
06.09.2022 – Digital topics for young and old: there’s something for everyone at Swiss Digital Days in Northwestern Switzerland. Read the press release in German.
05.09.2022 – Switzerland’s largest NFT project unveiled at the start of Swiss Digital Days 2022. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
August 2022
30.08.2022- 4. Digital Gipfel Schweiz: International business leaders, academics and digital thought leaders meet to exchange views on the digital future. Read the press release in German and French.
29.08.2022 – Startup battle, hackathon and big bubbles: Swiss Digital Days are coming to Bern. Read the press release in German.
July 2022
21.07.2022 – From A as in Aarau to Z as in Zurich: Swiss Digital Days 2022 are going on a Switzerland-wide tour. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
June 2022
28.06.2022 – No improvement in cybersecurity among SMEs despite digitalisation boost from Corona crisis. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
March 2022
18.03.2022 – An important step towards increasing Switzerland’s cyber resilience: statement on Amendment of the Ordinance on Telecommunications Services (OTS) to protect telecommunications infrastructures and services. Read the press release in German and French.
January 2022
26.01.2022 – Statement on the amendment of the Federal Act on Foreign Nationals and Integration. Read the press release in German and French.
18.01.2022 – The Swiss Digital Initiative presents the world’s first label for digital responsibility. Read the press release in English, German, French and Italian.
December
23.12.2021 – Stefan Metzger appointed new Managing Director of digitalswitzerland. Read the press release in German, English, Italian and French.
November
18.11.2021 – Home office is establishing itself as a place of work for SMEs. Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
11.11.2021 – Digital Economy Award: Recognition for digital excellence. The digital pioneers of the year have been selected. Read the Press Release in German and French.
7.11.2021 – Programming with purpose: #herHACK Switzerland’s largest female hackathon sets an example for gender diversity. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
3.11.2021 – The Swiss Digital Initiative unveils the Digital Trust Label Seal. The Press Release is available in English.
October 2021
28.10.2021 – Digital Day 2021: 12 hours of livestream and over 150 events, online and across Switzerland. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
14.10.2021 – A Swiss Pavilion at GITEX Technology Week, one of the largest technology fairs in the Middle East. The Press Release is available in German and French.
13.10.2021 – The E-ID is inevitable – let’s move forward. The Press Release is available in German and French. Read the statement in German.
7.10.2021 – Wake-up call from pandemic: The Swiss want to improve digital skills. Press Release is available in German, French and Italian. Data is available in German.
September 2021
30.09.2021 – Finalists of the Digital Economy Award: Fintech industry booming, healthcare more digital as never before. The Press Release is available in German and French.
29.09.2021 – Kick Off for Digital Day 2021 – 6 weeks of inspiration start now! Press Release available in German, French and Italian.
15.09.2021 – Unacceptable solution for the Labour Law – flexible working for the ICT sector continues to be out of reach. digitalswitzerland calls for key points to be added to the insufficient proposal. The Press Release is available in German and French.
7.07.2021 – Possible approach for the creation of a trustworthy Distributed Ledger Technology ecosystem in Switzerland. The Press Release is available in German, French and English.
August 2021
31.08.2021 – Swiss Digital Day 2021: Digital skills for a digital future. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
24.08.2021 – 3rd Digital Gipfel Switzerland: International digital experts and
Swiss business representatives exchange ideas on digitalisation. The Press Release is available in German and French.
18.08.2021 – Security above speed: Yes to the e-voting proposal with a sense of moderation. The Press Release is available in German and French.
July 2021
13.07.2021 – Swiss Digital Day 2021: This is how the population is shaping Switzerland’s digital future. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
June 2021
24.06.2021 – Untapped potential for skilled workers among older employees. The Press Release is available in German and French. Survey available in German.
17.06.2021 – Digital Economy Award: Honouring Switzerland’s digital
Switzerland’s top digital achievements takes place. The Press Release is available in German and French.
2.06.2021 – digitalswitzerland confirms new president. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
May 2021
27.05.2021 – digitalswitzerland confirms new president. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
11.05.2021 – Switzerland-wide initiative strengthens digital skills of
employees. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
6.05.2021 – SDI Report: Labels and Certifications for the Digital World – Mapping the International Landscape. The Press Release is available in German, French & English.
April 2021
21.04.2021 – Switzerland provides new impulses for innovation: Privacy Icons wins award for the most impressive digitalisation project. The Press Release is available in German and French.
16.04.2021 – Sascha Zahnd becomes new president of digitalswitzerland. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
12.04.2021 – Cutting-edge Swiss technologies showcased at the digital HANNOVER MESSE 2021. The Press Release is available in German and French.
March 2021
7.03.2021 – The e-ID law is rejected. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
February 2021
17.02.2021 – Digital Economy Award enters 3rd round: Nomination phase started. The Press Release is available in German, French and Italian.
January 2021
14.01.2021 – The E-ID law stands for a modern Switzerland. The Press Release is available in German.
Missed any of our past newsletters? Don’t worry, we’ve gathered them into one easy place for you to enjoy catching up on. All that’s left to do is make a coffee and explore our round-up of projects, activities and the latest news and thinking on all things digital!
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December
14.12.2023 – Festive digital news ✨
07.12.2023 – Thank you for being a part of Swiss Digital Days 2023 🎉
November
30.11.2023 – Digital December delights
23.11.2023 – You are invited to our Lighthouse Event! 🤩
09.11.2023 – Big reveal of Swiss Digital Days 🎉
02.11.2023 – Be part of the community
October
19.10.2023 – Raise your voice
12.10.2023 – Swiss Digital Days: halftime highlights 🎉
05.10.2023 – Dive into Cyberrisks, Digital Health and Future Skills
September
28.09.2023 – Swiss Digital Days: in the midst of digitalisation 🎉
21.09.2023 – Highlights and Horizons
14.09.2023 – Swiss Digital Days 2023 officially kicked off! 🎉
07.09.2023 – Event season is here 🤩
August
31.08.2023 – 5 more days until Swiss Digital Days 2023
24.08.2023 – Exploring digital frontiers
17.08.2023 – Swiss Digital Days 2023 – Are you ready?
10.08.2023 – Encouraging lifelong learning
July
27.07.2023 – Breaking down silos
13.07.2023 – Connecting the digital dots
June
29.06.2023 – Stay ahead of the curve
15.06.2023 – Connect, Collaborate, and Contribute
01.06.2023 – Breaking barriers and embracing diversity
May
17.05.2023 – Plunge into digitalisation through events
04.05.2023 – Transformative innovations take centre stage
April
20.04.2023 – 🖋️ Pull out your pen and block your agenda
06.04.2023 – 🏃♀️ Stay ahead in the digital age
March
23.03.2023 – 🤝 Let’s tackle the digital future together
09.03.2023 – Empowered through digitalisation
February
23.02.2023 – Finding trust in the digital world 🤝
09.02.2023 – 👥 Creating a brighter future together
January
26.01.2023 – 🤝 WEF 2023: moments of inspiration & engagement
12.01.2023 – Sharing is caring 🤝 Would you agree?
December
15.12.2022 – 💡Is Switzerland moving towards a digital healthcare system?
2.12.2022 – 💡Join us and reflect on 2022
November
17.11.2022 – The digital future: set yourself up for success 🚀
3.11.2022 – 🎬 🎤 That was Swiss Digital Days 2022
October
27.10.2022 – Swiss Digital Days 2022 Closing Event | Celebrate with us 🎊 🤖
20.10.2022 – Events, Exchanges and Endings ⏳🚀
13.10.2022 – You’re invited to the Swiss Digital Days Closing Event 🎊 🤖
6.10.2022 – Expand your comfort zone with digital skills 🦁
September
29.9.2022 – Having trouble keeping track of digitalisation? We’ve got you.
22.9.2022 – Switzerland’s ICT Skills Shortage | Swiss Digital Days & more! 🤖
8.9.2022 – We are attempting to break a world record and we need your help 🤩
1.9.2022 – Swiss Digital Days kick off on the Bundesplatz in Bern💥
August
25.8.2022 – Who can we trust?💭
18.8.2022 – You’re invited to Swiss Digital Days! 🚀✨
11.08.2022 – Digitalisation doesn’t take a summer break ☀️
July
28.7.2022 – 👩🏻⚕️ Are you taking care of your health?
14.7.2022 – How can we combat the skills shortage?
June
30.6.2022 – We made it on national TV 📺
16.6.2022 – A summer of opportunities
2.6.2022 – Is Switzerland future ready? 🔮
Mai
19.5.2022 – Don’t hide from Cybersecurity…
5.5.2022 – Digitalisation is a journey. Will you join us?
April
21.4.2022 – What’s in these buzz words? 👀
7.4.2022 – The best time to learn is now
March
24.3.2022 – On security in the digital space
10.3.2022 – Digital transformation is yours to lead
February
24.2.2022 – Meeting AI with critical curiosity
10.2.2022 – Shape the digital space you inhabit
January
27.1.2022 – Are you future-workforce ready? 🎓💻
6.1.2022 – New Year, New Managing Director: Welcome Stefan Metzger! 💥
December
16.12.2021 Celebrating all that was, is and will be ✨
November
18.11.201 – We’re hiring! Change the trajectory of the digital future
October
21.10.2021 – Digital utopia or dystopia? The choice is yours
September
23.9.2021– 65% of children today will work in jobs that don’t exist today! 😳
August
19.8.2021 – The internet doesn’t ‘work’ unless you do 😳
July
28.7.2021 – A new digital profession + ways to shape your career 🤓
8.7.2021 – Is endless growth a myth? 🧐
June
17.6.2021 – Growth opportunities: Awards, careers & financial support
May
31.5.2021 – This is one worth clicking: Annual report, free tickets & startup days
6.5.2021 – 10 trending startups, shape a new profession & events for you
April
16.4.2021 – A new President for digitalswitzerland, Leap Demo Day & more!
March
25.3.2021 – Coding Camps for kids & awards for educators
2.3.2021 – We’re hiring and discover our new look and feel
February
6.2.2021 – Young talents, promising startups and much, much more
January
29.1.2021 – Let’s make Switzerland a leading digital innovation hub!
7.1.2021 – New Year, same mission
GITEX Technology Week, the Arab Emirates’ most important trade fair in the electronics sector, will be held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from 17 to 21 October.
Among the 4,500 exhibitors and over 750 startups, the SWISS Pavilion, organised by digitalswitzerland, Swisstech and T-LINK, will be showcasing over 12 companies.
We position Switzerland as a leader in digital technology and as an attractive place to do business. Part of our mission is to showcase the best Swiss-made innovation on the global stage. We are proud to send more than 10 promising Swiss organisations to this year’s Hannover Messe from 12 to 16 April.
Everything at a glance with the exhibitor flyer.
Interview with Martin Hirzel, Swissmem President:
13 April 11:30 – 11:55
Livestream link
Interview with Timothy O’Hear, Co-Founder impactIA:
13 April 15:00 -15:25
Livestream link
Interview with Prof. Dr. Siegwart, Founding Co-Director Wyss Zurich:
13 April: 16:00-16:25
Livestream link
Interview with Beatrice Scarioni, Vice-Presidency for EPFL Innovation Park:
14 April 11:30-11:55
Livestream link
Interview with Martin Hirzel, Swissmem President:
14 April 15:00-15:25
Livestream link
Interview with Timothy O’Hear, Co-Founder impactIA
15 April 11:30-11:55
Livestream link
Interview with Beatrice Scarioni, Vice-Presidency for EPFL Innovation Park:
15 April 15:00-15:25
Livestream link
The area of manufacturing is undergoing massive changes led by Swiss organisations, innovations and thinkers. What is the future of manufacturing? Leading Swiss organisations provide answers to questions around the following topics:
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