After 10 years of Swiss IGF: "Swiss Internet & Digital Governance" association founded

The Swiss IGF is the national offshoot of the UN Internet Governance Forum (UN IGF). It was launched in 2005 at the UN World Summit on the Information Society. Since 2015, the Swiss IGF, under the auspices of the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), has provided a central platform for multi-stakeholder dialog on internet and digital policy issues in Switzerland and is enjoying steadily growing numbers of participants.

The Swiss IGF is characterized by its inclusive, bottom-up approach. Representatives from politics, business, science and civil society discuss the opportunities and challenges of digitalization in Switzerland on an equal footing. Any interested person or institution can take part in the Swiss IGF. The agenda is determined by a "Call for Issues". All interest groups can propose topics - from cyber security and artificial intelligence to net neutrality and platform regulation. As a nationwide initiative, the forum will be held predominantly in German, French and English.

Financial and structural independence

The founding of the association now enables the Swiss IGF to be more broadly supported in the national community and simplifies long-term co-financing by third parties. The foundation stone for this is being laid by the Mercator Foundation Switzerland with a generous three-year grant. The aim is to establish a structure supported by the community. "The aim of the funding is to ensure the financial and structural independence of the Swiss IGF in the long term. This is central to the credibility of the conference as a neutral platform for intersectoral, digital policy dialog," says Riccardo Ramacci. He is Portfolio Manager Digitalization and Democracy at Mercator.

"After ten years of successful informal development work, the time was ripe for this step," explains Thomas Schneider, Deputy Director of Bakom and co-initiator of the Swiss IGF 10 years ago. "The new association will continue the proven basic principles of open dialog and inclusive participation of all interest groups. Bakom continues to support the organization of the conference and is pleased that the new set-up will allow even better involvement of the community as well as other projects in addition to the annual conference." Bakom continues to act as patron of the Swiss IGF and contributes to its funding.

New structure strengthens Swiss IGF in the long term

From an executive point of view, the founding of the association marks the end of the successful development work of the co-secretariat with Jacques Beglinger and Livia Walpen, who have brought the Swiss IGF to its current significance with great care. Nicolas Zahn, who has been a member of the Swiss IGF core team for some time, is taking over the management of the new structure. "It gives me great pleasure to take on this task. The Swiss IGF has grown continuously in recent years and the understanding of the importance of such a unique platform for constructive digital policy exchange is constantly increasing. The new structure will allow us to grow sustainably and further deepen this exchange by involving all stakeholder groups. The goal for 2025 is clearly to establish this new structure and actively expand our member base, also in order to expand and broaden the Board of Directors at the next General Assembly. Another important goal will be to develop a sustainable financing model. The Swiss IGF has proven over the years that it creates value for the digital governance community, which is why I am confident that we will find a solid model here."

The association will continue to organize the Swiss Internet Governance Forum conference in its new structure. It will take place this year in October. Following its foundation and an initial General Assembly, the association invites interested stakeholders from the digital governance community to join. The next General Assembly will take place at the beginning of October 2025 as part of the Swiss IGF Conference and will provide an opportunity for broad participation by the various stakeholder groups.

Further information