Forum Days Cloud Forward

Public Cloud Made Easy for Swiss Higher Education

We’re excited to invite you to an exclusive, in-person event introducing the new OCRE Framework from GÉANT—designed to simplify and accelerate the procurement of public cloud services for universities, research institutions, and the healthcare sector in Switzerland.

Whether you're in IT, procurement, research, or strategy—this event will offer insights, connections, and hands-on value.

Agenda

09:30 - 10:00

Check-In & Welcome Coffee

Foyer Honegger & Gnägi

10:00 - 10:05

Welcome from Switch

Room: Honegger

10:05 - 11:00

Lightning Talks

Get inspired by listening to five-minute pitches from all the participating providers.

Room: Honegger

11:00 - 11:30

OCRE Update

Get an overview of the OCRE framework.

Kaspar Scheller (Switch)

Room: Honegger

11:30 - 12:00

First Keynote "Digital Transformation in Higher Education: How University of Bern manages patient sensitive data in the AWS cloud"

Learn how Swiss universities can start their journey in the cloud and centrally manage AWS accounts in a secure Landing Zone. The University of Bern's Institute of Tissue Medicine and Pathology (IGMP) demonstrate how they digitalized pathology on AWS, enhancing quality of diagnostics, accelerating workflows and setting new standards in data protection and patient experience.

Michael Drozdek, Head of IT

Room: Honegger

12:00 - 13:30

Lunch & Marketplace Booths

Foyer Honegger & Gnägi

13:30 - 14:00

Second Keynote "Microsoft Cloud and AI for Material Science at EMPA"

Learn how EMPA accelerates materials research with AI and Microsoft Cloud—streamlining workflows, reducing manual effort, and driving faster discoveries in battery science and beyond.

Corsin Battaglia (Head of Laboratory at Empa and Professor at ETH Zurich and EPFL)

Florian Georg (Technology Strategist, Microsoft)

Room: Honegger

14:00 - 14:30

Third Keynote "Switch Cloud: Compliant and flexible platform for research on sensitive data"

Together with the University of Bern and the Insel Group, Switch is developing a digital research platform that will set new standards for secure, efficient, and collaborative data-driven medical research in Switzerland.

Arnaud Hungler, Switch

Room: Honegger

14:30 - 15:00

Coffee Break & Marketplace Booths

Foyer Honegger & Gnägi

15:00 - 15:30

Fourth Keynote "Reimagining Campus Interaction: The AI-Powered Avatar by SoftwareONE and Google Gemini"

Discover how SoftwareONE’s intelligent, multilingual campus avatar—powered by Google Gemini—transforms student and visitor engagement with natural language interaction, real-time support, and seamless integration.

SoftwareONE

Room: Honegger

15:30 - 16:00

Fifth Keynote "ASReview in the Cloud: Accelerating Science with Exoscale & VSHN"

ASReview utilizes AI to cut time for systematic reviews by up to 95%, and with Exoscale and VSHN, it now operates on a sovereign, cloud-native platform in Switzerland. Discover how open source and open science combine with scalable, compliant infrastructure to empower researchers worldwide.

Aarno Aukia, Co-founder, VSHN

Room: Honegger

16:00 - 16:15

Wrap-Up

Room: Honegger

16:15 - 17:30

Farewell Apéro & Networking

Take the time to network, share experiences, and engage in conversations with cloud experts, partners, and colleagues.

Foyer Honegger & Gnägi

Speakers

Claudia Lienert

Head of Community Management, Switch

As Head of Community Management at Switch, Claudia Lienert has been responsible for developing business relationships with the Swiss Education, Research and Innovation Community since March 2023. Prior to that, she held various management positions in the IT and transport industry and completed an Executive Master of Business Administration at the University of Strathclyde.

Kaspar Scheller

Senior Procurement Specialist, Switch

Kaspar Scheller is the Product Owner of the Switch Procure Service for the Swiss Higher Education, Research, and Innovation Community. With his legal background and more than 20 years of experience in the ICT domain, he supports Community members in license management and public procurement matters.

Ignite your Cloud Journey

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