Digital Festival 2016: Zurich will become the digital capital in autumn

For years in Switzerland there was a deadlock when it came to major events in the startup and tech scene. There were occasional events for founders and techies, but very few were organized from within the scene (the Webmonday and that Startup camp in Basel there were laudable exceptions). For the really good conferences you had to travel abroad; to Berlin, for example, where there are countless conferences and events, but also to Cologne (the... Pirate Summit is one of the best conferences I have attended) or ans Bits & Pretzels in Munich. Neither the Munich nor the Cologne startup scene has the same appeal as the Berlin one, but these cities have managed to organize excellent events with an international audience and well-known speakers.

HackZurich: The largest hackathon in Europe...

Busy time at HackZurich 2015

Two years ago the premiere took place HackZurich carried out and immediately became the largest hackathon in Europe. For the first time there was an event in Zurich where people didn't just listen passively, but where the participants were actually challenged. I am firmly convinced that not everything should be handed to founders on a silver platter in the very first phase (keyword: Accelerator), but that the team should first prove itself by, for example, building a prototype or MVP in a short time with few resources. That's exactly what impressed me so much about the last HackZurich: in one weekend, programmers from all over the world created something, and didn't just talk about it, the atmosphere was extremely creative.

...becomes the Digital Festival 2016

Now the two HackZurich founders Jonathan Isenring and Rasmus Rothe, who is currently going worldwide with his dissertation caused quite a stir, one step further and are organizing it for the first time in autumn together with event professional Schoscho Rufener and Manuel Nappo from the HWZ Digital Festival. They want to implement their vision of a large Zurich tech festival, which they have only partially realized so far due to capacity reasons. From September 15th to 18th, 2016 the aim is to inspire, create, learn and network. On the first two days (WOW Day and Transformers Day) key notes will be held and idea battles and workshops will be held. The target audience is the entire spectrum of the digital world: decision-makers, digital natives, social media users, entrepreneurs and developers. Exciting topics such as VR, AI and robotics are covered in labs. An important pillar of the Digital Festival is the hackathon, which, as before, will be held in the Technopark.

Provisional program Digital Festival 2016

Promising program at the Digital Festival 2016

The program looks very promising and, especially with early morning yoga sessions or a barbecue party, the creators are proving that they are not holding a dry conference, but rather want to bring the most creative and committed people from all over Europe to Zurich to create, connect and celebrate together. For everyone interested in technology, the Digital Festival could become what the Zurich Film Festival did in the entertainment sector: A melting pot for hackers, entrepreneurs, marketing people and - last but not least - the interested public. It seems particularly important to me that the Digital Festival does not see itself as a closed event, but rather as a kind of platform for different events in the digital sector. Cooperation discussions are currently underway with well-known events from home and abroad, which will make the festival even more attractive.

I'm pretty sure we'll see Digital Festival flags flying everywhere in Zurich this fall. The organizers have already proven on various occasions that they can do a lot - for example, positioning Zurich as a digital capital in the minds of as many people as possible. And now, not until 2025.