ICT Focus & Forum Day 2026

24 November 2026

Forum Days - Community meets community!

Join us for an exciting event that brings together our communities for a day of connection, collaboration, and inspiration. Forum Days offers a unique platform for various groups to meet, share information, engage in dynamic discussions, and listen to enlightening keynotes.

Missed the Forum Day in November 2025? Check out the highlights.

25 November 2026

ICT Focus - Connecting minds. Creating futures.

The ICT Focus event brings together decision-makers from the education, research and innovation sectors across Switzerland, as well as members of the governing bodies of Switch, including the foundation committee and council.
The event's traditional target audience is senior leaders of IT and service departments in Swiss higher education and research institutions.

Agenda in progress

Event language

All sessions will take place in English, with the exception of WG Procurement (sessions in French and German).

Registration will open 2 September 2026

Speakers

Stefan Arnet

Senior Procurement Specialist, Switch

Stefan Arnet is a Procurement Specialist at Switch. As a part of Switch Procure he supports the Swiss Higher Education, Research and Innovation community with his expertise on license agreements and public procurement. He has several years of experience as a buyer in the ICT domain and as a software asset manager within Higher Education. He has more than 15 years of experience as buyer in the ICT domain and as a Software Asset Manager within Higher Education.

Daniel Bertolo

Business Owner & AC Network

Daniel is Business Owner of the Research and Education Network at Switch, where he has been leading the Switch LAN network services since 2013. He holds a degree in computer science from the University of Applied Sciences HSR (today OST) and a Diploma of Advanced Studies HSG in IT Business Management. His work focuses on delivering high-performance connectivity solutions to Switzerland’s research and education community

Rolf Brugger

ICT Consultant – edu-ID

Rolf studied computer science and psychology at the University of Fribourg and then worked for the national Swiss Virtual Campus project. He joined Switch in 2007 and was initially responsible for setting up the e-learning section. Since 2013, he has been working on the then called Swiss edu-ID. He was involved in the design of the service and then with its development and introduction at universities. He has been the product owner for Switch edu-ID since 2018.

Kevin Chavarria

Kevin Chavarría is an experienced Senior Product Manager with a background in engineering and business, bringing over 13 years of expertise across the ICT, healthcare, finance, and semiconductor sectors. Having worked in diverse markets including Costa Rica, Spain, the USA, and Switzerland, Kevin has developed a strong, customer-centric approach to innovation. Since 2023, he has applied his extensive experience to Switch, focusing on developing cloud solutions that align with the specialised needs of Swiss institutions.

Frederic Gerber

DevOps Engineer

Frederic Gerber is a DevOps engineer at Switch, currently working on edu-ID and eduroam. Previously, he studied computer science at EPFL and ETHZ, including a Master Thesis at Switch in digital identity. He is enthusiastic about how computers work, free and open-source software, and interactive knowledge transmission. Since joining Switch, he has worked on various topics, ranging from API implementation to direct customer contact. He is also happy to talk about cycling, photography and linguistics.

Geert Hoevenaars

Product Portfolio Manager

Geert joined Switch in 2018 with a background in international product management. Over the years, he has guided several new product developments, introduced and trained several processes, created numerous new Switch tools for product managers, and is now responsible for Switch’ Product Portfolio Board. As the product manager of Switch OER, he drives the business and marketing aspects of this service.

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.

Cornelia Puhze

Expertin für Human-Centred Security, Switch

As part of Switch CERT, Cornelia Puhze supports the Swiss education, research and innovation community in effectively addressing the human factor in information security. Equipped with an MA in Political Communications, she honed her professional expertise in the private sector, the public sector and NGOs in Zurich and London.

Christian Rohrer

Product Owner - ROAM Services

Since the beginning of the year, Christian Rohrer has officially put on the PO hat for eduroam, for which he has been technically in charge since his return to Switch in 2020. In this position, he recently introduced two new products in the 'ROAM' family: eVA (eduroam Visitor Access) and govroam. With a background in neurobiology and interaction design, Christian enjoys working on interfaces, be it with counterparts made of flesh or silicon.

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.

Sebastian Sigloch

Product Manager

Sebastian joined Switch in 2015 with a background in Internet Economics and IT Project Management. Over the years he guided Innovation Management activities and new business developments. More recently, Sebastian is responsible with Switch's Data Team as Product Manager, Product Owner a.i. and Agile Coach. This team engages strategically in various national and international projects concerning FAIR Research Data activities above the Cloud.

Dominik Valloni

Legal Counsel

Since 2023, Dominik Valloni has been a member of the Switch Legal Team, bringing with him more than nine years of experience as a lawyer and legal counsel. He advises Switch on all relevant legal matters relating to contract, data protection, trademark, domain name, and intellectual property law, as well as compliance. With his expertise, he helps ensure that Switch can provide its services to universities in a legally sound and efficient manner. Outside the legal field, he is the father of two children, where he finds both the most exciting challenges and the best balance alongside his professional life.

Jean-François Van de Poël

Deputy Director for digital affairs University of Lausanne

Jean-François Van de Poël is Deputy Director for digital affairs of the Centre de Soutien à l'Enseignement at the University of Lausanne. He has been active in the field of educational technologies in higher education for 20 years. During this period, he has held various positions, including educational designer, virtual campus manager and MOOC project manager in several institutions. He holds masters degrees in educational sciences, educational technologies and higher education pedagogy, and is particularly interested in the fields of teacher professional development, educational multimedia and the hybridization of educational practices.

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Event location

Verkehrshaus der Schweiz

Haldenstrasse 44

6006 Luzern

Getting to the Swiss Museum of Transport (Verkehrshaus der Schweiz)

By Car:
The Swiss Museum of Transport is located just a few minutes from Lucerne city centre. Parking is available along Lidostrasse and opposite the Lido beach. Electric vehicle fast-charging stations are also available on site.

By Public Transport:
From Lucerne railway station, take the S3 train or the Voralpen-Express to Luzern Verkehrshaus station (approx. 8 minutes). Alternatively, bus lines 6, 8, or 24 take you directly to the Verkehrshaus stop in about 10 minutes.