Every year the digitalswitzerland association organizes the nationwide Digitalday: Several events around Switzerland with speeches, workshops and discussions on digitalization. Federal Councilors, heads of corporates and the public come together. As big physical happenings were not possible this year, digitalswitzerland decided to go hybrid: Instead of one day, they organized 3 Digital Days (running from Nov 1st through the 3rd). The main program was live streamed from the SRF studio. Addionally to that program, they wanted fresh content tailored to a younger audience. So they asked me to help out.
🔮 I met Diana Engetschwiler, head of digital days, for coffee in September. What was meant to be a short meeting ended up in a two hour brainstorming session. We agreed on using a crystal ball to ask people what their wishes for the digital future were for a video ahead of the event to get a better picture of what Swiss people think about digitalization:
🎥 For that vox pop I teamed up with my friend Martin Arpagaus, who usually works as cutter on movies and TV-series such as «Wilder.» We had fun traveling from Zurich to Bern to Lausanne to record people on the street.
DAY 1: THE SWISS DIGITAL DAYS FINALLY KICK OFF
🎬 When the Digital Days finally started, I was informed that I will have the entrance area as my main playground. digitalswitzerland basically gave me a Carté Blanche regarding content. I thought that it would be a shame to be filming at the same place all the time, so I asked the studio production team, if I can go behind the scenes to get some more impressions of the event. And this is what I came up with to kick off the Digital Days from my side:
Besides producing the behind the scenes video above, we also did a few interviews with the very first guests with Yaël Meier, Karin Frick of the GDI Institute, Diana Engetschwiler and the Police of the city of Zurich on the very first day.
💡 After the last interview was done and uploaded to Youtube, I took the tram home and during that ride, I kept on thinking what I could do for day 2 that would be a bit more creative than “just” interviews in front of a pink wall. I needed a game… something that could be slightly more visual. I packed cardboard, scissors, pens and cord into my bag for the next day.
DAY 2: playing games with the guests of the digital days
🎥 On the second day I worked with Sebastien Chastellain, cameramann/cutter with whom I had the pleasure working with at CNNMoney Switzerland. It was nice to be reunited with an old colleague. I told him about my idea with the game and he was immediately in. Before the big wave of guests arrived, we started filming the process of creating the game and then one by one played it with guests such as Google Switzerland CEO Patrick Warnking, politician Jörg Mäder or Swiss musician Nemo.
📱 Some of the younger guests at the Digital Days included influencer Michelle Melody and Swiss musician Nemo. Both of them were part of a panel which was organized by Unicef. We spoke about tik tok, Instagram, spotify and digital detox.
📈 Monika Rühl, director of economiesuisse was also eager to play the game with me and included word I hadn’t noted down: 5G. Watch the video to find out why.
DAY 3: ENTREPRENEURS & WINNERS
The last day was all about start-ups, social entrepreneurs, battles and awards. During the digital days Innosuisse co-organized a few Start-up battles and I’ve interviewed three start-ups participating: Moost headed by Joel Samsinger is a start-up that aims at making the most out of your smart home, Live Track helps you make the most of your waste management and Nala is a digital therapy for your skin problems.
💻 Do you have an old laptop at home which you are not using? Then contact Tobias Schär! He founded a non-profit and helps people with little means to have access to a laptop by collecting old ones and setting them up to be used by someone else. So before you trash yours, think twice and donate it to «Wir lernen weiter.»
🚀 There were several prizes being hand out on the last day. One included the #NextGenHero co-organized by mjm.cc. The aim is to highlight Digital Talents who have the potential to become drivers and enablers of the digital future. And Galactic Chloé, who started a science show on Youtube, was one of the two winners of the Digital Economy Award.
Besides young talents I also got to speak to a more established personality: Yvonne Bettkober. She is the Country Manager of Amazon Web Services in Switzerland. Prior to that she was at Microsoft. We spoke about her message at the Digital Days and she was my last guest to play my game! Don’t miss it!
🏆 And last but not least, I take a last sneak peak into the studio to watch the Start-up Battle and see who the winners are. And of course, we don’t finish before we speak to them: Dominik Schnarwiler of Green-Y and Liliane Ableitner of Exnaton. Both of them presented solutions to make the world a bit more sustainable.
And after three days and 18 videos (excluding the pre-produced one) the lights are turned off and we go home inspired by all the young talents we saw during those days. I’d like to thank Diana Engentschwiler, Katrin Schüpbach, Sophie Känzig and Marcello Weiss the great collaboration and trust. And my amazing cameramen/editors for running around with me and being ready for action at all times.