International Swiss Talent Forum

Name: International Swiss Talent Forum 2021
Start: 2021-08-04
End: 2021-08-07
Location: Hotel Sempachersee, Nottwil

For young people between 18- 23 years – Participation on invitation only!

Find novel and thought-provoking ideas around “rethinking surveillance”. It’s a chance for you to contribute to shaping the future of your generation. Develop new ideas with your group of international participants in our for you free event. Be part of the next International Swiss Talent Forum in Summer 2021 and join four exciting days with students from all over the world.

Four exciting days in a lavish camp – it’s your turn to find globally relevant solutions.

“The ISTF experience has been nothing short of amazing. The programme has well achieved a fine balance between the provision of information and the opportunity for creativity. It has been an intellectually stimulating and personally fulfilling experience.”

Cassandra, Singapore

Next International Swiss Talent Forum 2021

Swiss Youth in Science unites 70 highly talented and motivated young people in Switzerland, giving them the task to collaboratively find novel solutions for globally relevant issues. The meeting is led by an internationally recognised Topic Leader, typically from academia, and the participants’ work is guided by a group of experts, who challenge participants with a question relevant to a specific aspect of the ISTF main theme. The work of each group is guided by a dedicated coach. To find realistic, culturally appropriate solutions to the globally relevant solution, the ISTF draws participants from more than 25 countries.

The eligibility criteria are listed in the event’s flyer below. In case of further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Project Leader via e-mail ([email protected]).

Flyer ISTF21

Julián Cancino

Project Leader ISTF

Important information regarding COVID-19

Due to the various restrictions regarding the ongoing pandemic in Switzerland and abroad, this year’s edition is adjusted as follows:

The number of participants is limited to 50.
There will be only 4 (instead of the usual 5) Challengers.
The event will be organised at a national level and, exceptionally, we will not send an official invitation to international participants.We hope that the situation will evolve positively in the coming months, allowing us to greet the participants in August.
We look forward to returning to a normal international format starting 2022.

Digital street check points with people walking

Next International Swiss Talent Forum for Participants

04 - 07 August

8:00 - 18:00

International Swiss Talent Forum 2021

Location

Hotel Sempachersee, Nottwil

Due to the various restrictions regarding the ongoing pandemic in Switzerland and abroad, this year’s edition is adjusted as follows:

The event is postponed and will take place from Wednesday, 04 August – Saturday, 07 August 2021.
The number of participants is limited to 40.
There will be only 4 (instead of the usual 5) Challengers.
The event will be organised at a national level and, exceptionally, we will not send an official invitation to international participants.
The invitations will be sent out at the end of March 2021.

We hope that the situation will evolve positively in the coming months, allowing us to greet the participants in August.
We look forward to returning to a normal international format starting 2022.

The theme of our 10th ISTF is:

RETHINKING SURVEILLANCE

At a time when instant communication and technology provide easy access to information, we are faced with a challenging contention: how to maintain privacy amid the massive information flows of a data-hungry world? The sheer scale of mass surveillance has long been perceived as a threat to the values and morals of our democratic society. Some people fear that through surveillance, power structures become ubiquitous, embedded within the systems, and interests they represent.

But instead of thinking about surveillance as an all-knowing oppressive force, it can also be viewed as something which confers safety, access, entitlement, and benefit. For example, public health measures have always depended on surveillance, and this has been especially true in the context of the current global pandemic.

Surveillance systems that can map out the movements of entire populations have extraordinary potential – they can help societies recover from Covid-19. What is your opinion on the benefits and disadvantages of surveillance? Join us to explore the future of this highly topical and exciting theme – we look forward to welcoming you to ISTF 2021!

“I’ve never met so many awesome friends in such a short space of time. I was up every day from 6:30am to 2am and I didn’t even feel tired because there was always another interesting conversation with another interesting person on the horizon. I had one of the best times of my life.” Ali, UK

Schedule ISTF 2021

When
Wednesday, 04 August – Saturday, 07 August 2021

Where
Hotel Sempachersee
Kantonsstrasse 46
CH – 6207 Nottwil
Switzerland

Participants
40 highly motivated young adults aged 18 to 23 years. Please note that participation is possible on grounds of invitation only (see details in the application section).

Official language
English

No event found!

Topic Leader

Prof. Dr. Francisco KlauserTopic Leader

Francisco Klauser is professor in political geography at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. His work explores the socio-spatial implications, power and surveillance issues arising from the digitisation of present-day life, thus bridging the fields of human geography, surveillance studies and risk research. Main research topics include video surveillance, mega-event security, smart cities, airport surveillance, civil drones, and big data in agricultre.

Challenges 2021

Challenge 1

Rethinking Surveillance – Privacy as Intellectual Property?

Abstract

Who owns and controls the huge amount of personal data collected continuously? The high value in combination with the virtual nature of personal data is strongly reminiscent of intellectual property (IP). However, personal data does not fit into any of the existing IP categories.

The challenge is to explore, whether or not it would make sense to integrate ownership of information into the IP system, with the objective to ensure a fair balance of interests between data providers and collectors.

Prof. Dr. Heinz Müller

Patent Expert at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property

Heinz Müller is Patent Expert at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property

Biography

Challenge 2

Evolving Healthcare Through Digital Trust and Data Sharing

Abstract

Data continues to be a primordial asset and cyber resilience continues to be an elusive goal for society. Evolving healthcare through digital trust and data sharing, shaping the world’s recovery from and ability to anticipate global health events such as the COVID -19 pandemic requires society’s digital trust. The challenge is to determine the role digital trust, data sharing and analysis can play in evolving healthcare for the future.

Dr. Fred Mpala

Head of Diagnostics Product Cybersecurity at Roche Diagnostics

In this role, Fred leads the Product Cybersecurity Team at Roche Diagnostics, where the team provides strategies, concepts and security services across the Division. The team assumes a key role in the transfer of product security expertise within the Division.

Prior to Roche, Fred worked at Standard Chartered Bank as Global Head, Information and Cyber Security Assurance. He has held various information security roles including at, NYSE, Euronext, Goldman Sachs, SGCIB and Thomson Reuters. Fred is an Alumnus of the Cisco Networking Academy and has served as industry advisor to academia.

Fred has completed undergraduate studies in computer networking; postgraduate studies in information security, forensics, business strategy and law with focus on privacy. Fred holds professional designations including CISSP, CISM, CEH, ISO27001 LI, CIPP /E and CIPM.

Biography

Challenge 3

The Ethics of Public Health Surveillance for Preventing Future Pandemics

Abstract

In order to meet governments’ needs for detecting new pathogenic agents such as mutated viruses to protect citizens from respective threats, public health surveillance systems have to be developed. Besides being effective and economic, they need to be ethically sound. The challenge aims at working out the essential moral aspects which have to be taken into account and traded off against each other.

Dr. Dr. Manuel Trachsel

Senior Research and Teaching Associate, Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Zurich,

Manuel Trachsel (MD, PhD) has been trained in medicine (MD), clinical psychology (PhD), and philosophy/ethics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He is the head of the Clinical Ethics Unit at the University Hospital of Basel, and at the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel, Switzerland. He is a Research Associate at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Dr. Trachsel has been a research fellow at the Bioethics Center of the University of Otago, New Zealand, in 2014, and at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, US, in 2016/2017. Dr. Trachsel was awarded with the 2020 Mark S. Ehrenreich Global Prize in Healthcare Ethics Research by the Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics, University of Southern California.

Biography

Challenge 4

Purpose-limited applications by design

Abstract

As data-driven approaches become the prevalent basis of applications and services, there is a need for solutions to mitigate the societal consequences that they bring. Regulatory frameworks typically mitigate the purposes for which data can be used at a contractual level, but still leave room for misuse. In this challenge, the goal is to design applications for a smart city in such a way that their purpose is technologically limited by design.

Prof. Carmela Troncoso

Assistant Professor, EPFL - SPRING Lab

Carmela Troncoso is an Assistant Professor at EPFL (Switzerland) where she heads the SPRING Lab. She holds a Master's degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Vigo (2006) and a Ph.D. in Engineering from the KU Leuven (2011). Before arriving to EPFL she was a Faculty member at the IMDEA Software Institute (Spain) for 2 years; the Security and Privacy Technical Lead at Gradiant working closely with industry to deliver secure and privacy friendly solutions to the market for 4 years; and a pos-doctoral researcher at the COSIC Group.

Carmela's research focuses on security and privacy. Her work on Privacy Engineering has received several awards, such as the CNIL-INRIA Privacy Protection Award 2017. She regularly publishes in the most prestigious Security and Privacy venues. In 2020 she leadled the design of privacy-preserving privacy contact apps, which led Fortune to include her in the list of 40 under 40 emerging leaders in Technology.

Biography