ICT FOCUS

Einstein Saal

Moderation: Marco Dütsch, Head of Community Solutions, SWITCH

Einstein Saal

Einstein Saal

Tom Kleiber, Managing Director, SWITCH

Visho Jesudasan, Head of Sourcing, Architecture & Operations, SWITCH

Einstein Saal

With BioMedIT, CAT+ West, IMPACT, Swiss Bio Data Ecosystem, SDSC+, Swiss Quantum Communication Infrastructure

Moderated by Christoph Witzig, Strategic Projects SWITCH

Einstein Saal

@ Tibits

@ Tibits

@ Tibits

Einstein Saal

Marco Dütsch, SWITCH

Interconnecting institutional repositories: challenges and opportunities in light of the Connectome project (EN, EN, DE)

Semantic enrichment of metadata and the use of common ontologies allow to improve the interoperability and discoverability of the digital objects in Institutional repositories (IRs) . The Connectome project, launched and coordinated by SWITCH, might make an important contribution to achieving this.

In this World Café we like to share information about the work done so far and the planned next steps, and in particular to discuss with you if and how the Connectome project can help to add value to IRs.

There are three main points that we would like to dive deep in discussions with you:

First: Interconnecting IRs with specific Open Data and discipline-specific repositories, promises to increase their scientific relevance. What solutions are you implementing in this regard? do you see the role of a national infrastructure in supporting this process?

Second: IRs play a role in the green road to open access: Do you think that an increase in interoperability can improve this function? Do you see a possibility to make contributions published in IRS available as enhanced publications by linking them to scientific data sets and Open data?

Third: Another approach to increasing the relevance for researchers is to link IRs more closely with research information systems so that the completeness of the research profiles of individual researchers becomes possible. What solutions are you implementing in this regard? Do you see a role for a national infrastructure in supporting these processes?

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Developing a data strategy at SWITCH to support the Swiss education, research and innovation community (EN, DE, EN)

While our society is becoming more and more digitized, we often hear that “data is the new oil”. The current trends suggest that not only industry will be making data-driven decisions, but data and analytics will also become relevant to education, research, and innovation communities.

In our World Café we would like to discuss collaboration possibilities for implementation of preliminary action areas, which have been identified within the data strategy development at SWITCH to support the Swiss education, research, and innovation community:

For research data:

·     solutions for fostering interoperable and shareable research data environment for active research data between the existing independent university repositories, i.e. a Swiss research data space

For education data:

·     solutions for lifelong learning and personal learning portfolio, i.e. digital badges connected to edu-ID and/or e-verify

For both: 

·     support and consulting with legal and/or ethical aspects of both research and education data, i.e. webinars, in-house trainings, a help

desk   

We would kindly like to invite you to join us and very much looking forward to your opinions, suggestions and to fruitful discussions!

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

SWITCHlegal Helpdesk (EN, DE, DE)

Like the world in general, the legal world is becoming increasingly complex. In these fast-moving times, we are dealing with constant revisions of existing laws as well as the creation of new laws. Due to constantly growing cross-border cooperations, international laws and national laws of other countries must also be observed more and more. Coupled with ever stricter compliance regulations, it is easy to lose track.

Therefore, SWITCHlegal is more than happy to support you with its expertise. SWITCHlegal is the competent partner for Higher Education Institutions including research institutes (HEI) in Switzerland in all matters of ICT law in particular but also beyond and ensures that the HEI Community is always up to date on important legal topics.

As such, we cordially invite you to visit the SWITCHlegal Helpdesk at the World Café. Tell us what legal topics are currently on your mind and ask us your legal questions. Current hot topics include:

·     risk analyses for data transfers abroad;

·     legally compliant use of the Old Age Insurance (AHV) number at HEI;

·     legally compliant use of electronic signatures;

·     etc.

We look forward to meeting you and to having many lively discussions!

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

SWITCH edu-ID in the context of the Swiss eID (DE, FR, EN)

In our Trust & Identity World Café we would like to discuss with you our goals, ambitions and activities - including our collaborations with the Swiss Federal Office for Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunication (BIT).

Since the e-ID law was rejected by the Swiss voters in March 2021, a lot has happened. SWITCH officially became involved in this topic after the rejection, as it was clear that e-ID would not be provided by a private company and that an approach based on SSI (self-sovereign identities) became an option. As a foundation and as one voice of the higher education community, it was subsequently our duty to represent the opinion from the higher education community, which we have been doing to date.

In this World Café we would like to give you a quick tour d’horizon of SWITCH’s current fields of activity in relation to the Swiss e-ID to the benefit of the higher education community at large. We will discuss with you the role of the SWITCH edu-ID, so that, once e-ID has been introduced, we can support our community as effectively as possible - be it in connecting to the new emerging infrastructure in Switzerland, but also in connecting to similar infrastructures abroad.

You are warmly invited to take an active part in the discussion and help to shape the digital identity of tomorrow!

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Inside SWITCH edu-ID - Insights into our current activities (EN, DE, EN)

In recent years, an idea has become reality. With the SWITCH edu-ID, we have been serving the higher education community with a data privacy-compliant identity for several years.

Over the past years, we have supported several universities in the onboarding of the SWITCH edu-ID. With over 750 thousand users, we represent a large community with a variety of needs. This implies a corresponding responsibility, which we, the Trust & Identity team, take seriously each day. For us, the SWITCH edu-ID is more than just a service. It is a commitment to our university customers to give our best. To provide a secure, stable, and future-proof identity. We would like to support the higher education community with the latest efforts in the field of digital identity.

In this World Café we will present the most important current activities and development ideas for the future. We look forward to the feedback of the community and the discussion on the future direction of edu-ID.

Every day, we work passionately for the success of your institution users and the whole user community of the SWITCH edu-ID.

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Supporting research infrastructures and their users (EN, DE, FR)

Some scientific disciplines have relied for quite some time on centrally operated research infrastructures instead of local instruments on Campus. (High-energy physics at CERN or PSI may serve as an intuitive example). They have formed collaborations and have offeredservices to each other, often independent of the IT Services. Given the ever-increasing specialization and complexity of research coupled with corresponding rising costs, it can be expected that this trend will not only continue but accelerate. As of now, several national research infrastructures [1] are being planned for the next BFI period 2025-2028. They vary in scope, size and complexity. It can be expected that some of these infrastructures will have to interact with IT services and/or their users need or expect support from their local IT Services.

In this world café, we reflect on the impact of this development on IT Services and discuss the following questions:

1. How do IT Services support researchers today? What works? What doesn’t?

2. What does it mean for the IT Services if researchers increasingly use services, resources and data that are no longer on campus but remote? Or vice-versa: through collaborations suddenly researchers from other institutions need access to local resources? 

3. Are there already relations between these research infrastructures and IT Services at your institution today? If so, how are they? What experiences have you made?

4. What services can (or cannot) SWITCH offer in the intersection between research IT, research infrastructures, their users and the local IT Services. 

Note: At this year’s ICT Focus, there will be also a panel discussion on the first day with representatives from several national research infrastructures.

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

SWITCH is building a cloud infrastructure for the community (EN, EN, DE)

Not all data and applications require the same level of protection and governance. Those who use the new cloud receive the highest level of digital sovereignty, data protection and co-creation. SWITCH's cloud relies on the latest hardware and certified datacentres in Switzerland. Our offer is rounded up by a "trustworthy partnership" and our community-oriented sales and service organisation.

In addition to the community cloud, we also want to support our customers on their way into the public cloud.

In this World Café, we would like to find out together how we can support your cloud journey. You are warmly invited to actively participate in the discussion and help shape your cloud of tomorrow!

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Meet & Greet Tom Kleiber (Managing Director, SWITCH)

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Meet & Greet Lead Community SOC, Jens-Christian Fischer (Team Leader Community Shared SOC, SWITCH)

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Community topic

(3 sessions of 25 minutes)

Room Spisegg

Philippe Morel: Aquisition of VM/ware/Broadcom at EPFL

Simon Leinen, SWITCH: SCION at GÉANT - Increasing the global footprint 

A team of people from SWITCH, ETHZ and OVGU Magdeburg successfully deployed a SCION backbone infrastructure within the GÉANT network. This allows other research and education networks to easily connect to a SCION infrastructure providing more global footprint. 

Jens-Christian Fischer, SWITCH: Update Community SOC and CloudSOC Update with University of Basel 

Mid 2022 SWITCH started to build the CommunitySOC. Currently 8 institutions are participating. This session will describe the current state of the CommunitySOC and one of the main projects it is currently undertaking - A Microsoft Sentinel based Security Operations service.

Room Buchegg

Ellen Lerouge: Blockchain technology for the Student of the Future

Within the UNA Europa alliance ICTS KU Leuven developed several proofs of concepts, in which the digitized credits,

diplomas and certificates are exchanged between the university of Bologna (UNIBO) and the university of Leuven (KU Leuven).

The proof of concepts demonstrates clearly how these digital exchanges are solidly and safely performed through a digital wallet

and EBSI, the European Blockchain Service Infrastructure.

Moderated by Christoph Graf (Program Manager, SWITCH)

Room Friedegg

Speaker: Mirjam van Daalen

International research infrastructures create/increase the attractiveness of science and technology throughout the world. Switzerland's participation in international infrastructures, therefore, strengthens its position as a location for research and innovation. It is all the more important to have a foot in the door, a relationship with ESFRI and EOSC, which not only produce scientific data used by highly competitive research communities but also ensure quality control (FAIR) of the datasets produced. Mirjam van Daalen will explain the international ESFRI/EOSC ecosystem, highlight its activities with use cases for CH and show the added value for Switzerland and its workplace in the open research community.

Moderated by Kurt Baumann (Data Engineer, SWITCH)

Since last year, NFT and Digital Art have become a hot topic in the art world. Nina Roehrs, expert for art in the digital age, introduces what is, for many, a new world: art in the context of blockchain and NFTs.

Organized shuttle by SWITCH (luggage can be carried along)

Guided tours give us an insight into the art collection of the University of St. Gallen and the new meeting center "SQUARE".

First art @ HSG: https://www.unisg.ch/de/universitaet/besucher/kunstfuehrungen/kunstgalerie followed by a visit at

SQAURE: https://www.hsg-square.ch/de/