Committed to Switzerland.

Gender medicine is innovating the way diseases are diagnosed, treated and prevented. This innovative discipline takes into account the gender-specific differences in the biology of the human body, as well as gender-specific roles and lifestyles. It describes the differences in disease symptoms between the sexes in order to develop customized health solutions for women and men.

Initiative Switzerland supports and promotes the “Swiss Gender Medicine Symposium” project, which was initiated by the University of Zurich and will in future be supported by various university medical institutions, and is helping to set up a national network and launch the planned symposium.

The True Story Festival offers unique access to world events. Around 40 journalists from over 30 countries travel to Bern for a long weekend and provide insights into their research and stories from a wide variety of regions around the world.

On Friday, the True Story Festival kicks off at the Kursaal Bern with the presentation of the True Story Award. Every year, around 1,000 texts from over 100 countries are submitted for the first global journalism award. The main jury selects the three best works from the 36 best entries.

In view of the challenging global situation, it is more important than ever for society to form well-founded and transparent opinions as an indispensable pillar of democracy. With its global orientation and dissemination of relevant texts, the True Story Award aims to set an example for transparency, diversity, and quality. It provides insights into world events from a local perspective, thereby promoting journalism worldwide. On a global level, the award promotes freedom of opinion and the right to free expression.

We are delighted to be a partner of the One Young World Switzerland National Congress.

The congress brings together 200 of Switzerland's best young leaders for a two-day event. The focus is on in-depth discussions, effective networking, and promoting forward-looking projects and measures in our organizations and communities. It is an opportunity to exchange ideas with visionary minds—and to shape the future with integrity at its core.

The Swiss Initiative played a key role in a national project initiated by National Council President Martin Candinas. In the National Council Chamber, 59 coats of arms of the most populous municipalities and cities from 1902 can be admired. These represent not only the entire Swiss people, but also the members of the National Council and thus symbolize an important political level alongside the Confederation and the cantons.

The motto of this project was: "Together into the future: federalism and 175 years of the Federal Constitution." Under this motto, all the presidents of the cantonal parliaments and representatives of the communes and cities were invited to the Federal Palace, whose coats of arms have adorned the National Council chamber and the south façade of the Federal Palace since 1902.

In order to preserve the historical heritage of the over 120-year-old coats of arms, the Swiss Initiative used state-of-the-art drone technology to photograph and faithfully reproduce the 26 cantonal coats of arms on the south façade of the parliament building and the 59 municipal and city coats of arms on the ceiling of the National Council chamber. The processed data was then handed over to the parliamentary services.

Entrepreneurial thinking and action are increasingly required in the professional world in order to be able to respond to rapidly changing circumstances and take advantage of new opportunities. These skills are industry-independent, which is why the vocational championship in entrepreneurship has been open to participants from all industries since SwissSkills 2022.

The championships in the field of entrepreneurship/business development were held for the fifth time at EuroSkills 2021. For this reason, IG EntrepreneurSkills, in collaboration with SwissSkills, has decided to launch the entrepreneurship category at the Swiss Professional Championships 2022 (SwissSkills 2022), giving young professionals the opportunity to compete in international competitions. In fall 2023, EntrepreneurSkills already achieved international success at WorldSkills (gold medal), with Swiss winners also coming out on top at EuroSkills 2025. This shows that entrepreneurship can be promoted at a young age and that Switzerland performs well in international comparison.

Through the ‘Connexa Helvetica’ project, we are connecting the experienced, older generation with young talents in all Switzerland’s language regions. We promote understanding, exchange, and appreciation from Ticino to the French- and German-speaking regions of Switzerland to the Romansh-speaking valleys. The mastermind behind the project is Christian Häuselmann, who in his book Schweiz2291 asked seventy well-known Swiss personalities to describe the kind of Switzerland they would like to see when the country celebrates its 1000th anniversary in 2291. Based on this vision of the future, the Connexa Helvetica project will promote permanent dialogue between generations, with a focus on digital networking and the idea of community. Blogs are planned in the respective national languages as well as a variety of events in all four language regions, with participants hailing from all generations in Switzerland.

Arboloom is the brainchild of the innovation factory ’creaholic’ from Biel/Bienne, which has developed a cup made from wood veneer. The project was initiated by Laurent Torriani and his idea of how to produce resource-saving packaging materials. Ivo Schläpfer, project manager and product designer, developed the veneer cup with his team. Veneer is the term used to describe sheets of wood of a thickness of 0.5 to 8 mm that are peeled from the trunk of a tree using a variety of sawing and cutting processes. The Arboloom cups are 100% recyclable, contain no microplastics and the veneer is obtained from sustainable wood production from Swiss forests. Compared to conventional paper cups, their production requires around 2.5 times less wood and their CO2 footprint is up to ten times lower than cups made of other materials.