The Future and 2020

A few projects had to be put on hold in order to tackle more pressing issues: We tried to bring some clarity into an uncertain time and so, with a lot of dedication and sweat, new projects were created within a very short time, such as the CovidKompass or the SwissCovid App Facts website. Both collected and processed information on the pandemic situation in Switzerland. We also had the opportunity to develop digital, participatory and even co-creative formats with and for various partners. Together with Björn Müller from STRIDE and Benedikt Wyss, we realised a project with the Zurich Festival and one with Migros Kulturprozent a co-creation conference in the performing arts and trained playfully lived solidarity with the Social Muscle Club online. For the ETH Chair of Architecture & Urban Transformation, we tested hybrid forms of teaching in which reflection on form and tools became a topic at the same time.

Then there was Together Now: short-time work and wage compensation helped many, but not all. Thanks to over 1,500 donors, we raised over CHF 280,000 with the Together Now initiative. Together with the Verein Gruneinkommen and Wemakeit, we were able to provide a bridging income for people without financial security.

There is a fundamental idea behind the bridging income: What if everyone had money and knowledge at their disposal so that they could pursue the activity that seems meaningful to them and to society? Together with the Verein Grundeinkommen, we are breaking new ground and building a community that provides each other with money and knowledge to implement forward-looking ideas and projects. Ting.community is our contribution to the future of solidarity systems.

Want to learn more about Ting? Then sign up for our free virtual Ting Lunch Session (in German).

Shops and restaurants were closed. Events were cancelled. More than half of all Swiss people worked or studied from home. And suddenly everything had to be digital. But digitalisation should not be something that sweeps over society, but something that is negotiated with the whole population. With this credo, the DigitalLabor planned to tour Switzerland and debate and discuss digitalisation with as diverse a range of local actors as possible at various rural and urban locations. Of the eight planned stops, we decided to hold only the event in Lichtensteig, St. Gallen, and to postpone all the others or to hold them digitally. Next spring, we will move on to Chur, Yverdon, Basel, Lugano, Lucerne and Zurich.

Of course, the elimination of physical meetings also opens up new possibilities: With laptops and internet, work can be done from almost anywhere. The Beverin Nature Park in Graubünden thought so too. Together with local actors, we are currently working on a prototype of how remote working can be fostered in the region.

Want to learn more about remote working in the nature park? Then sign up for our free virtual Remote Worker Lunch Session.

The Forum Alpbach this year would have been about democratic institutions and trust in them. The Forum had to be cancelled in its original form, of course, but the question became more relevant: How should democratic states react to the coming challenges? As part of the digitalised Forum Alpbach, we worked together with the think tank Foraus and other organisations and experts in Berlin, London and Vienna to develop scenarios and possible solutions.

But not only internationally, also in Switzerland we deal with questions about digital democracy. As part of a study for the Foundation for Technology Assessment (TA-Swiss), we have designed desirable future scenarios for a digital democracy and are currently creating speculative artefacts to cultivate an unconventional and courageous way of thinking about the future.

Want to learn more about the project? Then sign up for our free virtual TA-SWISS Lunch Session.

The dangers of disinformation became particularly obvious this year: the opinion-forming process can be complicated and influenced in the digital world by many phenomena, such as clickbait, disinformation or trolling. Digital media literacy are therefore all the more important. In cooperation with the Stiftung Risiko Dialog and the Canton of Zurich, we have developed a simulation that makes these phenomena tangible so that we can experience them concretely and develop strategies for dealing with them.

Want to learn more about the Digital Literacy Simulation? Then sign up for our free virtual Digital Literacy Lunch Session.

We would like to thank all our partner organisations for the great cooperation and the exciting projects that have resulted. Also we would like to thank our supporters who put their trust in us.

Special thanks to Marco and Ozan for your valuable work in the past years and welcome to our two newest team members: Edith and Kadira, we are very much looking forward to a common 2021 and common, desirable future scenarios!