Annual Report 2021: Pioneering Digital Trust, AI Ethics and Digital Responsibility in Practice

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Making Digital Trust Label ready to deploy

2021 was a key year for digital ethics and responsibility: Users are getting digitally educated and organisations are becoming aware of their obligations to develop digital services responsibly. In 2021 the Swiss Digital Initiative grew as an organisation, made the Digital Trust Label with EPFL ready to deploy and laid the seeds for further projects in AI Ethics with HEAD Genève and Digital Responsibility in Practice with IMD Lausanne. All this work would not have been possible without the support of our Partners. A huge thank you to Stiftung Mercator Schweiz, EPFL, digitalswitzerland, SGS, and the Swiss Government.

Annual Report 2021 Highlights

We are pleased to share with you our 2021 Annual Report. Some highlights:

Developing the Digital Trust Label

Our second year was all about progress and promoting digital ethics and responsibility. With the addition of two new employees, the impact of the Swiss Digital Initiative grew exponentially. With this small team and our strong partners, we were able to finally turn the idea of a Digital Trust Label into reality. The development work was completed at the end of 2021, hence we could officially launch the Label in January 2022.

Through publications such as a Ecosystem Mapping or a Digital Trust Whitepaper and active participation in events from workshops to keynotes, we strengthened our thought leadership, a fact that is reflected in growing media mentions, public interest and our growing participation in Working Groups from the Geneva Dialogue and IEEE to the WEF.

Outlook 2022: Scaling the Digital Trust Label and SDI Awareness

With the successful launch of the Digital Trust Label in January 2022, we will dedicate the remainder of this year to increasing its adoption in Switzerland and breaking international ground. In doing so, we will obtain valuable feedback from organisations that label their digital service, as well as the users who interact with the Digital Trust Label. Thereby setting up the development process for the Digital Trust Label 2.0 in 2023. With the current operationalisation of our flagship project Digital Trust Label, the available resources will be applied to propel our two projects in AI Ethics and Corporate Digital Responsibility in Practice. With HEAD Genève we are working together on a project to make the impact of AI in our society perceptible and transparent for everyone. While with IMD Lausanne we work towards an exhaustive catalogue of Best Practices for Corporate Digital Responsibility.

The growing realisation of a need for a global digital governance and a more humane-centric digital world makes the dynamic international ecosystem in Geneva – the birthplace of the internet – an ideal location for this pioneering work. Thus, fostering and strengthening collaboration with stakeholders and partners in Geneva and beyond will be another priority in the next year.

The full report is available here.