Swiss Software Festival Basel 2026 Recap

The Swiss Software Festival was back in Basel on June 24th 2026 – and the second edition delivered on everything the first promised, and much more. Around 650 people gathered at uptownBasel in Arlesheim to talk about software, platforms, and the forces fundamentally reshaping our industry: AI and Sovereignty. VSHN was back as a Matterhorn Sponsor, and didn’t just attend – we once again actively helped shape the program.

A festival that has found its rhythm

The second edition of any event is always a litmus test. The first year runs on excitement. The second shows whether there’s really something behind it. The Swiss Software Festival 2026 answered that question clearly: more attendees, more energy, and a program that genuinely feels well thought through. At uptownBasel in Arlesheim, there was life from the very first moment – with conversations in the hallways that carried on well into the evening.

Outside it was unusually hot for a June day in Basel. Anyone looking to cool down knew where to go: the joint VSHN and Red Hat booth was the most refreshing spot in the building. A good reason to stop by, strike up a conversation, and find out what we’re building right now.

Aarno on the main stage: digital sovereignty is not optional

VSHN founder Aarno Aukia took the plenary stage to make the case for digital sovereignty – not as a compliance obligation, but as a genuine architectural decision every engineering team faces today. In a world where AI pulls organizations toward convenience and speed, Aarno’s keynote was a sobering counterpoint: the question of where your platform runs, who controls it, and whether you can trust it is no longer just a legal question. It’s an engineering question.

Aarno also joined a panel discussion that went even deeper – into the tensions between open ecosystems and sovereign infrastructure. The questions were pointed, a sign that the topic is no longer abstract for most teams in the room.

Watch Aarno’s keynote:

Tech Track 2: Platform Engineering under pressure

VSHN’s Markus Speth chaired Tech Track 2 – Platform Engineering and Software Architecture – together with co-chairs Andreas from ti&m and Florian from Abacus Research. The track covered two full sessions on the two forces currently pulling platform engineering in opposite directions: AI and Sovereignty.

AI wants speed and flexibility. Digital sovereignty wants control and transparency. Your platform is caught in the middle.

The morning session focused on AI-native platforms: what does it mean when software rewrites itself, when agents gain access to infrastructure, and where is the competency gap quietly growing? Eficode, White Duck, Noser Engineering, and Adobe brought hands-on experience from systems where AI isn’t a feature – it’s part of the foundation. Both sessions closed with open discussion rounds that the audience engaged with intensely. A big thank you to all participants and the many great questions!

The afternoon put sovereignty and openness center stage as genuine architectural decisions. VSHN’s Tobias Brunner opened with a talk you won’t forget quickly: “Furniture, not lumber: what sausages, furniture and airplanes have to do with digital sovereignty.” The analogy landed perfectly – a memorable and surprisingly precise way to explain why not all sovereignty promises are worth the same, and what it really means to build on infrastructure you can trust. Speakers from PHOENIQS, Abacus Research, and ti&m rounded out the session with different perspectives on why open infrastructure decisions carry consequences that go far beyond vendor lock-in.

We were especially pleased to see Mohammad Alavi from HIN (Health Info Net) – a VSHN customer – speak in the festival’s dedicated Sovereignty Track. Watching a customer take the stage to share real-world sovereignty challenges in the Swiss healthcare sector was one of the highlights of the day, and a reminder that this conversation is anything but abstract for the organizations we work with.

And the Lego goes to…

No VSHN event appearance is complete without a Lego giveaway. This time we raffled a Lego Harry Potter set – and the winner is Daniel Haß. Congrats Daniel, enjoy the build! 🧱

See you next year

The Swiss Software Festival is establishing itself on the Swiss tech calendar. It doesn’t aim to be a huge conference – it aims to be a good one. With 650 attendees, a carefully curated program, a truly great venue, and compelling conversations, it succeeds.

Thanks to Swiss Made Software for a fantastic second edition, and to everyone who stopped by the booth, attended Tech Track 2, or caught Aarno and Tobias on stage.

See you in 2027!