E-Collecting Hackathon

At the Federal Chancellery's E-Collecting Hackathon (October 31 and November 1, 2025, in Bern), we are designing and developing solutions for collecting electronic signatures for popular initiatives and referendums from A to Z. Meet developers, experts, and interested parties from government, politics, academia, and civil society, and play an active role in shaping e-collecting.

Over the course of two days, you will develop your solutions, addressing the 10 topics outlined in the guidelines. You will work in teams taking different approaches to said topics. You can develop a conceptual, clickable, and/or technical prototype. Either way, you should clearly present the interactions and data flows between actors, software, and infrastructure components over time, as well as the user experience of these actors.

Together, you will contribute to comparing different ways of how to implement e-collecting in Switzerland. As part of the participatory process, your solutions will be discussed in subsequent workshops and will possibly be taken into account for the official decision on the design of the federal e-collecting trials. Proper documentation is key to ensuring that your solution can be understood and evaluated.

Teams and Approaches

• 1) Voll-medienbruchfreies E-Collecting: direkte Demokratie im digitalen Zeitalter
• 2) E-Collecting vom bestehenden Stimmregister aus gedacht
• 3) Update_CH
• 4) E-Collecting User Journey mit Nutzung der Erfahrung von SwissSign, ePost und E-Voting
• 5) E-Collecting mittels einfacher digitaler Signatur
• 6) Anonymous Fully Verifiable E-Collecting
• 7) Vom St.Galler E-Collecting Portal zur Lösung für eidgenössische Vorlagen
• 8) Instaurer la confiance à chaque signature ! Collecte électronique fédérée et vérifiée cryptographiquement
• 9) Prosignum - sicher und verifizierbare Unterschriftensammlung
• 10) Le système récolte des signatures sur le portail e-Gov genevois
• 11) Hybrid Trust for E-Collecting
• 12) Federated e-collection framework that respects cantons sovereignty while giving citizens a seamless and privacy first experience.

There is also a regularly updated overview of all the teams and their approaches: Link (by Christian Folini / @dune73)

Getting started

0. Create an account on GitHub.
1. Join a team (i.e. approach) during the team building process at the hackathon.
2. Add your name and GitHub account to the "Team Members" section of your team's GitHub repository README file.
3. Design and develop your solution.
4. Document your solution.
5. Present and demo your solution at the end of the hackathon.

Program

Friday
09.00	Doors open & breakfast	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
10.00	Welcome (Federal Chancellor)(DE/FR)
10.15	Intro by BFH, Federal Chancellery (DE/FR) & Pitches
11.30	Team building	Salons, Bernerhof
12.00	Lunch	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
13.30	E-ID and DVS4U*	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
14.30	Association of Swiss Residents' Services (VSED)*
15.00	Accessibility*
16.00	Mermaid Diagrams*
16.30	Figma*
17.45	Check-out day 1 (DE/FR)	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
18.00	Dinner	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
19.00	Walk to BFH Pavillon	Brückenstrasse 69
19.30	Closing Bernerhof day 1	Bernerhof
22.00	BFH Pavillon: doors close
Saturday
08.00	Doors open & breakfast	Bernerhof
10.00	Federal Chancellery (DE/FR)*	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
11.00	Cryptography*
12.00	Lunch	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
16.00	Final presentations	Bankettsaal, Bernerhof
17.30	Final remarks (Federal Chancellor) (DE/FR) & apéro
18.30	Closing	Bernerhof

* Mentoring Sessions (Input and Q&A)

Slides are linked.

Location

Bernerhof, Bundesgasse 3, 3003 Bern

Tools and Resources

• Federal Chancellery's E-Collecting Whitepaper/Guidelines (GER, FRA, ITA)
• Postulate Report: E-Collecting (-> Documents; GER, FRA, ITA)
• Mermaid: create diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text in a similar manner as markdown
  • directly on GitHub (free)
  • including a graphical user interface (freemium)
  • code editor (free)
  • GPT (paid via OpenAI)
  • and many more integrations
• GitHub: Get started
• UX, Design and Prototyping Tools, e.g.:
  • Figma
  • Penpot
  • Miro
• DVS4U (API for issuing and verifying credentials based on the e-ID)

Mentors

Mentors will support you in developping your solutions. You will find physical documents at the hackathon, listing the mentors with their respective skills (e.g. tools, E-ID, cryptography, accessibility) and perspectives (e.g. municipalities, Federal Chancellery) as well as the slots for their mentoring sessions (input and Q&A) (if applicable).

Contact details for questions

Surname	Firstname	Organisation	E-Mail
Aksoy	Mikail Vidal	BFH Tech Mentor (Mermaid & Figma)	mikail.aksoyvidal at bfh.ch
Amrein	Patrick	Ubique, i.A. DVS (DVS4U)	amrein at ubique.ch
von Bornhaupt	Alide	Accessibility Coach	info at alidevonbornhaupt.com
Eberle	Monika	VSED, Einwohnerdienste Maur ZH	monika.eberle at maur.ch
Eckert	Noah	BFH Tech Mentor (Figma)	noah.eckert at bfh.ch
Fischer	Tobias	VSED, Einwohnerdienste Liestal	tobias.fischer at liestal.ch
Fuchs	Theres	VSED, Gemeindeverwaltung Gelterkinden BL	theres.fuchs at vsed.ch
Graf	Simon	Statistisches Amt Kanton Zürich	simon.graf at statistik.ji.zh.ch
Heimann	Christian	fedpol Programm e-ID	christian.heimann at fedpol.admin.ch
Marti	Claudio	Bundeskanzlei, Volksinitiativen	claudio.martiwhitebread at bk.admin.ch
Mitrokotsa	Katerina	Chair of Cybersecurity, University of St. Gallen	katerina.mitrokotsa at unisg.ch
Schaad	Pascal	VSED, Einwohnerdienste Langenthal BE	pascal.schaad at langenthal.ch
Zaugg	Moritz	Politische Rechte, Kanton Bern	moritz.zaugg at be.ch

Contributing

By participating in this hackathon, you accept and agree to our code of conduct.

Languages

The hackathon will be moderated in German and translated into French simultaneously. Presentations will be given in either language and translated simultaneously. Participants will mostly work in their respective teams, where they can choose to communicate in one or more languages.

Organizers

The Institute for Public Sector Transformation at Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) is organising the hackathon on behalf of the Federal Chancellery.