Learning Lunch: Digital Alternatives—What Options and What Impacts for SMEs?
On Tuesday, November 10, 2026, a new Learning Lunch—organized by the platinn program and the Alp ICT platform—will bring together stakeholders from the Neuchâtel digital ecosystem between 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. to discuss alternatives to solutions offered by major technology providers. Focused on digital commons, decentralized technologies, and open-source solutions, this event will explore opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to strengthen their digital autonomy, gain greater control over their data, and reduce their technological dependencies.
**Event reserved for companies based in Neuchâtel**
Interested? Reserve your spot by contacting us at info@alpict.ch
Open Source, Digital Commons, and Decentralization: Alternatives to Explore
In the face of dominance by major technology providers, new approaches are emerging to address the challenges of digital sovereignty, data control, interoperability, and technological dependence. Whether open-source solutions, digital commons, or decentralized infrastructures, these alternatives call into question not only companies’ technological choices but also their governance models and their ability to retain control over their tools.
This Learning Lunch will explore the benefits, limitations, and practical applications of this approach through the stories of two entrepreneurs and the concrete solutions or initiatives they are developing:
Digital Commons & Open Source Software: New Business Models with Lionel Jeannerat, co-founder of the Neuchâtel-based startup be-BOP. Lionel will discuss the concept of digital resources developed, shared, and managed collectively by a community, and the opportunities they present for organizations.
His presentation will draw in particular on the entrepreneurial experience of be-BOP, an open-source sales platform designed primarily for e-commerce, sales management, and event planning, to illustrate how open digital solutions can serve as an alternative to proprietary platforms.
Decentralized Digital Identity & Artificial Intelligencewith Fabio Bonfiglio, who trained as an industrial automation engineer and quickly found himself immersed in the worlds of computer programming and then business management.
Fabio will first discuss the NEDAO initiative, of which he was a founding member, and then move on to present two use cases: an application for identity authentication that relies in particular on cryptographic mechanisms to facilitate information certification, access rights management, and the protection of personal data; before delving deeper into the topic of business process sovereignty, notably through a project based on the pooling of computing power for administrative automation applications using AI.
For SMEs in French-speaking Switzerland, this meeting will offer an opportunity to move beyond the dichotomy between proprietary solutions and open-source alternatives in order to evaluate the options available in light of their actual needs. Beyond issues of sovereignty and data protection, the discussions will explore challenges related to autonomy, sustainability, interoperability, and cost control, while highlighting local initiatives that are experimenting with new ways to design, share, and govern digital technologies.
