Digital Innovation in the Public Interest
Integration • Research • Public-Sector Collaboration
Key facts about Verein Innovation und Soziales
Digital Innovation in the Public Interest
Verein Innovation und Soziales is a Swiss non-profit association based in Bern, founded on 12 November 2025. It builds responsible, human-centred digital infrastructure for an integration system whose services, data, and decisions are today spread across many separate bodies.
Three groups benefit at the same time: refugees and migrants, NGOs and integration institutions, and cantonal and federal authorities.
Social integration, equal opportunities, and digital innovation
The association pursues exclusively non-profit purposes. Transparency and measurable social impact are the yardstick. Three working objectives follow from this:
Projects with universities, public authorities, civil society, and private partners.
Privacy-by-design, ethical standards, transparency, and digital sovereignty in the use of AI.
Tools that make federal, cantonal, and municipal services reachable.
Switzerland's first AI-supported digital integration infrastructure
ERIDA (Efficient Refugee Integration through Data Analytics) is the AI-supported integration platform of Verein Innovation und Soziales. Authorities, employers, integration institutions, and refugees share one structured digital environment instead of separate procedures.
Canton of Bern, Letter of Intent signed.
University of Bern; validation through an InnoCheque from Innosuisse.
Hosted in Switzerland, compliant with Swiss data protection law, privacy-by-design.
Who leads the association and how it is organised
The association is led by a four-member board. It answers for strategy and projects and is bound by the statutory purpose. The association itself is constituted as a non-profit; legal form, register data, tax status and statutory purpose are all published, so that authorities, foundations and research partners can verify them.
Governance in detail: board, legal form and statutory purpose →
Date of the event:
In September 2026, the first wave of the ERIDA Lex closed pilot with the University of Bern ended. All 15 participants who entered the prize draw received a voucher.
Read more: First wave of the ERIDA Lex closed pilot completed: 15 survey participants receive vouchersDate of the event:
Beata Godenzi and Markus Zorn joined the ERIDA team in September 2026. She represents ERIDA in the French-speaking cantons, he in the German-speaking cantons.
Read more: Beata Godenzi and Markus Zorn join the ERIDA teamDate of the event:
ERIDA was one of eight start-ups selected from 100 applications to pitch at the Rocket Day + Impact Award 2026 in Zurich.
Read more: ERIDA is one of eight start-ups selected to pitch at the Rocket Day + Impact Award 2026Answers about Verein Innovation und Soziales and the ERIDA platform
ERIDA is supported by an InnoCheque from Innosuisse and developed in partnership with the University of Bern and the Canton of Bern (Letter of Intent). Verein Innovation und Soziales initiated the project.
The website is available in German, French, and English. German is the default language.
The association can be reached by email at info@innosocial.ch. It is based at Luisenstrasse 45, 3005 Bern.
