Our client Swiss Red Cross had not one but two awards to celebrate at Best of Swiss Web this year – and of course, we cheered right along with them! ‘Helpful’, the information platform for people from Ukraine seeking refuge, received a silver award from the jury in the Public Value category and a bronze award in the User Experience category. Another bronze award went to the Statistical Office of the Canton of Zurich: The ‘Open data for an open future’ project was also honoured in the Public Value category
Helpful – Information Platform for Refugees from Ukraine
The Swiss Red Cross (SRC) is dedicated to helping people in need all over the world. To support refugees from Ukraine, together with the ROD agency they rapidly created a platform that provides quick, simple, individual and reliable help in five languages: Helpful.redcross.ch
The video submission shows why this platform is so incredibly valuable:
In the words of the jury:
“Extremely useful and highly relevant in the current situation! Impressively simple, very practical and with a strong user focus. Direct and hands-on, tailored to the target group and the situation, very comprehensive and informative: These are key characteristics of the help the Red Cross provides to refugees from Ukraine, setting an example by creating great public value.”
The second project that received an award also revolves around people – even though it seems to be all about numbers and data at first glance:
Open Data for an Open Future
The ‘MetaDatenVerwaltung’ application is driven by the vision of an open administration that publishes all data classified as ‘open’. This makes the Canton of Zurich the only government body thus far to publish open official data in a collaborative manner.
The data catalogue consists of two frontends and a database that communicate with the web server via a REST API. This enables all employees of the Canton of Zurich to publish open official data.
Fundamental knowledge of databases or underlying data standards is no longer required. The data publishers are guided through the process step by step in the front end. The advantage of this is that data publishers intuitively fill out the necessary fields. The application ensures the compatibility of the data sets with national or international platforms and the reliable availability of the data in the background. The data is only verified by the expert coordination centre OGD of the Canton of Zurich on its initial publication.
The result:
Regardless of whether you are looking for numbers on bicycle accidents or data on covid-19 vaccination campaigns in the Canton of Zurich, you will find it all in the ‘Open Official Data’ catalogue (in German). Data sets on subjects such as health, mobility and transport or crime are available with a few quick keystrokes. They can be downloaded or embedded via a permanent URL.
“Our application enables all employees of the Canton of Zurich to publish their open official data independently and easily. It facilitates collaboration across all levels of administration. For instance, as of today, the communes of Uster and Winterthur can also host their data via our application. They no longer need to have their own infrastructure for this.”
Laure Stadler, Data Scientist at the Statistical Office, Canton of Zurich
Heartfelt congratulations from everyone here at Unic go out to the Swiss Red Cross and the Statistical Office of the Canton of Zurich for this recognition.
And not to forget all our employees who contributed to these projects: Thank you for your dedication!
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