Conference News: Swiss Stop for AI Action; Special Treatment for Cyber Startups; IFA shares CFP
AI Summit Stops in Switzerland: The AI Action Summit just wrapped its event in New Delhi last month. This was the fourth in a series of summits that were initially designed as a place for governments to coordinate global action in the face of threats from advanced AI. During the final day of this international gathering, Swiss President Guy Parmelin announced during his address at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in the national capital that the 2027 AI Summit will be held in Geneva. President Parmelin also emphasized that hosting the 2027 Summit would strengthen Switzerland’s position in digital policy, reaffirm its commitment to a rules-based international order and consolidate its role as a hub for AI innovation and research.
Infosecurity Champions Startups: The team behind Infosecurity Europe (2 – 4 June in London) recently introduced a cyber startup initiative that will happen at the 2026 event for the first time. Infosecurity event director Bradley Maule-ffinch said “The startup ecosystem is vital to our industry. We see it as our responsibility to provide a platform where startups can scale, founders can learn, and investors can meet the world’s best innovators.” In addition to founder-focused conference sessions and networking, the Cyber Startup Programme will include several elements: A Cyber Startups Zone and Innovation Zone showcasing emerging technologies; Special registration for startups, investors and ecosystem enablers; and a new Infosecurity Europe Cyber Startup Award. The programme will be delivered in collaboration with UK Cyber Flywheel.
Submission Opportunity: IFA Berlin, which is one of the world’s largest consumer tech events, has opened its call for session proposals for the 2026 event. Returning to Berlin from 4 – 8 September, the conference will be reorganized around five tracks: World of AI & Future of Tech, Retail & Future of Commerce, Marketing & Creativity, Culture & Lifestyle, and Smart & Sustainable Living. The conference team is seeking thought leaders, creatives, researchers, and entrepreneurs to submit ideas for talks, panels workshops and more before the 27 March deadline.
Lunchtime Learning: If you were not lucky enough to attend last month’s AI Impact Summit, you can still watch the sessions for a glimpse into how tech and policy leaders are thinking about AI. While the summit programming was decentralized across different subsets of attendee demographics, many sessions can be streamed from IndiaAI’s YouTube channel, including, keynotes from the summit’s AI Research Symposium featured the CEO of Google DeepMind, Turing Award winners, and other industry visionaries.
Coming Up Next Week: SXSW EDU kicks off two weeks of South by Southwest conferences and festival across Austin when it gets underway 9 March. While EDU is all about the future of teaching and learning, the broader SXSW begins on Crossover Day (12 March) for a full day of SXSW EDU and Innovation Conference co-programmed sessions and a keynote. HIMSS (which stands for Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) annual conference, which runs 9-12 March at the Venetian in Las Vegas, promises the 2026 program will offer a “ launchpad for ideas that will shape patient care for decades to come.” GDC: Festival of Gaming, organized by Informa, celebrates its 40th edition of gathering the game-making ecosystem – from design and code to publishing, marketing, and investment – under one roof. And on 11 March, WSJ Tech Live Cybersecurity brings leaders from government, enterprise tech, and VCs to New York to examine the “evolving threat landscape, the role of AI, policy priorities and how organizations are responding to increasingly complex cyber risks.”