Digital Glarus, this is how we call the new home for high tech companies. Located south of Zurich, it has unique features you can not find anywhere else in Switzerland.
The combination of beautiful landscape, recreational areas as well as having high speed Internet connections and huge variety of great food offers forms what we call "Digital Glarus".
The valley also knows as "Glarnerland" is featured by many gorgeous, eye-catching buildings from former industrial area.
In fact, Glarnerland may be the valley to contain most well preserved antique houses equipped with fitting high quality old age furniture (those you always look at in expensive shops, but never buy - this is how people live here).
While you can imagine that the old factories, many of them being weaving mills, are not business anymore, their heritage suits exactly what the tech society of Switzerland requires: Great and affordable place for computer scientists.
Instead of having the old falling apart, we are thinking of building the new tech centre of Switzerland by converting old, abandoned factory halls into attractive working places.
But what is attractive to a computer scientist? Pizza, Coke and fast Internet? The latter is a still true, though computer scientists in Switzerland are more orientated on living healthy, which is exactly what Glarnerland can provide.
The current de-facto tech centre of Switzerland, Zurich, is overpopulated with an average of less than 0.1% free apartments. Furthermore it is expensive and loud. Although the high concentration of people may be helpful to find customers, most tech companies are making their business in the Internet and are not affected by the change. While you can imagine that the old factories, many of them being weaving mills, are not business anymore, their heritage suits exactly what the tech society of Switzerland requires: Great and affordable place for computer scientists.
In fact development is hampered by the costs companies and developers have to carry, distracting them from the real work they plan to do.
While some investment is required to be attractive to tech companies, given the potential of reuse of infrastructure, the costs are estimated to be low and can be a key factor in the development of the Canton Glarus.
At the moment we at ungleich are talking to authorities and sponsors. It is crucial to build up some basic infrastructure and attract early adopters. Building a community (meetup alike) can be helpful, but competitive pricing as well as superior infrastructure are crucial for success.
Have you become interested in the project?
Contact us at
digital.glarus@ungleich.ch // +41 (0) 44 534 66 22
