NATIONAL ICT POLICY

February 1998 marked the beginning of the Swiss government's enactment of a national ICT policy. The Strategy for an Information Society in Switzerland  promotes these guiding principles:¹

• Universal access: to ensure that all residents of Switzerland have equal access to ICT at all levels, independent of time and location, and at affordable prices.
• Universal competence: to ensure initial and continuing education at all levels so that ICT, in technical terms as well for content creation, becomes a basic competence of daily life.
• Freedom of configuration: to ensure that the information society develops under free competition, with the state ensuring that its configuration respects social principles
  
• Acceptance: to ensure that ICT obtains the trust of the population through responsible use and respect of human and other fundamental rights.
  

Switzerland's ICT policy  has supported the research and development of technology, technology access in school and businesses, and improved  technology  use in the business environment. Switzerland's ICT policy demonstrates a national effort to promote ICT development on a local and national level. This strategy to build an information society also reveals the government's willingness to support these efforts across a wide range of activities.  Programs and policies have been developed in the areas of training and education, ecommerce, e-government, security and availability,  information assurance, and scientific research.²  

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The Swiss government funds several research programs throughout the country. One such effort is softnet (www.softnet.ch)  which was created to spur growth in the Swiss software sector. Another program created to support ICT growth is the Swiss Priority Program for Information and Communications Structures. This initiative's objectives are the design, development, implementation, and trials of distributed applications and associated networks.  The Swiss government has built a policy framework that is conducive to research and development, but one that does not interfere in the process.

TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION
Switzerland has embarked on a public-private partnership that seeks to supply Internet access to all primary and secondary schools on the country. The Schools on the Web initiative also seeks to train teachers how to use technology more effectively in the classroom. This initiative is an example of collaboration between private industry, cantonal governments and the federal government. This type of partnership is one of the goals of the building of an information society in Switzerland. The partnership has set aside 900M CHF to fund the initiative over the next five years.³

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
To address the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, the SME Task Force of the Secretariat of Economic Affairs launched a portal to help SME's in starting a business and to other useful business information. Switzerland is perceived as a an attractive European market because of its political and economic stability. The presence of  technical industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemical manufacturing have resulted in a high level of computerization. However, computerization is not an adequate measure of the ICT business environment. One ICT market report estimates that in 1999 $15 billion was spent on ICT in Switzerland.⁴ This level of spending is a result of the business-friendly ICT policies.