Transforming Uncertainty
into Opportunity

The RiskOn event on September 2nd – 3rd, 2025 brings together talents from Switzerland's top universities and experienced risk professionals from Switzerlands leading financial institutions to co-create innovative solutions in the realm of risk management.

POINT OF DEPARTURE

In an era marked by global crises and digital transformation, businesses and banks face heightened risks, underscoring the need for robust and resilient risk management.

PURPOSE

RiskON, guided by the University of Zurich and key partners, aims to inspire groundbreaking solutions in the realm of risk management in Switzerland.

RULES AND MEASURES

Effective risk management identifies, assesses, and mitigates risks, safeguarding interests, depositors' funds, and building trust across stakeholders in banking.

Innovation Challenge

Co-Create innovative solutions
in 24h 0m

Team up with other students, corporate partners, and industry experts to take part of the annual innovation challenge in risk management

Select Challenge

Select a challenge to tackle

Co-Create

In multiple ideation sessions you will address problems faced by corporate partners and create a proof of concept / minimum viable product (MVP)

Win

Win cash prizes and get the chance to bring your idea further into reality

Event Highlights

From Our Innovation Journey

Experience the energy and collaboration that defines RiskON

Challenge 1 Winner Team

The winning team celebrates their innovative risk classification solution

Winners2024

1 of 4

Lead Sponsors

Julius Baer

Lead Sponsor

Zürcher Kantonalbank

Lead Sponsor

Team Sponsor

EFG

Team Sponsor

Ambassador Sponsors

LGT

Ambassador Sponsor

Kantonalbanken

Ambassador Sponsor

Strategic Partners

Swiss Financial Innovation Desk – FIND

Strategic Partner

Innosuisse AI Innovation Booster

Strategic Partner

Swiss Risk Association

Strategic Partner

Academic Partners

Master of Science UZH ETH in Quantitative Finance

Lead Academic Partner

Leading Switzerland's innovation in quantitative finance and risk management education

Participating Universities

EPFL Lausanne

ETH Zurich

Université de Genève

Université de Lausanne

Università della Svizzera italiana

University of Basel

University of Liechtenstein

University of St. Gallen

Innovation Solutions

Challenges to tackle

These challenges will be tackled during RiskON 2025

Challenge 1

Quality Assurance for Client Contact Notes — How can AI help?

Client Contact Notes (CCNs) are essential for compliance with regulatory requirements like reverse solicitation and cross-border documentation. Yet, ensuring their completeness, quality, and control remains resource intensive in international banking. By choosing this challenge, you aim to explore how technologies like AI, NLP and LLMs can enhance CCN quality assurance—ensuring consistent coverage of the five Ws (Who, What, Why, Where, When) and additional solicitation context—while automating controls across jurisdictions.

AI Technologies:

NLPLLMsText AnalyticsCompliance

Challenge 2

KYC vs. Adverse Media — Can AI match identities across sources?

Compliance teams must assess whether individuals mentioned in negative news (e.g., fraud or sanctions) match known clients. Due to common names and unstructured KYC data, this task often involves tedious manual work. By choosing this challenge, you aim to develop an AI or ML solution that links clients to external news articles with high accuracy. Provided with synthetic KYC and media data, you will build and test a model that supports risk detection by identifying name matches across unstructured data.

AI Technologies:

Entity RecognitionAIMLData Matching

Challenge 3

AI-powered Fraud Detection — How can patterns reveal risk in private banking?

Fraud remains a major threat to private banks, often hiding in vast volumes of transactional and behavioral data. Detecting it requires speed, precision, and scalable analysis. By choosing this challenge, you aim to design an AI-driven system that flags potential fraud in real-time by analyzing patterns in user behavior and transaction data. Your solution should also consider how to present results through a user-friendly interface and improve over time via feedback and adaptive learning.

AI Technologies:

Anomaly DetectionReal-time AIBehavioral AnalyticsPattern Recognition

Technology Innovation

Application First Approach

Choose the right technologies for your solution. Our mentors and bank experts guide you from concept to working application.

LLMs & AI

Your Choice of Models

Data Science

Analytics & Insights

Web & Mobile

Build Applications

Mentor Support

Expert Guidance

AI Innovation Accelerator

Enabling great ideas to be accelerated

AI-Powered Development

Winning teams receive funding and AI infrastructure support to build production-ready solutions. Access to advanced ML platforms, cloud computing resources, and expert guidance.

Research Collaboration

Co-author research papers with UZH professors, contributing to cutting-edge AI research in risk management and financial technology.

Industry Recognition

Establish yourself as an AI innovator in risk management, gaining visibility and recognition from leading financial institutions and tech companies.

Innosuisse Innovation Booster AI

in collaboration with

This accelerator program is supported by Innosuisse, Switzerland's innovation agency, through their Innovation Booster Artificial Intelligence initiative. The program provides direct access to cutting-edge AI research, industry partnerships, and funding opportunities specifically designed to transform innovative ideas into market-ready solutions in the risk management sector.

Innovation Awards

Awards

1st Place

Innobooster Accelerator

CHF 1,600.-

Exposure to Key Contacts

Certificate of Completion

2nd Place

Innovation Package

CHF 800.-

Exposure to Key Contacts

Certificate of Completion

Award Committee

Bruno Meyer

Board Member, CEO & Chair of Executive Committee

Swiss Risk Association

Eva Selamlar

Head Swiss Financial Innovation Desk – FIND

Federal Department of Finance

Prof Dr Josef Teichmann

Professorship for Financial Mathematics

ETH Zurich

Stephanie Wickihalder

President

Swiss Fintech Innovations / SFTI

Fabienne Wikler

Senior Manager Risk Consulting Financial Services

PwC Switzerland

Daniel Zuberbühler

Former Vice Chairman FINMA

Banca Popolare di Sondrio (Suisse)

Event Schedule

Two Days

Team up with other students, corporate partners, and industry experts for 48 hours of innovation challenges.

Tuesday, 02.09.2025

3 sessions

12:00

Welcome & Lunchbox

13:00

Opening – Prof. Dr. Harald C. Gall

Dean of the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Informatics University of Zurich

13:30

Kickoff Challenges

open end

Wednesday, 03.09.2025

5 sessions