First UniBE Digital Venture Fellows Appointed
From monitoring the health of waterways to providing early warnings of flood risks and other severe environmental threats, to translating scientific insights from animal behavior and welfare research into societal value: the first two UniBE Digital Venture Fellowships demonstrate how digital transformation can act as a powerful catalyst for scalable, sustainable innovation. They also reflect the University of Bern’s commitment to responsible AI applications in the natural environment, delivering tangible ecological and societal impact.
In alignment with the University of Bern’s Digitalization Strategy 2030 two Digital Venture Fellowships are granted in addition to the already established UniBE Venture Fellowships. The first two Digital Venture Fellows were selected from a strong set of high-quality applications received in autumn 2025. The Innovation Office conducted the preliminary selection of applications, and the Digitalization Commission is providing financial support for the projects.
Annika Bremhorst: Scientific Insights for Dog Owners
Science creates very valuable knowledge for society – also in the domain of animal health. Thanks to decades of studies, we know more about dogs than ever before. But much of this knowledge remains in academic publications failing to reach the people who live and work with dogs. This can lead to knowledge gaps and uncertainty in decisions affecting dog welfare. SciDog helps close this gap. It is an AI-powered chat assistant that turns scientific research into clear, easy-to-understand answers. Users receive personalized, science-based responses and original sources on everyday questions. The system is built on a curated and continuously updated scientific database and is designed to support - not replace - human expertise.
Dr. Annika Bremhorst combines scientific and entrepreneurial expertise and has secured over CHF 250k in competitive funding prior to her Digital Venture Fellowship, including the UniBE Inno Grant and an Albert-Heim Foundation Grant. The Digital Venture Fellowship will support the professionalization of the project, business validation, database expansion, pilot testing, and the preparation of a UniBE spin-off advancing responsible AI in animal welfare.
Janbert Aarnink: Monitoring River Health with AI
Monitoring rivers is vital for reducing flood risk, protecting ecosystems, and safeguarding infrastructure, yet current methods rely on costly, site-specific manual surveys. This project develops a next-generation river monitoring platform that combines drone-acquired high-resolution imagery and video with artificial intelligence to deliver automated, standardized, and scalable river assessments. Its key innovation is transforming raw visual data into actionable knowledge by integrating multiple river attributes—such as water, sediment, and wood—within a single digital framework using advanced detection and segmentation models.
Building on Dr. Janbert Aarnink’s award-winning PhD research on AI-based detection of river wood, the project expands from single-feature analysis to the first holistic scalable monitoring tool, with a focus on Alpine rivers. By creating a cross-Alpine dataset, validating algorithms, and launching a user-friendly software prototype during the Digital Venture Fellowship, the project will support authorities, operators, and NGOs in sustainable river management, positioning Switzerland as a leader in digital river monitoring.
DIGITAL VENTURE FELLOWSHIP
The Digital Venture Fellowship Program at the University of Bern
Since last year, the Digitalization Commission of the University of Bern (DigiK) in collaboration with the Innovation Office offer two UniBE Digital Venture Fellows per year the chance to translate their scientific findings into innovative, human-centered, digitalization-related products or services. Each fellowship supports young researchers for one year through consulting, mentoring, access to the Innovation Office’s network, and CHF 100,000 in funding provided by the Digitalization Commission (DigiK). The program aims to develop a proof-of-concept for the product or service and to create the entrepreneurial foundations for successful implementation in society and the economy. The next call for proposals will be published in the summer 2026.