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Fourteen-year-old Swiss whiz kid enrols at uni

A Swiss teenager has become the youngest university student in Germany, according to media reports in Switzerland.

Published: 20 October 2014 21:28 CEST
Fourteen-year-old Swiss whiz kid enrols at uni
Bastian Eichenberger: speaks nine languages. Photo: Sandra Meyndt/University of Freiburg

Bastian Eichenberger, 14, has enrolled for the 2014-2015 year at the University of Freiburg, a public research university in Baden-Württemberg, where he is pursuing studies in chemistry.

Eichenberger, from Oberwil in the canton of Basel-Country, graduated from the equivalent of high school at the age of 13, said the university in a press release issued on Monday.

The wunderkind decided to attend the German university because he is interested in research, such as the development of new drugs, and wants to learn more about the cultural differences between Germany and Switzerland, according to the release.

Eichenberger, who was raised partly in Singapore, was identified as a gifted child at the age of five, the university said.

His family moved back to Switzerland where he pursued private lessons before attending a private school.

He now speaks nine languages, with proficiency in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese, the university said.

See also: NINE-YEAR-OLD PRODIGY APPLIES TO ZURICH UNI

The whiz kid likes reading, movies and TV shows but also enjoys a wide variety of sports, including judo, golf, tennis, curling, boxing and skiing.

He plays the piano and is a member of the youth fire brigade, the university said.

Because of the proximity of the university to Basel, located near the German border, Eichenberger is commuting to classes every day.

The university said he is the youngest person currently studying there.

Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes went further, reporting that he is the youngest student studying at any German university.
 

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EPFL

EXPLAINED: How will the post-lockdown tracing system work in Switzerland?

Given there is no Covid-19 vaccine at the present time, contact tracing is believed to be an effective, though complex, strategy for breaking transmission chains and controlling the spread of disease. How will it work in Switzerland?

Published: 20 April 2020 15:54 CEST
EXPLAINED: How will the post-lockdown tracing system work in Switzerland?
Research at EPFL will help establish a tracing system. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP

How does the tracking work?

The process involves identifying contaminated people, so that measures can be taken to prevent the spread of infection on to others.

It is all the more important in cases when the sick person has no symptoms and may not even know they are sick.

Once the infected person is identified, efforts are made to locate and test the people they have been in contact with within the past two weeks. If one of those contacts is found to be infected, the investigation starts again.

Trying to find chains of contamination could be a long process.

What are some of the challenges of contact tracing?

In Switzerland, as in many other countries, the challenge is to establish an effective tracking system, while respecting data protection.

Since mobile phones would be used, various technical and legal questions could arise, particularly on the collection and use of data.

In Switzerland, to process this information in the context of the pandemic, either the consent of the individual or an anonymisation of the data is required.

READ MORE: Swiss scientists launch a new app to collect Covid-19 data 

What tools will Switzerland be using for post-confinement contact tracing?

One possibility would be the tracking by GPS of mobile phones, as already implemented in a partnership between the federal government and Swisscom. This method allowed the authorities to monitor the public to see if they complied with the restrictions related to going out and traveling during the Easter holidays. 

But the government is now supporting a brand new project at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and its sister institution, Zurich’s Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETHZ).

Both are working on the so-called D3-PT project, a free downloadable application for mobile phones, which will run on Google’s Android operating system and on Apple’s iOS.

Its goal, according to Edouard Bugnion, professor of computer science at EPFL, is to “break the chain of virus transmission” by identifying new cases and isolating them. If a person is found positive for coronavirus, all the people he has encountered in the previous days will be alerted, so that they can go into quarantine and be tested. 

No exact details or launch date have been released yet, but the Federal Council thinks the D3-PT tracing would work well in Switzerland.

Will this system guarantee privacy?

Until very recently, the two institutions participated in the European research project Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, bringing together 130 organisations from eight countries.

But EPFL and ETHZ distanced themselves from this project after realising that user data would not be protected, and went on launch the D3-PT system which, they said, would be more “decentralised and transparent”.
 

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