Best of Swiss Web Award Night - Honorary Award Winners: Marc Bürki and Paolo Buzzi, Founder Swissquote

The prize is awarded in the categories Digital Performance Campaigns, Digital Branding Campaigns, Technology, Innovation, Creation, Business Efficiency, Online Marketing, Usability and Public Affairs as well as the special category 2011 "Digital Natives". In this category, projects were sought for the Internet generation, for people born after 1983 who were born with cell phones and computers.

This year's highlight will once again be the election of the "Master of Swiss Web". The jury has nominated 12 projects from the 306 entries for the Master award. 2011 is all about the big brands: including Ex-Libris, Migros made it to the final twelve five times. Post Finance is in the running with two projects and Swisscom, SRF and SBB with one each. After the jury, the readers of Netzwoche, the Swiss ICT magazine for business decision-makers, and the readers of the ICT Journal, the opinion of the audience is now being sought.

The honorary award winners
Marc Bürki, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Swissquote Group Holding, and Paolo Buzzi, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Swissquote Group Holding and Swissquote Bank, have been selected as Best of Swiss Web honorary award winners for 2011. Born in 1961, Bürki and Buzzi definitely no longer belong to the much-vaunted category of "digital natives", as the Best of Swiss Web press release from Thursday states. However, looking back on their work to date, it is clear that their knowledge and affinity for the WWW is in no way inferior to that of a "digital native": Together, Bürki and Buzzi founded Swissquote - the largest online broker in Switzerland, according to their own statements. With Swissquote, Marc Bürki and Paolo Buzzi have left a lasting mark on the Internet business, which is why they are being awarded the 2011 honorary prize, the press release continues.

Marc Bürki was born in 1961. He graduated as an electrical engineer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in 1987. Until 1990, Bürki worked as a telecommunications specialist at the European Space Agency in Nordweijk (NL). Paolo Buzzi, born in 1961, graduated from the EPFL in 1988 with a degree in microtechnology. From 1988 to 1990, he worked for Rolm Systems in Santa Clara, USA, first as a software engineer and then as a new technology integration engineer.

In 1990, Bürki and Buzzi took the plunge into self-employment: together they founded Marvel Communications and went on to develop financial information software. This laid the foundation for Swissquote. Seven years later, the real-time trader of SWX shares went online under the name we know today. In May 2000, the company went public. Today, Swissquote is a fully-fledged online financial services provider and a member of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA). In 2010, the company posted a net profit of CHF 21.2 million. Thanks to a 19.2 percent increase in customers to 172,091 and the associated inflow of new money of CHF 1.477 billion, assets under custody exceeded CHF 8 billion for the first time. In 2011, Swissquote aims to increase income by around 50 percent and assets under custody by CHF 2 billion, as well as growing outside Switzerland for the first time with a branch in Dubai.

Best of Swiss Web Honorary Award
The Best of Swiss Web Honorary Award is presented annually at the Award Night to an exponent of the Internet industry whose work has had a lasting impact on the Internet business. Previous winners are:

Honorary award winner 2010: Robert Cailliau. Together with Tim Berners-Lee, he is one of the pioneers and inventors of the World Wide Web.
Honorary award winner 2009: Christian Wanner. As co-founder and Managing Director of LeShop, he is one of the pioneers of Swiss e-commerce.
Honorary award winner 2008: David Nüscheler. As the founder of Day and developer of internationally standardized software, he has proven that it is possible to successfully position oneself internationally from Switzerland.
Honorary award winner 2007: Fulvio Caccia. As former President of institutions such as Comcom and former Vice President of ICT Switzerland and SATW, he has had a lasting impact on the ICT landscape in Switzerland.

Best of Swiss Web
Best of Swiss Web is an initiative of Simsa - Swiss Interactive Media & Software Association - the Swiss industry association for new media and business software, and Netzwoche, the Swiss ICT magazine for business decision-makers. The aim of Best of Swiss Web is to promote transparency and quality standards in the Swiss web and ICT industry and to offer attractive networking opportunities. The core topic of Best of Swiss Web is the use of web and mobile technologies.