(an article by Annik Petke)

Cyber security is very important and if you are reading this, there is probably no need to explain that to you.

However, depending on what is affected by a cyber incident, the relevance to our daily lives varies drastically. A day without social media? Not really a big problem for me, but a day without access to electricity? That's a whole different league. So deciding whether I should or shouldn't sign up to a tour of a hydropower plant with KWO was very easy.

So there comes the day, 12th of October 2024. We all meet up at Zürich HB around 10 AM and start a train ride taking us through many beautiful valleys and past many lakes for at least 2 hours, but we just fill the time with great conversations and many laughs.

After arriving in the Control and Security HQ, we are given a presentation about who KWO is, what they are doing and how relevant that is to our day-to-day lives. Following that, we get to see the big screen showing all the incoming system information. The set-up reminded me of those movie scenes ... but feel free to judge that yourself:

All of the electricity that they are controlling in that room also has to actually be produced somewhere. So naturally, this is what we go to see next.

We are starting from a (still working!) hydropower plant that was built about 100 years ago and transports more water per second than I could imagine. Then we go through the history of this place, by going through tunnel after tunnel after tunnel, which felt like a big maze.

We also get to see a power generator that started its operation only a few years ago. It is in scale barely comparable to the small old one. That's fascinating.

Afterwards we go back into daylight, to see their current project - a new dam - and learn some more details about the history of Innertkirchen.

After finishing the tour of the area, we go to a nearby location to end the day with an apéro.

At the apéro, we get the chance to ask some questions about the typical working day, talk about the most interesting security-related experiences and learn all sorts of other fun facts before heading back to Zürich.

Thank you KWO, for having us, for going on the tour, teaching us about your history and for preparing an apéro. It was a great experience and maybe someday the next Cyber Group - Generation will also walk through those tunnels!