● Based in Bern, Switzerland Master · ETH Zürich IT-Security

Elias Summermatter

From vision to value — guided by trust.

CTO at the We.Publish Foundation, co-founder, and open-source maintainer. I build scalable platforms for independent journalism and lead engineering teams with a focus on trust, clarity, and shared purpose.

Elias Summermatter, CTO at We.Publish Foundation

About

As CTO of the We.Publish Foundation, I lead technology with a focus on trust, transparency, and impact — building scalable open-source platforms that empower independent journalism, now running in production at dozens of Swiss media outlets and growing fast.

I believe in trust-based, empathetic leadership that lets teams thrive through autonomy, clarity, and shared purpose. Combining deep technical understanding with strategic foresight, I translate complex challenges into sustainable solutions that balance innovation with reliability.

Alongside We.Publish, I co-founded Seccom, an information-security consultancy, and FarmX, bringing modern software to agriculture. My background spans software architecture, infrastructure engineering, and organizational development — I'm passionate about connecting technology and people so that strong engineering meets meaningful purpose.

A strategic stance across everything I lead: understand and control the technology we depend on — as the foundation for strategic independence. In practice: infrastructure we own and operate ourselves, mostly on our own hardware, in Europe, independent of US hyperscalers. That applies to We.Publish's publishing platform, Seccom's consulting and customer systems, and my personal research infrastructure. AI fits the same stance: self-hosted LLMs and legal-AI at Seccom, LLM integration at We.Publish under my technical leadership (transparency-first), AI governance at ETH MTEC, and independent LLM security research.

Work

2023 — now
We.Publish Foundation Current CTO — open-source publishing platform for independent media · Zürich
2018 — now
FarmX Sàrl Co-Founder — software for modern agriculture
2017 — now
Seccom GmbH Co-Founder (with Michael Scheurer) — information-security consultancy · Bern
2015 — 2016
United Security Providers AG Linux System Engineer
2014 — 2017
Tink.ch Head of Technology (Ressortleiter Technik) — independent Swiss youth media · volunteer
2012 — 2015
Bedag Informatique SA Linux System Engineer
2011 — 2012
Sicap AG Junior Oracle Database Administrator
2008 — 2012
Swisscom IT Services Informatiker/in EFZ — Generalist Systemtechnik (Eidgenössisches Fähigkeitszeugnis)

Education

2017 — 2021
Berner Fachhochschule BFH BSc Computer Science — Cyber Security
2014 — 2016
TSBE Dipl. Informatiker HF — Cyber Security und Computer Network
2008 — 2012
GIBB Bern Informatiker/in EFZ — Generalist Systemtechnik (Eidgenössisches Fähigkeitszeugnis)

Community

2022 — now
Schweizer Alpen-Club SAC Current Tour Leader (Summer & Winter) — licensed to guide alpine tours

Open Source

We.Publish ↗

TypeScript · React · GraphQL

Open-source publishing platform built at the We.Publish Foundation to give independent media a sustainable digital backbone — a headless CMS with peering, paywall, membership, and newsletter tooling, running in production at dozens of Swiss media outlets — and growing fast.

cms graphql react publishing peering open-source

Portcullis ↗

Python · Flask

Self-hosted WireGuard gateway for internal infrastructure. GitHub OAuth login, per-service time-limited access, and a full audit log — a pragmatic zero-trust bastion you can actually run yourself.

wireguard zero-trust oauth iptables docker self-hosted

Recommendations

“A very impressive achievement for a Bachelor’s thesis — I’ve so far only had one Master’s thesis that eventually yielded an RFC, and that took 10 years.”

Prof. Christian Grothoff · Computer Science, Berner Fachhochschule BFH

“He most reminds me of Ryan Stutsman, now Associate Professor at the University of Utah — both demonstrated quite similar skill at picking up research ideas, implementing and documenting them, with the difference that Ryan stayed in academia while Elias kept a foot in industry.”

Prof. Christian Grothoff · Computer Science, Berner Fachhochschule BFH

„In seiner Rolle als Mitglied der Geschäftsleitung zeigt er ein ausgeprägtes Gespür für zukünftige Herausforderungen — sowohl in technologischer als auch in ethischer und gesellschaftlicher Hinsicht.“

Hansi Voigt · Executive Director, We.Publish Foundation