Master Thesis / Internship : Secured urban data exchange platform

Description
This internship is part of the four-year Blue City project, funded by Innosuisse. Blue City is a transdisciplinary consortium dedicated to mapping a city’s complex and interconnected flows such as traffic, waste, and energy and developing a responsive Urban Data Exchange platform. This platform aims to support evidence-based, collective decision-making while improving urban well-being, sustainability, resilience, and ecological value.

Over the past phases, we have developed a prototype that enables static and real-time, secure data sharing between stakeholders, leveraging open-source technologies and an innovative security framework. This prototype has already evolved into a demonstrator, validated through real-world use cases with our partners.

The project is now entering a new stage: expanding the validation, onboarding new partners, and enhancing the platform with advanced functionalities, such as secure data processing, algorithm execution, improved interoperability, and enhanced usability.
 

Objectives

As part of this internship, you will actively contribute to the evolution of the Blue City Urban Data Exchange platform, working directly with real datasets and requirements from project stakeholders. Your work will help shape the platform into a scalable, secure, and user-friendly tool, ready to support a wide range of urban applications.

• Familiarization with the platform: Gain a deep understanding of the current demonstrator, including its data integration mechanisms, security framework, and implemented use cases.
• Cross-organizational use cases: Collaborate with consortium partners to gather requirements and analyze scenarios involving multiple stakeholders.
• Interface improvements: Design and implement intuitive, user-friendly front-end components to improve accessibility and overall user experience.
• Integration enhancements: Develop new connectors to enrich metadata within OpenMetadata, improving data discoverability and governance.
• Use case implementation: Integrate and test new real-world use cases by incorporating data models provided by partners.
• Platform enhancement: Extend and refine the existing architecture with a focus on scalability, semantic interoperability, AI/ML-driven data discovery, and secure processing. Reinforce the security framework with modern paradigms such as Zero Trust Architecture and service mesh security.

Our offer

• A dynamic work and collaborative environment with a highly motivated multi-cultural and international sites team
• The chance to make a difference in peoples’ life by building innovative solutions
• Various internal coding events (Hackathon, Brownbags), see our technical blog
• Monthly After-Works organized per locations

Skills required

• Software Development: Solid programming skills (Python, Golang) and experience with standard development practices.
• AI, Data Integration & Modeling: Interest in data models, data catalogs, integration workflows, and AI/ML solutions for data discovery.
• UX/UI Design: Curiosity or experience with design tools and frameworks to enhance user experience.
• Semantic Interoperability: Interest in enabling meaningful data exchange through semantic standards.
• Security Concepts: Motivation to explore and apply modern security approaches.
• Distributed Systems & Cloud Technologies: Understanding of distributed systems and interest in cloud services (AWS: S3, Lambda, etc.).
• DevOps & Containerization: Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD practices, or willingness to learn.

This internship starts in February 2026. 

Applications must include your most recent academic transcripts (grades); applications without transcripts will not be considered.