On 14 November 2024, we held our very first ZurichJS event.
There was no sleek machine behind it, no established brand, and no budget. We had our own salaries, hours to donate, an inactive Meetup group, a new LinkedIn page, some good connections, and a lot of late nights.
Still, people came.
Some came for JavaScript. Many came because Zurich needed more places where developers could meet in person again: across backgrounds, languages, companies, seniority levels, and stacks. After years spent in the online world, meeting in the same room meant a lot.
And just last week, ZurichJS was recognized as one of the most impactful open-source communities worldwide at the OSS Awards during JSNation.
This recognition is still surreal for us. It is also a good reason to share how we got here.
Why we started
The Zurich developer event space used to be quite vibrant: monthly meetups, regular talks, networking events, conferences, and various communities around different parts of software development.
Then the pandemic changed the rhythm. Some events disappeared, some communities went silent, and some never restarted.
We felt Zurich deserved more than that.
In July 2024, Faris and I met at a local ReactJS meetup in Zurich. Props to Remo Vetere and Simon Bächler for making that meetup happen. We instantly connected over the same idea: the Zurich tech community is full of potential, and with enough consistency and dedication, it could become something real, something meaningful.
Our first pitch was simple:
- Create a great meetup experience
- Be reliable
- Be welcoming
- Bring conference-level attention into a relaxed local format
- Respect people's time
- Respect speakers
- Respect the trust that attendees (and in the future, sponsors) put in us
Our first meetup had a 70% confirmed attendance rate. That was enough evidence for us: Zurich developers wanted this.
After our fourth meetup, Nadja joined the core team and helped us structure the community, make it more sustainable, and make it more serious.
Less than a year after our initial pitch, on 18 June 2025, ZurichJS became official through the Swiss JavaScript Group, a registered Swiss nonprofit association.
JavaScript was only the common ground
The name ZurichJS started as a simple signal. It told people what kind of room they were entering. The community was never planned around only JavaScript syntax or framework releases.
JavaScript is useful because it is accessible. It is the starting point for many people, and it covers frontend, backend, tooling, infrastructure, CLIs, mobile, and much more. It provides a common entrance to a much broader discussion.
That is why our talks are not limited to one particular language. We are interested in frontend and backend engineering, architecture, infrastructure, observability, product thinking, accessibility, career growth, open source, and the human side of building software.
"JS" in ZurichJS is the door, while the community is whatever happens inside the room.
How we succeeded
ZurichJS started to grow because many small things started compounding.
- We treated every meetup seriously, spending upwards of 100 hours across all three of us for each edition.
- We supported speakers individually. Sometimes that meant mentoring, travel assistance, accommodation, technical checks, communication support, or simply making sure someone had a good experience while visiting a new city.
- We worked only with partners we could really stand behind. If we recommended someone's product, service, or brand to the community, it had to feel relevant and sincere.
- We created feedback loops. Speakers received constructive feedback. Sponsors saw proof of real engagement. Attendees could give us their feedback too. After almost every event, someone asked how they could help out.
The numbers helped us validate the direction: consistent attendance, growing membership, increasing online presence, more international speakers, and more people travelling to Zurich specifically for the community.
The more important evidence was in the room: People started recognizing each other, they brought friends, they stayed after the talks, they offered help.
The event started to feel more and more like a community.
Someone recently told us:
I found my people.
At the end of the day, this is what we care about most of all.
The nonprofit aspect matters
We do this to invest in the community.
All revenue goes back into the conference, venues, speaker travel, workshops, experiences, and the infrastructure that keeps the meetup working.
This does not make the job easier. Zurich is an expensive city. Food, venues, travel, tools, photography, subscriptions, and all the boring operational aspects add up fast. At the start, much of this was covered by personal financial investment and volunteer work.
The nonprofit structure gives us a simple rule: money is used to make the community better, never as the reason for its existence.
And this also helps us stick to our core value: authenticity.
From meetup to conference
While the meetup has kept on growing, we heard the people. They join the meetups for the network and the community, but another big reason is learning. Staying up to date with the rest of the world. For most, work takes too much brain power to have any available in their free time. So ZurichJS became the place to find out "what's new" and "what I can take back to work". It's a geek's paradise.
Naturally, ZurichJS Conf was clearly our next step.
The conference is our attempt to give the same values more room: deeper technical sessions, hands-on workshops, hallway conversations that are not squeezed into a weekday evening, and more people learning from each other in Zurich.
This also means a bigger responsibility: creating an international conference in Switzerland while remembering what makes the meetup special: accessibility, trust, authenticity, quality, and community-centered decisions.
The recognition we received at the OSS Awards during JSNation is a milestone we appreciate a lot. Having people like Scott Tolinski in the room during that moment, and now in the conference lineup, makes it feel quite full-circle for us.
The story stays the same as it was at the first meetup.
People come. They learn something. They meet someone. They feel less alone in the work.
This is how ZurichJS became what it is now.
And this is what we want ZurichJS Conf to keep carrying forward.
Want to help shape what comes next?
- Want to have a direct impact? Volunteer for ZurichJS Conf.
- Sponsoring the local tech scene? Reach your developer audience through ZurichJS.
Sources and further reading: Faris Aziz's Why it's called ZurichJS, Faris's 2025 in Review, the JSNation OSS Awards announcement, and our ZurichJS sponsorship prospectus. For more on the values behind this, read Nadja's post on why open source needs community.