AMSTERDAM & ZURICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 19, 2025--
Preventing workplace accidents is essential not only for protecting employees but also for reducing financial and operational risks for companies. This is especially true in the construction industry, where workers face daily exposure to hazards. While safety measures are continuously being improved, Switzerland still records between 260,000 and nearly 300,000 workplace accidents annually – often on construction sites – due to non-compliance with safety protocols, time pressure, or negligence.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250819439462/en/
A scalable simulation platform with real-life scenarios for safety training
In collaboration with BearingPoint, Suva has developed a cutting-edge training platform incorporating Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR). After evaluating the technological potential of these tools, BearingPoint created immersive training scenarios focused on high-risk tasks such as securing heavy loads on construction sites or preventing falls from unprotected areas. This step was crucial in identifying ways to enhance traditional safety approaches. The project team then developed prototypes to demonstrate how immersive technologies can help prevent accidents and convey safety instructions clearly. The platform was also designed to be scalable and user-friendly for a large audience.
Together, BearingPoint and Suva created a comprehensive operating model, a robust technological architecture, and a new end-to-end service offering for the Swiss market called Swiss Safety VR. A growing library of 20-minute interactive VR experiences – illustrating the real-world consequences of unsafe practices or workplace accidents and proving more educational, efficient, and cost-effective than traditional methods – is continuously updated. The team also provided structured support for ongoing process improvement and scenario simulation and facilitated change management through train-the-trainer services, which were critical for integrating the XR platform into Suva’s internal workflows. A key success factor was the strong focus on collaboration. By co-investing in VR safety content with various industry stakeholders – such as Swiss trade associations and major construction companies – the collaboration unlocked significant synergy potential.
Matthias Roeser, Partner at BearingPoint, states:
“Together with Suva, we are using virtual reality to deliver practical and effective workplace safety training. By combining immersive technology with real-life risk scenarios, Swiss Safety VR makes training more engaging, more impactful, and more scalable. This partnership reflects our commitment to innovation: we have harnessed advanced technology to enhance workplace safety while also improving efficiency and controlling costs. By making the platform widely accessible, we are helping raise safety standards across industries.”
Immersive training experiences to enhance workplace safety
The launch of the Swiss Safety VR platform allows companies and their customers to improve their business processes while integrating modern, innovative training and communication techniques into daily operations. This new tool enables a significant improvement of existing training initiatives and supports a seamless transition to fully mobile and immersive training formats. The platform has the potential to greatly reduce the need for on-site workshops, which can lead to substantial time and cost savings. Additionally, participants can retain safety information better than with traditional classroom or e-learning formats.
By offering the content free of charge to all organizations – including Swiss schools – BearingPoint and Suva are democratizing access to high-quality VR training, even for smaller organizations with limited budgets. The platform is available on the Meta Quest 3 headset in Switzerland’s official national languages: German, French, and Italian, as well as English.
Nathanaël Bonvin, Programme Manager for New Technologies at Suva, explains:
“The Swiss Safety VR platform allows us to offer truly engaging and effective training experiences that not only motivate participants but significantly improve safety outcomes. We chose to work with BearingPoint because their expertise and innovative approach were a perfect match for Suva’s commitment to advancing safety training.”
About Suva
Founded in 1918, Suva employs over 4,700 people at its headquarters in Lucerne, across 18 agency locations throughout Switzerland, and in its two rehabilitation clinics in Bellikon and Sion. As an independent public-sector enterprise, Suva insures more than 138,000 companies and over 2.2 million employees against the consequences of occupational accidents and diseases. Unemployed individuals are also automatically insured through Suva. In addition, Suva manages the military insurance and the accident insurance for individuals in disability (IV) programs on behalf of the Swiss federal government. Its services span prevention, insurance, and rehabilitation. Suva operates on a self-financing basis, without public funding, and returns profits to policyholders in the form of lower premiums. The Suva Council includes representatives from social partners – employers and employees – as well as the federal government.
About BearingPoint
BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. The company operates in three business units: Consulting, Products, and Capital. Consulting covers the advisory business with a clear focus on selected business areas. Products provides IP-driven digital assets and managed services for business-critical processes. Capital delivers M&A and transaction services. In addition, BearingPoint runs the joint venture Arcwide, focused on business transformation and consulting excellence based on IFS.
BearingPoint’s clients include many of the world’s leading companies and organizations. The firm has a global consulting network with more than 10,000 people and supports clients in over 70 countries, engaging with them to achieve measurable and sustainable success.
BearingPoint is a certified B Corporation, meeting high standards of social and environmental impact.
For more information, please visit:
Homepage: www.bearingpoint.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/bearingpoint
In collaboration with BearingPoint, Suva has developed a cutting-edge training platform incorporating Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR).
HAVANA (AP) — Trumpets and drums played solemnly at Havana's airport Thursday as white-gloved Cuban soldiers marched out of a plane carrying urns with remains of the 32 Cuban officers killed during a stunning U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Nearby, thousands of Cubans lined one of Havana’s most iconic streets to await the bodies as the island remained under threat by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The soldiers' shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged into the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces and placed the urns on a long table next to the pictures of those killed. Tens of thousands of people paid their respects, saluting the urns or holding their hand over their heart, many of them drenched from standing outside in a heavy downpour.
Thursday’s mass funeral was only one of a handful that the Cuban government has organized over the past half-century.
The soldiers were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the Jan. 3 raid on his residence to seize the former leader and bring him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges.
State television also showed images of what it said were more than a dozen wounded combatants from the raid, accompanied by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez after arriving Wednesday night from Venezuela. A man identified in state media as Col. Pedro Domínguez attended Thursday's ceremony in a wheelchair.
He said it was a “disproportionate attack” that killed 11 colleagues around him as they slept. Domínguez said he was committed to doing “whatever it takes to defend this people and to remain united in the face of threats from the United States.”
Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. have spiked, with Trump recently demanding that the Caribbean country make a deal with him before it is “too late.” He did not explain what kind of deal.
Trump also has said that Cuba will no longer live off Venezuela's money and oil. Experts warn that the abrupt end of oil shipments could be catastrophic for Cuba, which is already struggling with serious blackouts and a crumbling power grid.
Officials unfurled a massive flag at Havana's airport as President Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in military garb, stood silent next to former President Raúl Castro, with what appeared to be the relatives of those killed looking on nearby.
Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas called the slain soldiers “heroes” of an anti-imperialist struggle spanning both Cuba and Venezuela. In an apparent reference to the U.S., he said the “enemy” speaks of “high-precision operations, of troops, of elites, of supremacy.
“We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who have lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother,” Álvarez said.
The events demonstrate that “imperialism may possess more sophisticated weapons; it may have immense material wealth; it may buy the minds of the wavering; but there is one thing it will never be able to buy: the dignity of the Cuban people,” he said.
Carmen Gómez, a 58-year-old industrial designer, was among the thousands of Cubans who lined a street where motorcycles and military vehicles thundered by with the remains of those killed.
“They are people willing to defend their principles and values, and we must pay tribute to them,” Gómez said. “It’s because of the sense of patriotism that Cubans have, and that will always unite us.”
The 32 military personnel ranged in age from 26 to 60 and were part of protection agreements between the two countries.
Officials in Cuba have said they expect a massive demonstration Friday across from the U.S. Embassy to protest the deaths.
“People are upset and hurt ... many do believe that the dead are martyrs” of a historic struggle against the United States, analyst and former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told The Associated Press.
In October 1976, then-President Fidel Castro led a massive demonstration to bid farewell to the 73 people killed in the bombing of a civilian flight financed by anti-revolutionary leaders in the U.S. Most of the victims were Cuban athletes.
In December 1989, officials organized a ceremony to honor the more than 2,000 Cuban combatants who died in Angola during Cuba’s participation in a war that defeated the South African army.
In October 1997, memorial services were held following the arrival of the remains of guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara and six of his comrades, who died in 1967.
The latest mass burial is critical to honor those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doctor who lived for four years in Venezuela.
“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and enter a country like this, ours, and if he does, he’s going to have to take an aspirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s going to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 heroes who fought him. Can you imagine an entire nation? He’s going to lose.”
The remains arrived a day after the U.S. announced $3 million in additional aid to help the island recover from the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa. The first flight took off on Wednesday, and a second flight was scheduled for Friday. A commercial vessel also will deliver food and other supplies.
Cuba had said on Wednesday that any contributions will be channeled through the government.
But U.S. State Department foreign assistance official Jeremy Lewin said Thursday that the U.S. was working with Cuba’s Catholic Church to distribute aid, as part of Washington's efforts to give assistance directly to the Cuban people.
“There’s nothing political about cans of tuna and rice and beans and pasta,” he said Thursday, warning that the Cuban government should not intervene or divert supplies. “We will be watching, and we will hold them accountable.”
Lewin said the Cuban government has a choice to: “Step down or better provide towards people.” Lewin added that “if there was no regime,” the U.S. would provide “billions and billions of dollars” in assistance, as well as investment and development: “That’s what lies on the other side of the regime for the Cuban people.”
Rodríguez, the Cuban foreign minister, said the U.S. government was “exploiting what appears to be a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic and politically manipulative purposes.”
Coto contributed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
People line up outside the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the remains are on display of the Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro, as it sprinkles rain in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Military members line up outside the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro, are on display in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Military members pay their last respects to Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains are displayed during a ceremony in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Soldiers carry urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Adalberto Roque /Pool Photo via AP)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People line the streets of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, to watch the motorcade carrying urns containing the remains of Cuban officers killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Workers fly the Cuban flag at half-staff at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune near the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in memory of Cubans who died two days before in Caracas, Venezuela during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
