An international upbringing that quietly set the stage for the future

For the last six years, 1xINTERNET and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) have worked closely together to support UICC’s digital ecosystem, including the World Cancer Day and UICC platforms. From the start, this has been a partnership built on trust, shared values, and a belief that the best results come when teams work as one.

One of the main players in this work is Charles Andrew Revkin, Senior Digital Strategy Manager at UICC. Deeply connected to the organisation’s mission, Charles has played a key role in shaping how UICC uses technology to support cancer control efforts worldwide and how partners like 1xINTERNET are brought in as an extension of the team.

The road to UICC

Charles comes across as a calm, humorous person, true to his project and passion for work. But we were interested in finding out a bit more about him and his work, and how he got to where he is now. Was it a long and winding road becoming a Senior Digital Strategy Manager at UICC?

Charles’s story begins in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was born. He moved to Switzerland shortly after birth and grew up in the French-speaking part of the country, eventually becoming Swiss himself. That early international footing set the tone for a life shaped by cross-cultural curiosity, adaptability, and a global outlook on life.

Looking back at what has influenced Charles in his life, he is quick to name his father. Being an electrical engineer by training, his father worked for companies like ABB and Digital Equipment Corporation and was an early adopter of new technologies. Computers were simply part of the household, sparking Charles’s own interest and gently nudging him toward what he cheerfully describes as becoming “something of a geek.”

Later, when his father transitioned into business consulting, Charles became fascinated by his ability to analyse complex problems, summarise them clearly, and break them down into manageable parts, an approach that would become central to Charles’s own way of working.

A multilingual home in the heart of Europe

Today, Charles lives in Geneva with his wife and daughter. His wife is Korean, and their home reflects that diversity, with English, French, and Korean spoken on a daily basis. Having lived in Switzerland for almost his entire life he has a great group of friends that are both from Switzerland and expats as well. When asked, he says it's sometimes weird to have been born in one country and raised in another, something lots of people in the same situation experience.

Where law met digital

Although technology was always present, Charles’s academic path didn’t follow the most obvious route. Feeling less drawn to mathematics and physics, he chose to study law, not with the goal of becoming a practising lawyer, but for the strong analytical and conceptual grounding it provides.

That foundation continues to serve him well. Even today, legal considerations such as privacy, copyright, and trademarks remain a regular part of his professional life and this is a part of the job he enjoys very much. 

Charles’s career path evolved gradually rather than following a fixed plan. His first professional role was at the World Organization of the Scout Movement, where he worked on trademarks and copyrights as an intellectual property manager within the communications team.

Surrounded by developers, designers, and media specialists, he quickly developed a strong interest in digital communications and databases. What began as a legally focused role slowly but decisively shifted toward digital, a turning point that would define the direction of his career.

A moment that reshaped priorities

While Charles was at university, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, an experience that left a mark on him and his family. Years later, that personal story blended with professional opportunity.

Living and working in South Korea at the time, Charles was looking to return to Switzerland and was already familiar with UICC through former colleagues. The organisation’s mission resonated with him, and in 2012 he joined UICC, a step that aligned his skills, values, and desire to make a global impact.

Turning strategy into systems

Today, Charles oversees the implementation and delivery of UICC’s digital projects. His work spans a broad ecosystem of Drupal websites, including uicc.org, worldcancerday.org, worldcancercongress.org, and the ICCP portal, as well as CRM systems, email marketing platforms, digital asset management tools, collaboration platforms, and event app technologies.

He is also closely involved in developing UICC Connect, a new digital community designed to bring people together around shared knowledge and collective action. With a relatively small team, looking at the amount of websites and systems, Charles says he organises his tasks around each initiative, that have different timelines throughout the year. Fast approaching is World Cancer Day on 4th of February, which is a big day in Charles’ calendar, where the world unites to raise awareness for cancer.

Why Open Source just makes sense

Open source plays a central role in how Charles thinks about technology. Having worked with open source tools earlier in his career, Drupal felt like a natural choice. While earlier versions could be technically complex, it always proved to be a robust platform worth committing to.

Beyond the technology itself, Charles is particularly drawn to the collaborative nature of the Drupal community,  people contributing, improving, and building together. For him, this mirrors UICC’s own approach: working collectively to develop shared knowledge and systems in support of cancer control worldwide.

Exploring AI thoughtfully and responsibly

Charles is also known as an early explorer of new technologies within UICC, including artificial intelligence. While the organisation is not always first to adopt every trend, it made a conscious early decision to explore AI’s potential.

So far, this includes content proofreading, chatbot integrations, limited visual generation, and offering AI tools to staff across the organisation. The focus remains clear: improving efficiency and quality while ensuring human judgement, governance, and transparency remain central, as he said: “Innovation with people firmly in the loop is what I think works best”.

A partnership built on trust mixed with good humour

Since 2020, Charles has worked closely with 1xINTERNET as a digital partner, initially with hosting, to the relaunch of the World Cancer Day website and later on uicc.org. From his perspective, the relationship goes beyond a traditional client / agency setup.

He describes the 1xINTERNET team as an extension of UICC’s own: trusted, collaborative, and genuinely invested in delivering excellence. Digital partners are involved early through brainstorming sessions, combining UICC’s ideas with technical expertise to bring ambitious concepts to life.

For Charles, a successful partnership is built on trust, transparency, shared values, constructive feedback, and shared ownership, plus, ideally, a sense of humour. After all, meaningful work is important, but enjoying the journey together makes all the difference.

UNITED BY UNIQUE

During the last weeks, Charles’s focus has been on World Cancer Day (#WorldCancerDay) that is celebrated globally every year on the 4th of February. This day is about raising awareness and amplifying voices and action against cancer. Users of the website can take part in various ways and each year we have seen the success of the campaign grow. To take part we encourage everyone to go to https://www.worldcancerday.org/ and take part. To read more about this project we can also recommend World Cancer Day case study, where you can read about the solution, the challenge and the highlight of this great platform. 

Charles’s story shows us how personal background, professional dedication, and the right team can make a real impact. Seeing the difference their work makes, raising awareness, connecting communities, supporting people affected by cancer, is what makes every challenge worth it.