It’s quite ironic that we plan and build our urban areas with a 50 to 100 year perspective – but most often fail to involve the actual future citizens. Mustafa Sherif is an Urban Planner and Market Strategist at Swedish/Finnish consultancy AFRY, and he has found his core niche within social sustainability and methods of planning for – …
Why is food waste such a pressing global problem – and what can be done to solve it? Philippe Schuler is Global Impact Manager at Too Good To Go, a company fully devoted to tackle food waste by offering consumers low-cost mystery bags from partnering restaurants and supermarkets. In the six years since the founding, Too Good To Go …
Do we really need all this plastic for improving the shelf life of fruits and vegetables? Vahid Sohrabpour is the CEO of Saveggy, a Swedish foodtech startup looking to reduce food waste while reducing the amount of plastics being used. The Saveggy solution is an invisible and edible plant-based coating that helps fruits and vegetables remain fresh for a …
Do we really need to buy all these tools and products when we easily could share them with other members of our community? Alexander Engl is the CEO and co-founder of ihopa, a startup providing a ”neighbour box” that allows members to freely borrow high-quality products whenever they like. The box can include everything from chainsaws and grass trimmers …
Analisa Winther runs the Nordic Foodtech Podcast and works a lot with connecting investors with interesting startups. In this conversation, we get to know how she was hooked on foodtech, and what her key insights are from over 80 interviews with Nordic foodtech experts, chefs and entrepreneurs. What does the ecosystem need in order to truly blossom? Listen …
Dirk Jacobs is General Manager at FoodDrinkEurope, the European food and beverage industry organization. During the conference Matdagen in Stockholm we had a quick chat with Dirk to learn about the “4C crisis” and how the situation is affecting the European food system and its sustainability goals. // Check out our sustainable food systems magazine …
Lauri Reuter is a former biotech scientist who went over to the venture capital side. He is now founder and partner at Nordic Foodtech VC, managing a fund of 42 million Euros. The focus is to invest in ”deep foodtech” in the Nordic and Baltic region, identifying research projects and innovations that could have a great …
20-40% of cosmetics are not being used. They are eventually dumped in a landfill or collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. What if we could get the color and formula exactly right from the beginning, according to our individual preferences? This idea took Selah Li and her Ellure co-founders on a journey five years ago to explore …
After 20 years as a fashion designer, Richard Toon followed his gut feeling and founded the startup Biorestore together with his colleague Wajahat Hussain. They have developed a product they call a “re-tergent” – you use it in the laundry machine but the main difference is that it restores your old garments and gives them a …
While the market for plant-based protein is booming, there is still something important missing: the fat. Swedish foodtech startup Melt&Marble decided to do something about that. From their research at Chalmers in Gothenburg, they realized that they could create animal fat from fermented yeast – without the animals. Now they are scaling up their business model, partnering …
Oobah Butler is a British journalist, author, comedian, TV host and filmmaker, perhaps mostly known for his elaborate prank videos for VICE. Many of us have laughed at the absurdity of hyping a non-existent restaurant into the London No 1 on Tripadvisor; creating a fashion brand from market stall garments and displaying it on Paris Fashion …
Jenya Beilin is the COO at Israel-based retail tech startup Trigo. Their AI-driven computer vision technology allows traditional grocery and retail stores to become digital, offering seamless shopping without the need to even scan the products – and the solution is already being deployed. In this conversation during Sime Leader Sessions at Epicenter in Stockholm, we …
Space exploration used to be difficult and expensive. ReOrbit is a spacetech startup based in Finland and Sweden, with the ambition of making it easy and affordable. Instead of tailormaking satellites from scratch, they offer modular devices packed with accessible software. The satellites can easily be connected to eachother, and the customer can follow the path through …
Claudia Rademaker is the co-founder of Swedish edtech startup Dugga, with the ambition of transforming the way schools and teachers assess their students. With a widely implemented digital test solution, the company is now growing at a rapid pace. Recorded during Techarenan Summit 2021 at Clarion Hotel in Stockholm. Listen on Spotify, Anchor, Acast, Apple Podcast host: Christian von Essen Order Christian von Essen …
The restaurant industry is characterized by personal guest service and face-to-face customer interaction. But isn’t it ironic that staff members rarely have a system to remember our individual preferences in order to prepare and tailor-make our visit? Danish startup Superb is on a mission to bring digitalization to the dinner table, and has built a Guest Experience …
The construction industry is finally becoming more digitalized. Xavier Leon runs the Swedish startup company Brinja. They started out by setting up automated warning systems for emergency situations at construction sites, but soon realized that the solution could be used for connecting all the other parts of the process, like heat and lighting. From safety efforts …
Inna Braverman grew up in Ukraine, in close proximity to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Since then, she has been obsessed with finding a way to develop sustainable and renewable energy sources. The solution was a technology utilizing the nearshore wave energy at shores, ports, docks and piers. She formed the company Eco Wave Power together with a …
Ahmad Karnama (sometimes he uses the name Adam) holds a PhD in Sustainable Energy Systems from MIT and works as Director of Sustainability at a large corporation in Sweden. Last year he published the book Electrification of Transportation, and in this episode, we discuss the future of renewable energy and the increasing practice of working …
Alain Visser is the CEO of Lynk & Co. It’s a car brand, but also a sharing platform and a community. Listen to the experienced car veteran talk about how his own industry is about to become completely disrupted – and it’s pretty clear he intends to be a part of the movement. Of course, …
New Zealander Simon Grant is CEO at the Stockholm-based medtech company Scibase, focused on providing medical staff tools for fast and reliable detection of melanoma, skin barrier and other skin-related conditions. In this episode, we discuss how the technology works; how AI will be increasingly integrated into the medical and healthcare sectors; the demanding complexity …
What is the role of a bank in the future? That’s exactly what Yngvar Ugland and Espen Sande Larsen are trying to find out. They run the intrapreneurial innovation department NewTechLab within DNB, Norway’s biggest bank. With operations in Oslo and San Francisco, they explore how new technologies can be beneficial to the bank’s customers, …
CEO Oscar Höglund and his co-founders have developed Epidemic Sound from a visionary idea into a disruptive global music brand and a business with 400 employees. Growing from the thriving Stockholm music tech and startup scene, Epidemic has proven that there is strong demand for its concept of selling royalty-free music to business owners around …
danah boyd (yes, she abandoned the capital letters a few years ago) is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, founder of the research institute Data & Society, as well as author and co-author of several books on how internet and the network era affects our behavior and social lives. We met her during The Internet …
David JP Phillips is a public speaker best known for his public speaking on the topic of public speaking. Sounds confusing? Well, let’s say it’s the tip of an iceberg that includes hormones, signalling substances and a seemingly magical ability to improve your storytelling, engage your audience and get the results that you want. Heja …
Jack Hidary is one of the world’s leading experts on quantum computing, and has recently released the book Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach. He is also involved in both X Labs and Xprize. In this discussion at the SIME conference in Stockholm, we also touch upon moonshots, where you take upon seemingly impossible challenges in …
Sepehr Mousavi has traveled the world in search for a way to combine his interests in sustainability, technology, food and urban development. In Sweden, he found interesting converging opportunities, and today he is the head of innovation at SweGreen, an urban agriculture company that develops the technology for producing herbs and leafy greens in urban …
Harper Reed was a celebrated Chief Technology Officer for Barack Obama’s successful campaign in 2012. But did he in fact help develop practices that led to put Trump in the White House four years later? This is exactly the kind of contrasting complexity that defines Harper Reed as a thinker, tech entrepreneur and keynote speaker. …
Sille Krukow is a nudge and behavioral design expert. She runs the Krukow Behavioral Design agency in Hellerup, Denmark, where her team helps business clients and organisations develop a more effective ”choice architecture” in order to promote certain behavior in co-workers or citizens. How can we use these techniques to make an impact in the …
Data literacy might soon be equivalent to learning to read and write. That notion is at least driving Dan Sommer, Senior Director Global Market Intelligence Lead at the Swedish-founded American business intelligence and data analytics giant Qlik. We met him at Qlik’s ambulating conference Data Revolution Tour when it arrived in Stockholm. We talk about …
Ambra Trotto is a senior lecturer at the School of Architecture at University of Umeå. She is also studio director at Rise Interactive, in charge of the physical creative space The Pink in the middle of Umeå. In her research and public speaking, she is using her design and architecture approach to discuss different future …