This post is still not finished.
I sense this will be my longest blog post ever…
For the last three weeks I have been high on inspiration. On 10-12 February, I organised an event for Young Entrepreneurs of Sweden (YEoS) in partnership with the Swedish Chamber of Commerce; YEoS Xchange: London. The three-day event was an inspirational exchange trip where 30 of Sweden’s foremost young entrepreneurs went to London to exchange ideas and business cards with London based entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. On the programme were a challenging teambuilding-oriented challenge, company visits to Spotify, Atomico and Bloomberg, seminars and panel discussions, meeting with the Swedish Ambassador for the UK, dining and networking at trendy restaurants, and late night partying at exclusive nightclubs. For once, I have uploaded a few pictures.
Here is Isabella Löwengrip selling umbrellas at Piccadilly Circus as a part of the teambuilding challenge. In the teambuilding the participating entrepreneurs were divided into teams, with four people per team. Each team had £20 which they should increase the value of as much as possible during two hours. The most successful team won 80% of the money that all teams managed to earn in total + the start capital. Since it was raining, many teams tried to buy and sell umbrellas, but the winning strategy was to raise venture capital.
H.E. Nicola Clase, the Swedish Ambassador to the court of St James’s, honour the event a visit and talk about Sweden’s presence in the UK.
The Entrepreneurship Forum, which was organised in co-operation with the Swedish Chamber of Commerce, was a seminar with a panel discussion with more than 140 participants held at Regent’s College in Regent’s Park. The seminar were on the topic “How to build a fast-growing, successful company”.
The panel from the left:
- Philipp Moehring, Associate, Seedcamp
- Lucian Tarnowski, Founder, BraveNewTalent TEDx
- Christoffer Caesar, Co-founder, Kraftö Vind
- Christer Holloman, moderator, Chairman of First Tuesday and Columnist at Sky News
- Mai-Li Hammargren, Co-founder of Mutewatch
- Lea Bajc, Investment Manager at Northzone Ventures
- Christian Busch, Co-founder of Sandbox TEDx
Before visiting Spotify we decided to take a group photo at Regent’s Street.
At Spotify’s HQ we decided to take another group photo. This time even more excited. Before the photo shoot we had the privilege of listening to and asking questions to Angela Watts (Marketing Manager), Henrik Torstensson (Head of Premium Sales) and Martin Sandberg (Premium Manager).
The visit to Spotify was followed by a visit to the venture capital firm Atomico at New Bond Street, where we met up with Mattias Ljungman (Co-founder & Partner) and Dr Chris Dark (Senior Investment Manager) and listened to them telling the story about Atomico and later opened up for some Q&A.
Trivia: Atomico was also co-founded by Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype, Kazaa and Joost.
Elaine Bergqvist, Christoffer Caesar, Isabella Löwengrip and Daniel Lundin at Cocoon.
After an intense day of company visits and sightseeing the entrepreneurs needed food, and lots of it too. So, together with ten Sandboxers and a few special guests, the group went to the award-winning, cocoon-shaped restaurant Cocoon in Regent Street, where the entrepreneurs were served an Asian five-course dinner.
The dining was followed by a late night After Conference at the exclusive private members club Whisky Mist in Mayfair.
One of the event’s highlights was Dr. Bremley Lyngdoh’s (TEDx) presentation on climate change, social entrepreneurship, and his journey with his social enterprise Worldview Impact at Hult International Business School. Thanks to Bremley and Worldview Impact the event was the first YEoS event that was completely carbon neutral. Learn more in the evaluation.
Participant Christoffer Caesar was interview at the event by Dagens Industri, the biggest business paper in Sweden.
Here are some blog post on the event from some of the participants.
Isabella Löwengrip – Mitt dygn i London
Elaine Bergqvist – Back in Stockholm
Johannes Hansen – YEoS Xchange: London 10-12 februari 2011
Christian Josefsson – I London med Young Entrepreneurs of Sweden
Viktor Nord – YEoS Xchange: London
Caroline Kummelsted – London med mera
Londonsvenskar – Denna helg är en helg för entreprenörer i London
Diana Svenk – London crack visit
To view more pictures from the event, please visit YEoS fanpage on Facebook
