Nordic Innovation Lab Elias Weike

The hospital that went from zero to one - in the middle of Helsinki, Maria 01 is a coworking space and entrepreneurial community that aims to grow to be Europe’s largest startup campus. But other than cheap office space, free coffee, and fast wifi, what is it that makes a good coworking space that can support innovation? What are the important ingredients and what is the right recipe to bring them together?

With my guest Jessica Blechingberg, Chief Network Officer at Maria 01, I dive deep into the secret ingredients for building a strong innovation community. We also discuss why the Nordics seem to be great at building communities. 

Find out more:
https://maria.io/

The Nordic education system is a recurring theme on this show. We already looked closer at Kids Island and Elements of AI, two examples of Nordic education initiatives that are designed to teach the skills of the future and spark innovation. But just how does education affect innovation? In the search for answers, today's guest is Dr. Terrence Brown who teaches at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. After getting to know the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, we discuss how their ideas, courses, and degrees relate to innovation as output and what needs to be added to the mix for education to yield innovation. 

Find out more:
https://www.sses.se/

On a mission to increase the pace of innovation and economic growth, Ignite Sweden aims to establish tighter bonds between Sweden’s greatest startups and large corporates. Through tailored matchmaking, they bring together entrepreneurs and corporate innovators to realize new types of collaborations. In this episode, I am joined by Stina Lantz who is the Program Manager for Ignite to learn about Ignite's process and the impact they create for the overall innovativeness of Sweden.

Stina also introduces us to Sweden Innovation Days, a three-day worldwide online event around the topics of innovation and AI.  

Learn more here:
https://ignitesweden.org/
https://swedeninnovationdays.confetti.events/

Talent, funding, and the right tools are some of the most important ingredients for startup success. The Hub, the Nordic's biggest startup database, brings together all of them for founders. But not only is The Hub enabling new innovations to succeed, the platform is also the outcome of an innovation process itself driven by the project partners, Danske Bank and Rainmaking. In this episode, I discuss the history and future of The Hub as well as the state of Nordic talent with the COO, Andreas Marco Jensen.

Read more here:
https://thehub.io/
https://rainmaking.io/

You might have never heard about Struer, the little town with about 10.000 inhabitants somewhere in Denmark. Even less would you believe me if I told you that one of the world's strongest innovation clusters is located in Struer, the "city of sound". To understand how this cluster has developed and how it will look like in the future, I am joined by the leadership team of Sound Hub Denmark, Rie Kold Pripsø (CCO), and Peter Petersen (CEO). Rooted in Danish sound innovation and tradition for design thinking, Sound Hub's vision is to be a world-class innovation hub for startups, SMEs, corporates, knowledge institutions, and investors, working in the field of sound and acoustics. 

Learn more about SoundHub here:
https://soundhub.dk/

The Nordics have been repeatedly recognized for their excellent education system. But education doesn't stop when you enter the workforce. What are some of the best practices to continually build the skills for our fast-changing world and remain innovative? For this episode, I am joined by Janina Fagerlund, the former head of product for Elements of AI, a free online course developed by the consultancy Reaktor and the University of Helsinki. While the course aimed at educating 1 percent of the Finnish population (about 55.000 people) about the basics of artificial intelligence it has already had over 550.000 participants. Janina shares her insights starting from the story behind the course to how it can empower innovation. 

Check out Elements of AI:
https://www.elementsofai.com/