Each year, the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, New York (SACCNY) and The Anders Wall Foundation, nominate talented entrepreneurs from Sweden who have successfully started their operations in the United States. The award—with its accompanying $25,000 cash prize—recognizes some of Sweden’s, and perhaps the world’s, brightest entrepreneurial minds on stage at Nasdaq in New York City on October 10, 2018.
”Promising Swedish startups need to find venture capital, successful US investors are looking for interesting opportunities and the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce in New York stage an event to bring them together. It’s brilliant! My contribution will be a prize for the best startup presentation, a prize aimed at encouraging more young Swedish entrepreneurs to take the leap over the Atlantic Ocean and into the important American market.” Anders Wall, Chairman of the Anders Wall Foundation, former Chairman of the Board of Beijer Alma, Beijerinvest, Volvo and others
“This year’s nominees truly reflect the exceptional entrepreneurial mindset emerging out of Sweden today. Sweden as an innovation nation has really planted its flag on the global tech arena and SACCNY is proud to be a part of facilitating these entrepreneurs’ success in the world’s largest, most competitive market— the United States.” Anna Throne-Holst, President, SACCNY
The nominees for the 2018 award are:
Christopher Ahlberg, Co-Founder & CEO,Recorded Future
Ahlberg is the entrepreneur and computer scientist who co-founded Recorded Future, a threat intelligence analytics platform intended to significantly lower the risk of cyber-attacks. The platform is powered by patented machine learning and automatically collects and analyzes intelligence from technical, open and dark web sources, enabling users to respond to security alerts 10 times faster. Ahlberg was named one of the World’s Top Young Innovators by Technology Review in 2002.
Lisa Lindström, CEO, Doberman AB
Lindström leads the digital design firm, Doberman since 2003. In just a couple of years, she managed to turn the firm and its negative result into a top-ranked design firm with customers such as SVT, DN, Apoteket, BabyBjorn, and Posten. Since Lisa’s takeover, the firm has been recognized with several design awards and appointed Sweden’s best agency for nine consecutive years by Dagens Industri.
Willem Sundblad, Founder & CEO, Oden Technologies
Sundblad is the Founder and CEO of Oden Technologies, an Industrial Internet of Things company helping manufacturers eliminate waste through data acquisition and analytics. Willem was named as one of Forbes 30 Under 30 for his work in transforming the manufacturing industry and is a contributor for Forbes.com, where he writes about the future of manufacturing.
Previous award recipients include:
2017: Erik Gatenholm, Founder & CEO, Cellink
2016: Mehrdad Mahjoubi, Founder & CEO, Orbital Systems
2015: Stina Ehrensvärd, Founder & CEO, Yubico
The nominated entrepreneurs have been selected based on these criteria:
- Exceptional entrepreneurial capacity and ability to create and lead a successful business.
- Exemplary ambassador for entrepreneurship
- The entrepreneur has identified and created a product, technology or service which generates increased customer satisfaction or who has recognized an innovative market niche
- The company (or a subsidiary) is registered and has recently established a physical presence in the U.S
- The technology, product or service shall have a proven traction on the U.S. market and enjoy a high probability to scale on the American market
About Innovate46
Innovate46 is a platform for Swedish and American startups and entrepreneurs created by the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, New York. The annual conference is a high-level, full-day event with a focus on Swedish innovation and the importance of startup-corporate collaboration. The conference attracts gathers inspirational speakers and experts to discuss innovation, entrepreneurship, and other timely topics relevant to business professionals, investors, and startups while also providing entrepreneurs with a stepping stone for the first step of their venture into the United States. Click here to read more.
Contact:
Yasmina Backström
Head of Communications, SACCNY
yasmina.backstrom@saccny.org
+1 929 325 8130
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