Meet Ignite Sweden Day’s host

Ignite Sweden Day is around the corner. In only two days, over 250 startups enthusiasts will attend our annual meet-up to learn the best collaboration practices.

– It will be a day for networking and sharing, for real! We are going to celebrate all the great things that Ignite Sweden has done so far, the many successful startup and corporate collaborations. We will hear different stories on stage that will hopefully inspire others to move forward by doing business with startups, says Maria Olofsson, who will moderate the conference together with Amira El-Bidawi from Vattenfall.

The third edition of Ignite Sweden Day is filled with case presentations, fireside chats, startup pitches and inspirational talks.

– It is going to be a fantastic afternoon. We will share both early-stage stories between startups and large companies – HOW you can START, as well as some others that have come quite far and are now in full commercial roll-out – how you can SCALE. Many of the corporates that will be on stage will share invaluable insights from their startup collaborations, continues Maria.

Saab + Attractive, E.on + OurGreenCar, FLIR + Gemit, Alfa Laval + Ekkono Solutions and ABB + Graphmatech are the companies that will share details of their collaboration journeys during the afternoon.

During Ignite Sweden Day we will focus on how startups and corporates can transform innovation into real value creation and competitive advantage.

– Corporates attending the conference will leave with a better idea of how it is to collaborate with startups, and what challenges and value it might bring to their company. Big and small companies have a different mindset, it is two very different worlds that can give so much value to each other if you are prepared from the start. At Ignite Sweden Day you will learn a lot from the stage, but we hope to connect and match people off stage too. That is what we all at the Ignite Sweden team loves to do most: to create value by matching people, says Maria.

As the host for the event, Maria aims to inspire and create energy among the people attending the conference.

– One thing that I love from moderating events is that you can dive deeper into different topics, and this event in particular is about one of my favorite ones: helping startups grow. When I moderate, I always try to find new angles that can make the speakers share even those things that they haven’t thought about before. I really love to connect people on the stage through different topics, tell us Maria.

Maria is Operation Manager for Uminova Innovation, one of the incubators that lead Ignite Sweden together with THINGS, STING, LEAD, MINC and SISP.

– Ignite Sweden was spot on what we needed as an incubator. We have been helping startups with building their teams, finding talent, venture capital, but there was one thing that we had been discussing for some time: how to help startups get out of the building and meet customers. Ignite Sweden is an excellent way for a startup to find the right customer at the right time. Not only that: they get support on how to talk to that customer. Uminova was early in the program. My role as responsible for Ignite North is to try to engage as many startups from the region as possible so they don’t miss the chance to be matched with corporates. And, of course, I wish I can see more of the great corporates from the northern part of Sweden to take the opportunity to meet startups from all over the country, concludes Maria.

Ignite Sweden Day will take place at Birger Jarl Conference in Stockholm on December 4. Check out the program and get your ticket at https://ignite-sweden-day-2019.confetti.events/. Last tickets on sale!