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Swedish Press N Y A
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March 2015 Vol 86:02 $4.95
Bringing the world closer one byte at a time
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2015
Barbara Bergstrรถm interview Scrumptious Semlor The future of comms tech
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Swedish Press is the world’s leading magazine on all good things Swedish. An authority on design, business, culture and travel since 1929, Swedish Press delivers insightful news and commentary in a visually striking format. With a nod to the past, and a peek to the future, Swedish Press is your go-to source for updates and inspiration from Sweden. SWEDISH PRESS (ISSN 0839-2323) is published ten times per year (Feb, Mar, Apr, May, June, July/Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec/Jan) by Swedish Press Inc, 11616 Papagallo Court, San Diego, CA 92124 for $39 per year. Periodical postage paid at Blaine, WA 98230-9998 (No. USPS 005544). US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Swedish Press, PO Box 420404, San Diego, CA 92142-0404 OFFICE: 9040 Shaughnessy Street, Vancouver, BC V6P 6E5 Canada US MAILING ADDRESS: PO Box 420404, San Diego, CA 92142-0404 WEBSITE www.swedishpress.com E-MAIL info@swedishpress.com TEL +1 360 450 5858 TOLL FREE +1 866 882 0088 PUBLISHER Claes Fredriksson Claes@swedishpress.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Tatty Maclay Tatty@swedishpress.com
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CONTENTS ( March 2015 )
ART DIRECTOR Joan Law Fredriksson Joan@swedishpress.com
SWEDISH PRESS SOCIETY President: Lennart Österlind, Treasurer: George Cook
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Swedish Press
Photo: Magnus Liam Karlsson/imagebank. sweden.se
Feature 10 Breaking down global barriers: the future of Swedish comms tech Interview 12 Barbara Bergström: “A total command of the English language will take you places”
Heritage 15 Who were the Vikings? Global Swedes 16 Putting Sweden on the map – at home: Annika Rembe 17 Putting Sweden on the map – abroad: Björn Lyrvall Lifestyle 18 Top Sju 19 Culture: Den mänskliga biten... Hemma hos 20 Design: The bright outlook of solar technology 21 Treats à la ScandiKitchen 22 Lär Dig Svenska 23 Comic: Two cultures – Less roots In the Loop 24 Landskapsnyheterna 27 Canada, US & Beyond 28 Calendar and Events 29 Ads and Info 30 Sista Ordet Swedish Press: two and a half years on 31 Press Byrån
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Photo above © Frank af Petersens. Cover illustration by David Sandonato.
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Swedes in the News
A royal visit to the US and Swedish success Victoria visits Valley
Crown Princess Victoria, together with her husband Prince Daniel and daughter Princess Estelle, recently visited San Francisco and Silicon Valley. During their three-day trip, the couple visited several large companies and Nordic businesses that operate in Silicon Valley, as well as an event ‘The Nordics and Silicon Valley – From Startup to Success’ held at the Computer History Museum.
Myllymäki takes bronze
Swedish star chef Tommy Myllymäki, a previous ‘Årets Kock’ winner, took home a bronze in this year’s prestigious Bocuse d’Or cooking competition in Lyon. After being awarded silver two years ago, there were hopes he might win
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Skating sisters’ success
lost the election last year, Borg announced he would be leaving politics and since then has been asked to sit on the board of Swedish investment company Kinnevik, and work for the World Economic Forum.
Wallenberg patriarch dies Viktoria Helgesson. Photo: Emma Svensson/skatesweden.se
T
hey may not have won any medals, but Swedish figure skating sisters Joshi and Viktoria Helgesson still achieved the best Swedish results for 78 years at the recent figure-skating World Championships. The event, which was held in Stockholm’s Globe arena, saw younger sister Joshi take fourth place, while Viktoria came in fifth. It’s the best placing for Swedish figure skaters since Vivi-Anna
the top spot, but in the end Norway’s Ørjan Johannessen took gold. Myllymäki runs Julita Wärdshus restaurant in Katrineholm, as well as appearing on numerous cooking programmes.
Peter Wallenberg, the patriarch of the Wallenberg family business empire, died on January 19th at his home on Värmdö aged 88. From 1982 to 1997 Wallenberg was chairman of Investor AB, the holding company through which the family controls large stakes in major Swedish companies including
Joshi Helgesson. Photo: Emma Svensson/skatesweden.se
Hultén won the bronze at the World Championships in London in 1937.
New job for Borg Sweden’s former Minister of Finance, Anders Borg, has a new job as an advisor at the global bank corporation Citi. After the conservative government
Ericsson and Electrolux. His sons Jacob and Peter Jr and nephew Marcus are now the fifth generation active in the family business.
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Company File
Rebtel – den svenska telefonirebellen Av Monika Nordqvist
H
istoriskt sett har det alltid varit mycket dyrt att ringa internationella samtal speciellt mellan mobiltelefoner. Rebtel har sedan starten 2006 erbjudit användare möjligheten att ringa internationella samtal till betydligt lägre priser och tjänsten kan i dagsläget användas i över 100 länder över hela världen. Beroende på var man ringer ifrån så gör Rebtel det möjligt att spara upp till 95% av kostnaden per minut jämfört med en vanlig operatör.
‘Det unika med Rebtel är att du kan ringa till vilken telefon som helst genom appen,’ förklarar Anna Alenius-Mathson, Rebtels Head of PR. ‘Du behöver inte internetuppkoppling som med Viber och Skype. Genom vår lösning gör vi internationella samtal till lokala samtal vilket innebär att vi kan hålla extremt låga priser. Dessutom har du alltid koll på hur mycket du har ringt och exakt vad det kostar
Rebtel är det svenska företaget som kopplar ihop människor över hela världen genom att erbjuda billiga mobilsamtal genom appar i mobilen. Bolaget har idag 25 miljoner användare som kan ringa, chatta och skicka sms till varandra.
bolaget har varit användare av smarta telefoner som ringer mycket till sin familj och vänner i utlandet. Idag har Rebtel runt 25 miljoner
New Android 4.0 Design
per minut. Man loggar in på www. rebtel.com och fyller på sitt konto för att ringa mer.’ Rebtel startades av två svenska entreprenörer, Hjalmar Winbladh och Jonas Lindroth. Båda finns kvar i bolaget som delägare och styrelsemedlemmar. Rebtels utgångsläge har alltid varit att man, precis som med Skype, vill göra det billigare och enklare för personer att kommunicera med varandra. Den stora skillnaden mellan Skype och Rebtel historiskt sett har varit att Rebtel enbart använts i mobiltelefoner, och målgruppen för
användare över hela världen, 70 anställda och omsätter över en halv miljard SEK.
‘Rebtels vision är att ständigt erbjuda de lägsta priserna till de målgrupper som behöver det mest,’ säger Alenius-Mathson. ‘Många bor långt ifrån sina familjer och håller kontakt via telefon många timmar varje vecka.’ I framtiden kommer Rebtel fortsätta att utveckla telefoniupplevelsen för sina kunder genom att göra det ännu enklare, snabbare och mer prisvärt att ringa utomlands.
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Breaking down global barriers: the future of Swedish comms tech By Tatty Maclay
P
icture this: you wake from a pleasant dream thanks to an app that allows you to select what you want to dream about before you go to bed, on the way to work your car drives and parks itself at your office, which already knows you’re on your way and has pre-ordered and paid for a coffee just the way you like it, thanks to 5G and micro IP technology. A microchip under your skin allows you to unlock the door to your office without a keycard or pin and once inside you join a video conference call with hologrammed colleagues in China, communicating via a simultaneous translation app.
Some of these technologies already exist, some are in development and some may only be future pipe dreams but one thing is for sure, it’s a brave new world and Swedish companies and individuals are at the forefront of leading us there. It wasn’t that long ago the idea of talking face to face to someone on the other side of the world, cost-free, would have seemed like an impossible fantasy but thanks to Swede Niklas Zennström and Dane Janus Friis, Skype’s revolutionary telecommunications software singlehandedly brought families, friends and colleagues living on different continents closer together.
Swedish companies such as Skype and Spotify – the Swedish innovation that allows us to share and stream music across global
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borders – have achieved huge international success and Skype was so revolutionary in its inception that eBay acquired it in 2005 and it was later sold again in 2011 to Microsoft for USD 8,500 million. But as the larger Swedish companies go global, smaller start-ups will always be snapping at their heels and taking the original technologies to the next level. Rebtel (see Company File), for example, took Skype’s idea of providing free or low-cost international calls and removed the need for an internet connection.
Others, such as Ericsson, stay true to their Swedish roots and quietly get on with developing world-changing advances such as 5G connectivity. Currently the world leaders in 4G technology, 5G implementation in commercial mobile networks is expected in 2020, but Ericsson has already achieved speeds of 5 Gbps in live, over-the-air demonstrations of the company’s pre-standard 5G network technology.
Jerker Lindsten, CEO of HiQ Gothenburg
‘With a whole, connected smart city powered by 5G, there’s no limit to what you can deliver,’ says Jerker Lindsten, CEO of HiQ Gothenburg, an IT and Management Consultancy. ‘We will see an increase in integrated solutions for retail experiences, for example, using beacon technology to position specific
services to specific people.’ Developments such as integrated retail experiences and cars that function as infotainment hubs and communicate with other systems such as our homes and offices are major areas that will affect and simplify our everyday lives.
picture-based timetable and digital diary to help organise the daily life of children with neuropsychiatric diagnoses such as ADHD, autism and Down’s syndrome and function as a communications channel between the child’s home, school and support workers.
But this interconnectivity also extends to important areas such as healthcare and will result in huge changes in the way we care for the sick and elderly. ‘Within 20 or 30 years, I would not be surprised if healthcare has been moved from hospitals to your own body,’ says Hans Hentzell, CEO of Swedish ICT research institute. ‘The technologies are basically there already. Your mobile phone will function as a central computer for all your monitoring and treatment.’
While some of us struggle with setting different ringtones on our smartphones, Swedish innovators such as Håkan Lans are busy developing the satellite-guided Global Positioning System (GPS) into the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which has become world standard for shipping and civil aviation, or, as Swedish scientist Adam Dunkels, inventing Micro IP, allowing tiny gadgets such as car keys and credit cards to communicate using the Internet Protocols.
Hans Hentzell, CEO of Swedish ICT research institute
There are also numerous small Swedish companies and individuals making a difference through innovative ideas such as that of Picture My Life, winners of the Startup ICT award. The company has developed a
Urban Explorer is led by the Interactive Institute and Visualization Center C in collaboration with Norrköping Science Park, City Planning at the Municipality of Norrköping and Hyresbostäder i Norrköping. Photo: Kristofer Jansson, Interactive Institute © Interactive Institute
This communication and collaboration between different services and areas is one of the most important developments within comms tech and opens up a vast vista of new possibilities. ’Sometimes we’re too optimistic about what we can achieve ,’ says Hans Hentzell, ‘but often we’re too pessimistic.’ From the first brick-like handheld commercial cell phones of the Eighties, to the smart phones that 73% of Swedes now own (2014), the functionality of mobile phones is constantly improving and developing. ‘Prices of mobile phones will go down,’ predicts Hentzell, ‘while functionality will increase as the mobile phone becomes a router for much more than it is today,’
If we look at what has been achieved in the world of communications technology in just one generation, it’s safe to say the advances we’ll see in the next will be beyond anything we can possibly conceive today and that Swedes will continue to be on the front line of bringing the world closer, one byte at a time.
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Putting Sweden on the map at home
‘I believe collaboration is in our genes’
Global
Annika Rembe, Director General of the Swedish Institute
What are the areas in which you feel Sweden currently contributes most globally? Globalisation, urbanisation and digitalisation are all global trends that bring with them both challenges and possibilities and I believe there are big opportunities for a country like Sweden to contribute to creating solutions to the challenges. These areas, as well as the climate issue, are those in which I feel Sweden can really play a part, though of course no country or organisation can solve these problems alone but rather through collaboration and information sharing. How do you think Sweden has achieved the success it has, despite being such a small country, population-wise? Sweden has a long tradition in these areas, as well as in the life sciences, healthcare, public health and care of the elderly, building on our society’s traditions of human rights, de-
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mocracy and gender equality. If we look back 150 years or so, Sweden was an extremely poor, rural society. We have achieved success through a combination of innovative and progressive entrepreneurship, a government with a strong commitment to education for all and the practical consideration of an effective infrastructure that was established early on to connect a vast country with a small population. We needed to collaborate in order to survive and I believe working together is in our genes. What do you see as being the most exciting areas of development and innovation in Sweden right now? Some of the most exciting areas of innovation at the moment are the new ways of using IT and the Internet. We are starting to see increased knowledge-sharing between sectors and creative ways of using technology, for example taking experiences and technologies we have from the huge gaming sector and applying them to solutions for problems such as an ageing population and climate change. What aspects of Swedish life and culture are you personally most passionate about promoting internationally? For me personally, gender equality is one of the most important issues worldwide and it’s an area in which we have valuable experiences and a
willingness to be part of the solution. In a recent project called African Cinderella, the Ghana National Theater and the Swedish National Touring Theatre (Riksteatern), supported by SI, visited Nigeria and Ghana and put on a play about rights for women and children. Culture can be a great tool for opening up discussions in a way that doesn’t always work government to government. Are there any current or upcoming projects involving Sweden and the US you would particularly like to mention? Of course, the relationship between Sweden and the US has always been a very important one, in terms of both trade and cultural exchange. This year we have a number of exciting events in the US, including participation in House of Sweden’s theme of earth and space, Try Swedish at South by South West in March and celebrations around the 100 year anniversary of Ingrid Bergman’s birth in August. We work a great deal with Swedish language education in US universities and we attract numerous American students to Sweden each year. When young people get to experience another country and its culture first-hand, it’s a really wonderful way for them to interact and start to understand and communicate different ideas and values.
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Putting Sweden on the map abroad
Swedes
‘Sweden has an open, global outlook.’ Björn Lyrvall, Ambassador of Sweden to the United States
In which areas do you feel Sweden currently contributes most globally? In my role as ambassador, I see Sweden contributing globally in a great number of areas. We are very active on trade issues – Sweden is very dependent on foreign trade, it makes up half of our GDP – and economic growth is very important. I would also like to stress the work we’re doing in the area of innovation. We used to be one of the poorest countries in Europe but we have come so far and our work in research and development, as well as environmental issues, makes a significant contribution on the world stage. How do you feel the image of Sweden is changing and developing internationally and in North America particularly? In terms of the image of Sweden in the U.S., we have seen a determined effort to modernise the image and perception of our country. The old image was of a highly-taxed, freezing cold country up in the north but we are keen to promote it as the modern, environmentally conscious, innovative, globalized open society it is today. The visit of President Obama to Sweden in September 2014 was a testimony to the dynamic relationship between our two countries and
there was a large, very positive response in the media at the time. The U.S. media were very interested in looking at how we deal with certain societal issues and there was a wave of positive articles about Sweden at the time. Of course the tall, blonde stereotype persists and not everyone has realised that Sweden is a very multicultural society with an open, global outlook. Many people are surprised to find also that Swedes are not as shy and quiet as they expect – there is a new generation of Swedes with more experience abroad, more confidence and excellent language skills. What aspects of Swedish culture and life are you personally most passionate about promoting? There are so many great things to promote about Sweden but I am particularly passionate about art and culture, especially Swedish music because of its universality. We put on a large number of events and concerts here at House of Sweden – Timbuktu, the rap artist, and female jazz musicians have recently performed here. We also have a host of events linked to our theme for this year which is Earth and Space. We will have seminars and exhibits around mining, space-related projects, digital issues and the relocation of the city of Kiruna.
Are there any other current or upcoming projects you’d particularly like to mention? Another important issue this year is gender equality. Our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Margot Wallström, recently announced that Sweden will be the world’s first country to pursue a feminist foreign policy, meaning all issues should be put into a gender context. The U.S. also takes over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council this year, so we will be discussing the pressing environmental issues in the Arctic Region. The importance of innovation and development should be mentioned once again. 40% of Sweden’s GDP is from research and development; this is one of the highest percentages in the world. Americans aren’t always aware that highly successful companies such as Spotify and Skype are Swedish. We also want to highlight the many small companies making great strides in areas such as bioscience and green technology.
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