Looking back at 2018, there are some moments I will keep in my heart for a long time…
Winning a prestigious award
The year started with Ideon Science Park receiving a special award from Region Skåne, for ” extraordinary efforts to develop the business environment in Skåne” in February! It was not the Ideon team alone that was awarded, but all the entrepreneurs from the past 35 years, all the innovation support organisations and our real estate partners. I really wish you all could have been there to share the moment with us!
Celebrating #Ideon35 years with 1 000 guests
We have spent this year celebrating our 35 years of innovation based on a truly public-private partnership. Thanks to our sponsors, sharp minds and partners we were able to announce a scaleup mentorship program and the connected Sharp Minds Sessions. During Skåne Innovation Week, we arranged Visioning the Future with five fantastic Ideon companies and in September we hosted a great celebration party! In total we have hosted almost 1 000 guests at the different #Ideon35 events this year! We could not have made it without you!
Talent attraction and matchmaking for jobs
In the spirit of public-private partnerships, we have run projects and events to attract or help the talents that are essential to the companies in and around Ideon Science Park. We arranged two IT job fairs together with Arbetsförmedlingen and Lund City, with almost 4 000 visitors in total. We also hosted a Talent Matchmaking conference with 200 international Master students together with Copenhagen Capacity, four students were hired at the meetup!
We were active in starting the project MatchIT, financed by the European Social Fund. Here, immigrant academics start a programming fast track training at Lund University that concludes in a 10-week internship, and hopefully jobs. Region Skåne and Arbetsförmedlingen are also important partners in this, and we are happy to report that one of the students was offered a job before the internship period started!
Our favourite event of the year took place in November, when we arranged the second Ideon Coder Kids! Here, we welcomed 80 kids of ages 8-12 to try out programming for a day. ARM, Axis Communications, Qlik, Sony and Volvo Cars offered different levels of challenges for our super kids. All we can say is, the future is bright!
Announcing the partnership with UN (UNOPS)
In late November, the UN announced that they will set up a Global Innovation Office here at Ideon! With the help of Ideon Science Park and the Swedish innovation ecosystem they will build a global infrastructure to support innovations that are addressing the real challenges of the world, so that we can meet the goals within Agenda 2030 as soon as possible.
In addition, Ideon Innovation, our fantastic incubator, have announced that from now on, they will only accept startups that are working with products or solutions within the Global Sustainability Goals.
Female founders, open innovation, energy innovations and smarter mobility
Ideon Innovation have managed to make a remarkable difference in the structures of the innovation system in a short time, and the project the Yes Way is a large part of the explanation. The focus of the project is to develop new methods, ways of working and support for female entrepreneurs. During this fall, the applications from women increased from 10 % to 70 %!
It has been a little over a year since Ideon Open launched the corporate accelerator Beyond. And since, many new projects have been started and completed. One of the coolest projects this year was the Extreme Co-Creation Lab at Dreamhack 2018. Here, Ideon Open, together with Mionix and CEVT, explored the future gaming and mobility solutions in a new way.
During the year, we have had a close collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering LTH at Lund University, Minc, E.ON Agile Nordic and WIN to find more energy related innovations. This project is financed by the Swedish Energy Agency, who wants to see a shift towards sustainable energy solutions.
We were also happy to see that the November edition of the Good Morning Lund meeting focused on the fact that Lund is becoming the new centre for smarter mobility. There is an increasing need for embedded software, new energy solutions and IoT-solutions within the automotive industry, and the competence is right here in Lund!
A glimpse into 2019
- This spring, we will launch a feedback platform for innovations called PEP (Prelaunch Evaluation Platform).
- We will start the Global Innovation Office together with UNOPS.
- The focus of the Innovation Week in June will be on Smarter Mobility, and we will continue the Energy collaboration.
- We will work with IT job Fairs, Talent conferences and MatchIT internships.
- In October we will welcome the innovation ecosystems of the world to a high level conference and the theme will be “Sustainable innovations in a world of data”.
You create the future, we take care of the rest
Many of the visionary sharp minds that have been successful here at Ideon have gone through some tough times, often being called crazy for believing in an “impossible” idea. Today, we are living in their visions of the future, using the technology they imagined decades ago!
The future has to be created by someone. Here at Ideon Science Park, we are several organisations in the innovation ecosystem that work hard together every day to help the visions of the future become reality. That someone could be you. And the year of your breakthrough can be 2019!
I am looking forward to cheering you on and working together with you for another great year!
Have great Christmas Holiday!
Mia Rolf
CEO Ideon Science Park
