For the past 40 years, Ideon has been a melting pot of innovation and technological advances. Ideas have been realized and become global successes, products that have become part of our everyday lives. Together with business leaders, entrepreneurs and researchers, this year’s Innovation Day focused on how our lives and behaviors have been changed by the rapid development. We also invited the approximately 250 people in the audience to build our time travel.
Ideon Science Park became Sweden’s first research village in 1983 when there was a great need for new industries. In 2023, Ideon celebrates a successful 40 years and our mission remains the same. We will create more companies based on research and innovation, and we will create more jobs based on sustainable growth. Today, more than 400 companies with about 10 000 employees are established in the park, which is part of Lund’s Innovation District. Innovation Day is just one of many forums during the year to celebrate 40 years of impressive innovation history.
First on stage was Martin Gren, inventor of the first network camera. Martin is a co-founder of Axis, and currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Axis Communications. Martin shared his early entrepreneurial thoughts about not becoming a government employee but having the ambition to work with electronic products. He realized early on that the real value of a successful company is in the sales model and not the product itself and used his classmates as dealers in his first projects at school…
The morning continued with a discussion panel with three strong profiles who have had a great impact on Ideon’s growth and their companies. Staffan Gestrelius, (former CEO & founder of Qliktech), Charlotta Falvin, (entrepreneur and former chairman of the board at Ideon) Pierre Elzouki (former CEO & founder of Scalado) had a common view on entrepreneurship, venture capital, passion and the importance of building strong teams.
Jonas Birgersson, one of our biggest IT entrepreneurs, also known as the Broadband Jesus, owned the stage when he talked about how we need to move from “pipes to lasagna” and give back by working with open standards as a business model. He shared his thoughts on the possibilities when the new leisure center for 9000 researchers in Lund opens (ESS & Max IV).
Further speakers during the day were Mats Lindoff (former VP, Ericsson & CTO at Sony Ericsson) who highlighted the “Agile Manifesto” as a revolutionary way of working, and also emphasized that each generation must be allowed to make its own mistakes. Sofie Woge (CEO and founder of Tendo) talked about the ins and outs of entrepreneurship, comparing the beginning of her own journey to “either Champagne or the fetal position”. Henrik Hallgren (Founder & Chairman of the Board at Parkster) talked about “smartphone penetration” and how the environment and the community at Ideon helped him move forward but that it is blood, sweat and tears and not least an organic growth has led to success. We also heard a presentation from Sofia Ulver (PhD, associate professor and researcher in social trends & consumer culture at Lund University) who told us what governs us as consumers today.
The day was rounded off with another panel discussion on the future of social impact. In addition to the aforementioned Sofia Ulver and Jonas Birgersson, Eva Vati (entrepreneur, founder & sustainability strategist at VATI of Sweden) and Pär Olsson (director of security & hardware development at Bosch R&D) joined the discussion. We were also offered speed pitches from some of our bubbling companies from Ideon Science Park; SiB Solutions, Mantis Photonics, Infra Motion Labs and Inceptron.
