120+ people. Two packed days. One Southern Sweden delegation at TechBBQ 2026.
This week, Ideon Science Park joined forces with innovation environments and investment organizations across Southern Sweden to bring 120+ startups, investors, science parks, innovation hubs, and ecosystem catalysts to TechBBQ in Copenhagen.
Under the Southern Sweden Delegation umbrella, our booth became a meeting place for two days of conversations, connections, company showcases, and discussions about everything from deep tech and climate resilience to talent and Nordic defence innovation.
Startups and scaleups including Cognibotics, Green Urban Sights and Hals Revenge showcased their solutions – while we also took some of the conversations to the stage:
Making the impossible possible
Cece Geijer af Ekström sat down with deep tech founder and builder Ola Wassvik, Lightbringer, co-founder, sales enabler and writer, to talk about more than 20 years of lessons from building deep tech companies – and his new book, a hands-on playbook for founders tackling the seemingly impossible. From leadership and culture to financing and commercialization, deep tech comes with its own rules – and plenty of pitfalls worth learning from.
From reacting to anticipating:
Sara Egidius sat down with Green Urbansights to explore what happens when we move from reacting to environmental challenges to anticipating them. Real-world data, models, simulations and AI are giving us new possibilities to act earlier – but technology needs to be matched by regulation, procurement and opportunities to test and adopt new solutions. Ultimately, proactive climate resilience is about creating healthier ecosystems, stronger communities and better places to live.
Acting as one region
Lotta Wessfeldt joined a panel with Anette Hög Sonnichsen, Business House Zeeland, Lottie Olsson Norsén, Medicon Village and Kristine Koppelhus, Medicon Valley Alliance. The Öresund region offers an unusually dense concentration of companies, universities, research infrastructure and talent – but differences in taxation, regulation, and working cultures still create unnecessary friction.
According to Lotta, our opportunity is to think and act as one connected region, making it easier for talent, knowledge, ideas and businesses to move across the border.
Attracting talent is one thing. Keeping it is another.
Gertrude Chilufa moderated our Tech Talent Grill Session, which turned the spotlight on global talent. Daniel Nordin Baker from ESS made a crucial point: recruitment is only half the challenge. If we want international talent to stay, their partners and families need opportunities to build a life here too.
Together with Wahid Sophrapour, entrepreneur, and Lisa Nyman from the Swedish Institute, the discussion also highlighted the need to make Sweden more visible internationally. We are competing for talent with the entire world. Initiatives such as Work in Sweden are an important part of telling a stronger story about why Sweden – and Southern Sweden – is a great place to build a career and a life.
Thinking beyond borders
At the Öresund Summit, Ideon’s Anders G Nilsson joined a Nordic discussion on how stronger collaboration can make our region more competitive. He highlighted one concrete example from this very day:
Strengthening Nordic defence innovation
Collaboration also took a very concrete step forward. At the Defence Tech Denmark booth, Amyna, Defence Tech Denmark and DEFINE signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen collaboration between Nordic defence innovation ecosystems – connecting capabilities, networks and opportunities across borders.
A fitting conclusion to two days that demonstrated exactly why we come to TechBBQ: to connect ecosystems, open doors for companies and turn conversations into collaboration.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us – and especially to the partners who made the Southern Sweden Delegation possible:
- Regional Investment Support: Business Region Kronoberg, Invest in Halland and Invest in Skåne
- Science Parks & Incubators: Blekinge Business Incubator, Kalmar Science Park, Krinova Incubator & Science Park, Medeon Science Park, Minc, SmiLe Venture Hub and Växjö Linnæus Science Park
- Strategic Partner: Exportcenter Syd
