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On February 22 and 23, Sweden arranged its first-ever International tech event. In the heart of the capital city, the organizers succeeded in gathering 7.500 attendees from all over the world. The country's tech scene looks bright.
February 25, 2024 / 7 min. read
Sweden's tech scene is vibrant and exciting
The Tech Arena 2024
On February 22 and 23, the CEO of Techarenan, Omid Ekhlasi, Editor-in-chief, Johannes Lundberg, and the rest of the team arranged Sweden's first-ever International tech event. In the heart of the capital city, the organizers succeeded in having thousands of attendees world-wide.
About Techarenan:
Techarenan was founded in 2014, a year later than TechBBQ. The Swedish platform aims, like we do, to bring positive change to society by gathering the brightest and most driven business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts, and decision-makers to share ideas and know-how and create meaningful networks.
Key Takeaways:
Based on two intense days of talking to 50+ people from all walks of life at The Tech Arena 2024, I can conclude that the startup and tech scene in Sweden and the Nordics looks bright.
With the emergence of The Tech Arena, The Nordics can now proudly claim to have three of the most attractive and well-organized tech events in Europe.
Slush in Helsinki, Finland. TechBBQ in Copenhagen, Denmark. And now, The Tech Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.
All the people I met were friendly, innovative, knowledgeable, energetic, global in their way of thinking, and collaborative.
I met speakers from the US, startups from Estonia, Sweden, and Finland, investors from France, Germany, and the UK, researchers and academics from top universities like KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Uppsala University, Lund University, and Stockholm University, and partners from Northern Europe.
I noticed fun and engaging experiences such as a tall light chain in the middle of the venue, the world's cleanest electric snowmobile, shiny unicorn attire folks walking around immortalizing photos with attendees, smart solutions within MedTech, PregTech, GreenTech, LegalTech, and much more as well as futuristic cars such as Zeekr, Tesla, and Polestar.
Four Program Themes:
The Tech Arena 2024 was built on four overarching themes.
1) Leading through Innovation.
2) World-class Entrepreneurship.
3) Leveraging tech for Sustainability.
4) Breaking barriers through Leadership.
In total, there were five stages:
1) Arena Stage
2) Founder Stage
2) Focus Stage
4) Bright Stage
5) Pitch Stage
Matchmaking:
As at any thoughtful and impactful tech event, a matchmaking area exists.
Any experienced event attendee would know that conferences are all about meeting new people.
The Tech Arena team didn't disappoint in facilitating this; They had set up plenty of high tables for
startups to meet their future investors, partners, co-founders, and business mentors.
The Startup Competition Winners:
The Tech Arena 2024 offered two large competitions for early-stage startups:
All incubators and science parks in Europe had the opportunity to nominate their two most promising startups for the Incubator Stars Challenge. Of the nominees, 15 got a chance to pitch live during the event.
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Prizes included:
- a spot in the Winner Delegation Trip to Toronto and Montreal 2024.
- participation in the Techarenan Challenge in Almedalen 2024.
- exposure in all the event channels.
- a startup booth worth 100.000 SEK for The Tech Arena 2025.
3 finalists:
- FLOX Robotics
- Cresponix
- Enerpoly
Jury motivation:
"Very cool scalable use, beating the competition by wining over customers,
with a high likelihood of becoming Sweden's next unicorn."
Some 40 companies were chosen from the list of applicants
by a selection committee to pitch live during TechArena.
The assessment was based on scalability, uniqueness, sustainability,
market potential, global applicability, team skills, and competency.
The Pitch40 winner gets:
- video interviews and exclusive posts to provide exposure on the channels of TechArena and its partners.
- meetings with international investors.
- a spot in the Techarenan Challenge in Almedalen 2024.
- a spot in the Winner Delegation trip to Toronto and Montreal in 2024.
3 finalists:
- Reselo
- Mifundo
- Atlas Primer
Jury motivation:
- "Mindblowing - opens up the possibility for an accelerated transition away
from animal testing and personalized self-medication."
Voxo - official AI partner
If you would like to tune in for talks from The Tech Arena 2024,
Voxo’s AI has summarised all the panels in a daily summary and summaries of each panel talk.
Click below for more.
International Speakers:
The Tech Arena team managed to land some prominent international speakers for their first-ever global tech event.
Among the lineup of 280 speakers across five stages were some top-tier names to inspire attendees to think big.
To share valuable fresh insights from the main speakers with our audience, I've decided to transcribe all three interviews with Jessica Meir, Al Gore, and Steve Wozniak. Find the links below each section to learn more.
Jessica Meir
Jessica Meir, NASA Astronaut
One of the main speakers for the event was Jessica Meir, a NASA Astronaut who's a Swedish-American citizen, marine biologist, and physiologist. Meir spoke about life in space, the latest tech evolutions, and being a child of immigrants, growing up in a small town in Northern Maine, USA.
Al Gore
“
Al Gore, Former US Vice-President, and Nobel Prize Winner
Climate activist Al Gore spoke, among other things, passionately about his co-founder and chairman position of "Generation Investment Management" and how they invest completely through a sustainability lens. He also encouraged everyone to participate in the movement by stating, "I'm here to recruit you"!
Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-founder & Philanthropist
Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak spoke openly about his love for gaming, his differences with Steve Jobs, and his desire to be a talented and recognized engineer, respected for his craft. His dream was not to start a company and get rich. He's done lots of philanthropic work, i.e. sharing millions of dollars worth of stocks with other members of the founding team.
“
Kudos
Overall, the organizing team behind The Tech Arena, the Swedish delegations, universities, startups, scale-ups, exhibitors, accelerators, incubators, investors, and partners can be proud of the first global tech event on Swedish soil.
Here is an encouragement to everyone in the Nordics: Let's continue nurturing a vibrant global startup ecosystem by supporting and working closer together.
See you at TechBBQ 2024.
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