Thousands of entrepreneurs, business leaders and decision-makers gathered at Techarenan Summit 2022

Innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability were the main subjects at the international tech conference Techarenan Summit 2022 at the Waterfront Congress Centre in Stockholm. It was a full day of networking, panel discussions, expert seminars, podcasts and pitches from some of the most prominent startups and scale-ups in the Nordics.

The event started off at the main stage in the Waterfront Congress Centre with a panel discussion about how to think big and building global. The panel included Anna Hallberg, Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Trade, Konrad Bergström, Founder of the electrical boat company X Shore, Susanne Najafi, Founder of the VC-firm BackingMinds and Dennis Nobelius, COO of electric car manufacture Polestar.

“Sweden has a unique position as one of the world’s most innovative countries. That’s largely because our strong society,” Hallberg said. “Our free education system and our strong universities that offers both broad and sharp technological knowledge, often designed and inquired in close dialogue with the business sector.”

A global outlook was offered in another panel which included Alasdair Ross, British journalist and Countries Editor of The Economist, Annika Winsth, Chief Economist at Nordea and Alexander Norén, Tech Correspondent at the Swedish National Television, SVT.

The panel elaborated on the current situation in the world and how that is affecting politics, strategies of large corporations, and the state of the startup community.

Activity all day

Another panel included CEOs from some of the major sectors leading the green and sustainable transition. Ann-Louise Lökholm Klasson, CEO of Sweco Sweden, Bjørn Ivar Moen, CEO of Telenor Sweden, Marc Hoffmann, CEO of E.ON and Claes Jerveland, CEO of Volkswagen Group Sweden all discussed the challenges and possibilities from within their fields. They also tied things together by pointing out how the different sectors can work together to increase impact.

In the Exhibition Hall, next door to the main stage panels, more than 30 of the most prominent startups and scaleups in the Nordic region exhibited their innovative products and solutions. Those companies also pitched their ideas in front of a live audience on the pitch stage in the center of the hall.

Throughout the day, visitors also followed expert seminars, and listened to the podcast Killander & Björk as they interviewed the panelists live.