Oslo Innovation Week
Norway’s capital celebrates innovators of all kinds as it focuses on innovation in action
Photo: Oslo Innovation Week / Gorm K. Gaare
Crown prince Haakon enters OIW 2015.
Rasmus Falck
Oslo, Norway
Oslo is Europe’s fastest growing capital and is the key to a more robust, diversified, and sustainable future economy for Norway. We don’t know yet what kind of industries will define us, but we do know that innovation and entrepreneurship are the answers. With the rapid resurgence of incubators, accelerator programs, and local successful startup role models growing internationally, the time for Oslo to become an international startup hub is now!
Oslo Innovation Week is a five-day series of events held each year in October, this year from October 17 to 21. From seminars and talks to pitching, contests, and workshops, events will take place all over the city. Over 90 different groups, such as corporations, startups, accelerators, and organizations, will organize these events. Last year, Oslo Innovation Week brought together 9,500 visitors.
You can attend an innovation conference every single day, year round, all over the world. So why should you choose Oslo Innovation Week? Oslo believes in not only talking about change but also changing the world we live in. Here you will find speakers, experts, entrepreneurs, investors, startups, and innovators together who are challenged to solve problems, collaborate, and move forward. No more endless talks on what has been done before. No more wishing, hoping, or speculating on how things should be. The innovation week brings forward new voices and innovation in action.
The global economy needs a bridge between large, established companies and the startup scene. Innovation, particularly radical innovation, happens when connecting previously unconnected bodies of knowledge. Oslo wants to create meeting places where startups and corporations and people representing different fields of innovation, science, and research can meet and grow; therefore, the theme this year is “Powercouples.”
The opening takes place at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art. The museum is a privately owned contemporary art gallery. The collection’s main focus is the American appropriation artists from 1980s. A few years ago, the museum moved to two new buildings designed by Renzo Piano on Tjuvholmen by the Oslofjord, quite an attraction itself. The museum created a stir in the international art world in 2002 when it purchased the American artist Jeff Koon’s monumental gilt porcelain sculpture of Michael Jackson with Bubbles, the pop star’s favorite chimpanzee, for USD 5.1 million.
Subjects that will be covered during the week, in the official language of English, include EdTech, FinTech, MedTech, and Creative Industries.
Rasmus Falck is a strong innovation and entrepreneurship advocate. The author of “What do the best do better” and “The board of directors as a resource in SME,” he received his masters degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently lives in Oslo, Norway.
This article originally appeared in the Sept. 23, 2016, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
