The KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm is hailed as Sweden’s largest technical research and learning institution and home to students, researchers and faculty members from around the world dedicated to advancing knowledge.
IN Sweden, schoolchildren are encouraged to develop ideas, products or services and then learn to turn them into business as part of their curriculum.
Upon the permission from the parents, they can even try out running a business with their friends as early as they want to.
Such training has created a foundation for a solid entrepreneurial mindset that emphasises collaboration and trust, the very values that the country’s innovative ecosystem is based on.
In Sweden, these values are being instilled in children from a young age, says Vinnova communication partner Sofia Rickberg.
“We already have it in the lower grade; you train into the children collaboration and trust, and upon going to high school, they can take courses on entrepreneurship, can have their own companies like small start-ups, and find out the ideas that they want to try and get grades for that.
“My son started a small company with his friends in high school. They opened a bank account, they had some profits and they split it equally, and then they shut the company down.
“It was just a small try-out on how to run a company, and here, you can learn it as a kid,” she told a group of Malaysian journalists taking part in a recent programme in Stockholm.
‘Silicon Valley of Europe’
This is the ‘Swedish Model’, according to Rickberg, which opens the opportunity for the people to contribute towards establishing a more innovative Sweden.
This could also be the reason why this Nordic nation has become the ‘Silicon Valley of Europe’, home to several global start-up success stories such as the music app Spotify, consumer lender Klarna, and caller identification platform Truecaller – just to name a few.
“We have done this, despite having a modest population of around 10 million.”
Photo shows the Stockholm City Hall. With its spire featuring the golden ‘Three Crowns’, it is one of the most famous silhouettes in the Sweden’s capital city.
Head of KTH Innovation at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Lisa Ericsson, hailed the Swedish Model as having the favourable conditions for entrepreneurship in view of the risks not being very high.
Should a company fail, the people would not be left in a lurch, thanks to the strong social security system that had created a safety net for them.
Education is free, and healthcare is covered by taxpayers’ money. Those with employment could easily obtain leave of absence (without pay) to try out their business ideas, and should things do not work out, they could always return to their same employer.
For KTH, said Lisa, the leave of absence could be up to two years.
“And you can also get government grants to cover your start-up, or the initial grants to get you off the ground.
“It is not that you have to be very wealthy while that, of course, helps, but everyone with a good idea can actually start a company and the risks in Sweden are lower than those in some other countries, where you would need to put a mortgage on your house and should you fail, you would not be able to pay for your kids’ school,” she pointed out.
At the heart of Sweden’s capital city lies the old town island, Gamla Stan, recognisable by the quaint rows of buildings lining the square.
Platform for innovation
So, what is this Swedish Model that enables innovation? And what role does the KTH play?
According to Lisa, the institution is all about creating the right foundation to inspire innovative thinking and creative ideas among its students, employees and researchers.
“Not all universities are able to do that.
“The Swedish Model gives a lot of room for entrepreneurs and scientists to come together, creating a good mix of people with different competences that can bring something to the market.
“Sweden is a home to a relatively large number of multinationals, both old and new ones, and having access to large companies that also have global access, is important for innovation.”
It is known that one of the companies working closely with KTH is Ericsson Group – one of the largest employers of high-tech engineers in Sweden.
In his remark, Ericsson Group corporate officer Mikael Bäck regarded combining all the private sectors as important as this would result in competence in different areas compared to the government.
Bäck delivers a presentation on 5G technology during a session.
“We do quite a lot to inspire the university to innovate, with some of our education going in directions like communication technology.
“Then, we work directly with the professors, providing information and syncing with them on the newest development of 5G and 6G.
“Then, we basically offer them projects where they work for Ericsson.
“We can have Ericsson people working in the universities with them for certain projects. So, we exchange quite a lot of people,” he said.
One of the companies working closely with KTH is the Ericsson Group – one of the largest employers of high-tech engineers in Sweden. — AFP photo
‘Opportunities and challenges’
Academic staff members of Swedish universities enjoy something called ‘professor’s privilege’, in which researchers actually own their intellectual property (IP).
Lisa said with such privilege, it was crucial for the university to create the right conditions simply because innovation should be a simple setting-up, but it could be ‘very messy’.
“It is very complex. You have people coming together, and doing research together.
“You need to make sure that the university could clarify all the conditions and make sure that the IP created would be able to capture and commercialise. That’s one of the reasons why my department exists,” she said.
KTH Innovation has a team of 20 people, consisting of business development coaches, patent engineers, and those running the building.
With the mission of ‘inspiring innovation’, they are tasked with coming out with different programmes, outreach activities, and communications.
One of the programmes that the university is doing is ‘KTH Sustainable Fashion Day’ – one of the largest accelerating programmes for the fashion industry, where they work with designers and major companies such as H&M and Kappahl.
“We showcase clothes made out from a connection in fashion and tech. So, we are doing a lot of collaboration,” said Lisa.
“One of the dresses being showcased was made from leftovers from citrus production, which can be used to make new fibres.
“Then, there’s a shirt made of a material called ‘Circulose’ – a new material made by recycling cotton.
“They are scaling right now. If you buy a pair of Levi’s today, a certain percentage of the material is ‘circulose’, made using the same chemical process,” she pointed out, adding that there are many more programmes, researches and collaborations being conducted towards creating the right foundation for new innovation to happen in KTH.
‘Embracing failures’
Even with the right foundation, however, it does not mean that things go without any challenges.
“You cannot really expect that everything will succeed.
“There are big numbers (of ideas). You need to have a large number, and there will be few successes.
“You need to sort of embrace failures and learn from them, and then take on the next one.
“Even if it is difficult, but it is learning,” added Lisa.
Elaborating, she described failure as ‘something that would happen’.
“Just because people have great ideas and knowledge, does not mean that they are good in running a business.
“Apart from that, it could be that some ideas would not work.
“When we talk about all these successful entrepreneurs you see in the Swedish system, some had really silly start-ups the first time, but they’re able to learn from that, take that experience, and then start again.
“One of the largest digital healthcare company founders in Sweden, his first start-up was selling men’s underwear online because he did not want to shop.
“That’s quite a silly idea, but he learned all things about digital, how to scale digital companies, how to do online sales work, and a lot of things; he learned from all this.
“Then, he did something that was important and kind of more scalable company,” she said.
One of the greatest examples worth mentioning was a company called General Magic – the very first company that developed a smartphone in the 1980s and 1990s in Silicon Valley.
It failed, actually, because it got too advanced for that time and did lots of mistakes, said Lisa.
“Nonetheless, if General Magic never happened, there’s a possibility that all the technologies picked up by Apple, or even Android, would not have happened.
“I would say in Sweden, we’re getting better at not being ashamed of failure.”
‘Rise Europe’
Lisa did say that despite all these foundations being built, the Swedish government was afraid that all those people who studied in Sweden would take all these ideas back to their home countries.
“However, I believe that those people have built values in Sweden. Some of them may start their companies outside Sweden, but they still call themselves ‘Swedish companies’ and ‘spin-offs from KTH’.
“Over the last few years, KTH has added a more structured way of working with large companies, both in and outside Sweden.
“I believe that when it comes to very complex deep-tech companies, the university needs to have access to the industry very early on.
“Thus, we have set up what we call the ‘Catalyst Programme’ where we connect start-ups, academia and corporates.
“Then in that effort, not just to inspire its students to be innovative, the KTH has joined forces with other universities in Europe in what’s called ‘Rise Europe’ – a European network to empower European start-ups.
“It is a European tech ecosystem coming together, a bottom-up approach. It is not about how to get funding or create new programme; it is about joining forces, with Rise Europe ‘rising’ and competing with Asia and other countries,” she said.
‘A story to tell’
It has always been part of the KTH’s brand to be innovative, in view of its long history of almost 200 years.
Sweden itself has a long history of ever-emerging innovation – thanks to the right conditions, the effective ecosystem that have been put in place, as well as the strong social safety net that encourages the entrepreneurial spirit and fosters development.
A particular key contributor to the acceleration of innovation was the government policy of providing a computer at home for free through the ‘Home Computer Programme’ in the late 1990s.
According to Vinnova chief strategy advisor, Kjell Håkan Närfelt, innovation is the ‘interplay’ between the education, industry, political system, other consumer markets, and infrastructure.
“There is a lot of trust, and it is easy to get in touch with people, and you have a lot of collaborations.
“You cannot have innovation and develop new ideas, products or services unless you trust each other,” he pointed out.
“The fruit of that trust has turned Sweden into a top start-up hub; thus creating plenty of opportunities in Sweden.
“How people take advantage of the opportunity will decide the kind of story that Sweden can tell,” he added.
* The last part of this series will be out next Sunday, focusing on innovation and how its ongoing improvements are crucial to Sweden’s socio-economic growth and prosperity.