In my role as a partner at Code4Nord, I get to go to Nordic tech events and learn about the hottest trends — and meet the most interesting people! — inside my home city of Copenhagen and all around Scandinavia. Occasionally, I’m going to share on our blog some highlights from these Nordic tech gatherings and offer a glimpse at where in the world the Code4Nord team — with bases in Romania, Iceland and Denmark — is headed next.
To start, why do I attend so many events? It’s a great way to reconnect with my Northern European tech network and to expand it. It allows me to stay tuned to what’s going on in the field. Events allow me to understand the current demand for new development resources, tooling and languages. And it makes sure innovative tech companies are familiar with the Code4Nord brand — we have a lot of return customers, but finding new ones enables us to expand our work family and they then help us have even more return customers.
By attending and networking at tech industry events, Code4Nord can keep our spot at the top of the line and bringing the best people to the table because we really understand what’s moving the market. It also allows me to learn about exciting new startups, which our team loves since it allows them to experiment with new developer tools.
Hbg Tech
First up this Spring, I got to travel to lovely Helsingborg, in the South of Sweden along the coast, for the Hbg Tech startup event. It’s a great one-day mix of startup pitches and important networking among founders. It maintained it’s fast-paced — usually 30-minute slots — with a good blend of company culture and innovative tech displays. This year it had a particular focus on artificial intelligence, which I suspect is a mix of the demand for more AI and a response to the great Scandinavian talent featured.
This year made it more apparent than ever that the Helsingborg startup scene is booming with a rapid emergence of a tech hub. And if you can’t make the big Hbg Tech event, they have great monthly meetings to keep the community engaged.
NY Consulting & Vækstfonden’s Yearly Meeting
Vækstfonden, the Danish Growth Fund, has an annual meeting that brings together hundreds of entrepreneurs with loads of entrepreneurs, making it one of the most important events to invest in innovation. Vækstfonden (pronounced Vixt-fun-den) is the biggest investment fund in Denmark. It’s half-owned by the government and focuses its investments mainly in the IT sector (as well as agriculture).
Vækstfonden is the leading provider of startup loans, equity, and investor matchmaking. Since Vækstfonden zeros in on highly scalable, highly innovative companies solving real issues, the annual meeting is not to be missed. It offers very special recognition of companies that build bridges, collaborating to solve issues together, and it includes a strong concentration of diversity and inclusion like women in tech. Plus, it embraces warmer weather with plenty of outdoor activities in our normally colder part of the world!
Copenhagen Fintech
With the pending B-word, there’s a demand for a new financial capital of Europe. Copenhagen is in the running to become one of the world’s leading fintech hubs. That’s why the aptly named Copenhagen FinTech — the Danish fintech members organisation with a startup incubator, coworking space, and new magazine — hold events that shouldn’t be missed. In mid-June, I joined their celebration of Copenhagen Fintech Week, which included giving its awards for — Best New Nordic Startup, Best Nordic Scaleup, and Best Nordic Design, all in the fintech space within Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland. Exciting stuff!
Financial technology is always an exciting place to build innovative software solutions around because it needs a mature service like Code4Nord to address the industry’s unique challenges — to move rapidly in response to rapidly evolving market demands, but to remain compliant and secure.
Where we’re going next?
Here are some of the upcoming events Code4Nord founder George and I are attending soon:
- Tech BBQ, 18-19 September, 2019: This is the biggest startup and innovation summit in Scandinavia and simply the best way to kick off the last part of the year. Some call it the European SXSW with a solid mix of tech, innovation, inspiration, and fun and food in the sun!
- High Tech Summit, 30-31 October, 2019: This cutting-edge event brings together tech providers and users in Lyngby, Denmark, to experiment, play and share learnings in areas including Industrial Internet of Things / Industry 4.0, big data and artificial intelligence (AI), sustainable energy and the climate crisis, and more.
- Slush, 21-22 November, 2019: “Nothing normal ever changed the world.” With a tagline like that, how could George and I miss this Helsinki gathering of more than 25,000 people, 4,000 startups, and 2,000 investors? More than a ripple, Slush is a splash with more events around the world, but a home first and foremost in Finland.
Know of other awesome tech events serving our Nordic audience? Please add them in the comments below or tweet them to us @Code_4_Nord!