Almedalsveckan - “a democratic meeting place for everyone”
From July 3rd to 7th Almedalsveckan, the Almedalen Week, took place. Almedalsveckan is “a democratic meeting place for everyone” and the world’s largest week-long political gathering. Having started in 1968, the event takes place every year in the small-town Visby on the island Gotland in Sweden. It is a political event of dialogue, exchange, and unexpected meetings with the aim to develop our society. Here you can easily “bump” into Sweden’s prime minister, other leading politicians, game-changing entrepreneurs, and others.
Almedalsveckan, with approximately 45.000 unique visitors, is mainly a political event where each of the eight Swedish parliamentary parties present their agenda. However, since 1996, the festival is open to organizations and businesses and has now over 2.000 official events and an equal number of events outside the official program. Besides politics, the festival includes among others real estate development, architecture, urban planning and design, prop-tech, climate organizations, universities, and media.
After being cancelled in 2020 due to covid and a fully digital program in 2021, there was a sense of relief and celebration during the 2022 Almedalsveckan. The large number of presentations, panel discussions, and social gatherings offered the opportunity to (re-) connect with leading people in various fields of expertise offering a unique blend of professional (networking and knowledge exchange) and social interaction.
Unfortunately, Almedalsveckan was shocked by the murder of Ing-Marie Wieselgren, the National Coordinator for Psychiatry in Sweden. A knife straight into the heart of what is Almedalsveckan and what it stands for: openness, accessibility, and mutual respect.
Climate change and social challenges have always been high on the agenda at Almedalsveckan, but the urgency has become more apparent, new collaborations being built, and more innovative solutions presented. Although in the year of a national election, there was a noticeable shift from politics towards a higher presence of prop-tech start-ups and with that: more solutions than discussions, or more deeds – less talk.
At Techarenan the finalists of their annual entrepreneurship competition that is open to all Swedish and Nordic entrepreneurship-led companies in the startup and growth phase were presented. Especially worth mentioning here, as their work related specifically to the focus of the Pittsburgh Platform, are: Myrspoven: providing performance optimization of existing buildings, Ihopa: bringing new solutions for sharing, and Wordish: a software solution to overcome language barriers. It is promising to see the sheer number of initiatives that embrace new technology and innovation to create better cities while significantly reducing climate impact.
Another company that caught my attention is Vakansa, a startup providing sharing services to make use of empty spaces within our cities. Their founder Robin Rushdi Al-Sálehi stated that “If the real estate industry is to be sustainable, the entire construction sector and today's tenants must understand the basic problem that exist and help change it. Change it from rewarding emptiness, where offices are used as little as 10 percent of the time, to actually being used.”
Almedalsveckan for me marks the end of a year of hard work right before the summer break with lots of new contacts, even more inspiration, and a renewed positive view on how innovation secures the future of our cities.
Trevlig sommar!
Sander Schuur