San Francisco and New York City have been traditionally thought as hotbeds for tech startup, but pockets of new talent has been popping up all over the world in strong urban centers where young people want to live like Berlin, Istanbul, London, Stockholm, Boulder and elsewhere. One of the major hotspots has been Sweden with companies like Spotify, Skype, King and Ericsson all leading the way in terms of innovation, where other major brands in H&M and Ikea have all made their name as brands from the Nordic country. With all of this talent focused in a city with 2 million people, it is surprising that there is no SXSW-style of conference to try and bring these people together all at once. That is about to change with two of the brightest minds in the city, Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify and Ash Pournouri, founder of At Night Management, which handles Avicii, Cazzette, Ishi and others is looking to start a new conference this summer.
Titled Symposium Stockholm, the conference will take place form June 8 to June 13, anchored by the tech and music-based Brilliant Minds Conference on June 11 and 12. The star-power involved does not start and end with Pournouri and Ek. Founding ABBA member Bjord Ulvaeus, Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg and Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström are among the executives who are expected to participate in Brilliant Minds.
"The reception [in Sweden] has been great, and everyone feels it's about time someone did something like this," says Pournouri to Billboard. "I don't think it's going to come from politicians because they're not incentivized in the long run for focusing on the politics, we're focused on all issues and problems. I just felt this responsibility was with us: if we don't do it who will?"
The week-long conference coincides with a series of other events happening around Sweden including Summerburst Festival, Polar Music Prize, Denniz Pop Awards and AVICII Fest, where the DJ is expected to preview some new music from his upcoming artist album Stories.
"I wanted to cast an eye on how those consumption behaviors can lead to creativity thriving," Ek says. "A lot of that dialogue seems to be happening in the U.S., but if you're a technology executive and you want to see how rapidly something can get adopted, look to Sweden, which has the third-highest per capita usage of new technologies."
