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Smile, you’re on camera Danish mobile masts have brought the internet to East Africa, changing life in isolated villages. Now, Zawadi Mkongua can take a photo – and post it on Instagram in minutes.
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3D-printed gourmet meals at home
EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY
100 ideas that will change school
A robot is the eyes and ears of sick children
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Innovation is making the world a better place This is a great time to be alive. All over the world, incredible new ideas are transforming lives in remarkable, surprising and captivating ways. As technological innovation continues at break neck speed, our knowledge and assumptions are constantly being challenged. Sometimes it seems that even our wildest dreams could soon be possible. Will humans ever live on another planet? Will our children live forever? Will we end poverty?
Foto: Søren Rø nho lt
Flemming Lauridsen Director, Nordea Private Banking International
Nordea Private Banking · Nordea Bank S.A., 562 rue de Neudorf, L-2220 Luxembourg, P.O. Box 562 Luxembourg nordeaprivatebanking.com · nordea@nordea.lu · Tel +352 43 88 77 77
Ulla Madsen (EIC), Thomas Engelsmann (Ed), Nicolas Flandrin-Jones, Tiina Rautiainen, Peter Stanners, Ann-Sofie Hammarin and Mari Yli-Sirniö
A D A P TAT I O N
Datagraf Communications · Karen Gahrn (Ed) and Kasper Steenbach
DE SIGN & PRINT
Datagraf Communications · Front page: Lars Just
EDITORIAL TE AM
EM ÆRK
Tryksag 5041 0004
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Nordea Private Banking strives to ensure that the information presented in this publication is true and correct, but assumes no responsibility for its accuracy or completeness. Moreover, Nordea Private Banking cannot be held liable for any decisions or financial actions made based on the information presented in this publication. Reprinting, reproduction or further distribution is only permitted with the prior permission of Nordea Private Banking.
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PUBLISHER
Front page and page 2: Share visited the East African village of Sagara B to find out what happens when the internet comes to town. Paul Jackson (large photo) started his own business. He recharges phones for about €0.07 per charge.
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I D E A S
Innovation is the beating heart of our society and companies are scrambling to find ideas that will set them apart from their competitors. This has always been the case, but the pace of innovation has never been faster. Only a few years ago, we could not have imagined a cashless society where we transfer money using mobile phones. But this is one of the innovations that is driving economic growth and prosperity in developing parts of the world today. At the same time, we are becoming increasingly aware of the impact that we have on our planet. Products and services that prioritise sustainability are slowly but surely becoming the norm. From e-cars to fashion, our patterns of consumption and behaviour are increasingly matching our priorities to live within our means and pass on a healthy planet to the next generation. All of this energy and positive ambition creates wonderful opportunities for us to seize. Enjoy your read!
The internet gives young people new inspiration for what their future can hold beyond what they see here in the village. In the past, they didn’t have many ambitions, but now they see a world of opportunities. I m a n M a to ny a , te a c h e r i n S a g a ra B , Ta n za n i a
NORDE A PRIVATE BANKING | NOVEMBER 2017 | NO. 2
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Karen Dolva, from Norway, has invented a robot that serves as the eyes and ears of sick children in the classroom, helping to prevent social isolation.
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How do we create the world’s best school? Finland has plenty of good ideas.
Shigetaka Kurita, from Japan, is the man behind the first emoji. Find out where the idea came from.
Elevators that move in every direction can reduce the wait. They will be tested in a 246-metre-tall tower that is currently being built in Germany.
40 What role should the financial sector play in tackling climate change? Frode Pleym, Head of Greenpeace in Sweden, discusses the issue with Sasja Beslik, Head of Sustainable Finance at Nordea.
intro
profiles
regular
insights
themes
03 Welcome to Share
12 Karen Dolva A robot that combats isolation
11 What I’ve learned from money Paul Smith, designer
24 Jennifer Jansch Recycle your gift wrap
14 A Nordic region without borders If we had a Nordic football team
44 Rise of the electric car Which industries will win and lose from the switch to electric 46 Alternative investments Different ways to invest your money
15 When the internet came to Africa How a mobile mast can change people’s lives
06 One world. 1,000 ideas An elevator that can move in any direction and many other ideas from all over the world
58 Heini Zachariassen Wines of the world in your pocket
23 My eureka moment Shigetaka Kurita, inventor of the emoji 51 Investments throughout the ages Sneakers 60 Back page Cheat sheet, magazine highlights
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Living happily abroad Practical planning to to make the most of an international career
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Global opportunity Diversification is key when it comes to making investments
26 What will you eat in 2050? Dining in the future 52 100 amazing ideas for outstanding education
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Flying AED Sweden
From Pakistan to Kenya T E XT
BY
MARTIN
LEER
SCHARNBERG
In life and death situations, the time that emergency workers spend in traffic jams and on congested roads can prove fatal. That is why the Swedish company FlyPulse invented a system that sends help flying through the air where the coast is clear. Using GPS navigation, a drone equipped with an automated external defibrillator (AED) can automatically fly to the scene of an emergency and quickly deliver life-saving assistance to victims of cardiac arrest.
A drone automatically finds the fastest route to the person in cardiac arrest.
The best idea
In these pages we present a colourful collection of ideas from all over the world and ask the Nordic designer and entrepreneur Karen Dolva to tell us which ideas she considers to be the very best within four categories. Read her comments on the following pages – and go to page 12 for more on her own remarkable idea.
P h oto by S c a n p i x /A nta ra Foto
Body heat in a bag
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The ‘water bubble’ is sold in London, San Francisco and Boston at large events such as concerts and marathons, where the consumption of plastic bottles can be very high.
USA
In the first month, the hashtag #kampungpelangi was used nearly 3,000 times on Instagram. The village is now planning to paint a couple of hundred additional buildings.
Edible water bottle USA
Scalability
Rainbow Village Indonesia
Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Rome has the Colosseum, and a small Indonesian village has buildings painted in all the colours of the rainbow. Earlier this year, local politicians spent 300 million Indonesian rupiah, around €20,000, to colourfully paint 223 buildings in the village to attract tourists. In addition to the many colours, the village has also been given a new name, Kampung Pelangi, which means rainbow village – even the stairways, railings and benches have been painted. The strikingly-colourful make over has been a huge success. Tourists have flocked to see and photograph the rainbow village, boosting the local economy as the village residents sell food and souvenirs to the growing number of tourists.
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Imagine a water bottle that can be eaten, or that breaks down in nature like a piece of fruit. The company Ooho has developed a replacement for the plastic bottle – a fully biodegradable spherical membrane that contains a serving of water. Consumers can either eat the sphere whole, or suck out the water and discard the membrane, which biodegrades fully within four to six weeks. The membrane is made entirely from plants and seaweed.
A new sleeping bag design has the potential to save children’s lives. More than a million premature babies die within days of their birth because they lack body fat. The vast majority of these deaths occur in developing countries where high-tech incubators are in short supply. The Embrace Infant Warmer is a reusable and energy-efficient body warmer for infants. With the help of phase-change materials, the body temperature of the infant can be kept at the proper temperature for up to four hours. The material can then be ‘recharged’ and used again after a few minutes in boiling water. The Embrace Infant Warmer costs a fraction of the price of a modern incubator. The invention has so far helped more than 200,000 infants in 22 countries.
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EDIBLE WATER BOTTLE “I love the idea of the edible water bottle and, even though there is room for improvement, I think the idea is very good. Water is a huge and established industry. The primary challenge is to move the product from festivals to convenience and grocery stores. If they succeed, there is good potential for growth.”
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Telemedicine builds bridges Pakistan
It is now possible to consult with a doctor even when the doctor is hundreds of kilometres away. At least it is in Pakistan, where a new video consultation system has proven to be an effective solution to two problems. Only 30 per cent of women doctors are practising in Pakistan because women are limited to working from their private homes for cultural reasons. At the same time, 90 per cent of the poorest share of the Pakistani population cannot afford proper health care. Now, DoctHERs has managed to create affordable health care that also enables women doctors to practise their calling with the help of telemedicine clinics. At such clinics, patients can be attended to by a doctor via a direct video that links them with women doctors working from home.
Animalfriendly six-pack ring USA
Billions of litres of beer are consumed every year in the form of sixpacks held together by plastic rings. These plastic rings are very dangerous for marine life. But imagine a sixpack ring that is edible to animals, rather than deadly. This is what the Saltwater Brewery in the USA has set out to do with the Edible Six-pack Ring, an innovative ring for six-packs that is sustainably produced using barley and wheat that is left over from the brewing process.
The plastic ring is completely biodegradable, if it isn’t eaten by animals first.
Business
TELEMEDICINE BUILDS BRIDGES “Making jobs accessible in vulnerable areas is a fantastic initiative in itself, but I also think there are good business opportunities here. It taps into new work resources and can subsequently reduce costs. The combination with the good cause would make it very competitive to other telemedicine providers.”
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The tent jacket
The Shoe That Grows has already helped in Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda and Peru. In 2016, 40,000 pairs were distributed in more than 80 countries.
UK
Using water to fight water
Since the programme started in 2015, more than 23,000 patients have been treated virtually by the women doctors.
Creativity
Devastation is the eternal companion of flooding. But now it is possible to fight rising water – with water. The NoFloods portable flood protection system consists of parallel tubes filled with water. Together they form a barrier element with high static stability. It takes two or three people no more than four hours to deploy at least one kilometre of effective flood protection. So far, the system has been used in France, the Netherlands, the USA, the UK, Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Denmark and Thailand.
Shoes that grow Kenya
“One day in Nairobi, I saw a girl who had cut out holes in her shoes so her toes stuck out – that gave me the idea.” Kenton Lee, inventor of The Shoe That Grows
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BODY HEAT IN A BAG “This idea is one of the finest I’ve seen. An excellent example of a simple solution to a difficult problem. Whether it's a marketable solution, I don’t know. But I hope that a lot of people will help ensure that solutions like this reach everyone in need.”
Growing shoes sounds like something out of a Harry Potter book. However they're not magical, but a real invention that helps shoeless children in areas with serious sanitation challenges, which means there is a high risk of disease transmission from the soil to their feet. Millions of children in developing countries have no shoes because their families cannot afford to keep buying shoes as their feet grow. However, The Shoe That Grows is designed to grow with the foot in length, width and height using adjustable fasteners, so the shoe continues to fit. The shoe comes in two versions which can grow from EU sizes 27 to 33 and 33 to 38.
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Illustration: Sune Ehlers
Denmark
British designers have developed a jacket for refugees that can be folded into a sleeping bag or erected as a tent in just one minute. The wearable tent is made from Tyvek, a strong, yet lightweight waterproof material.
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Elevator in any direction Germany
Roads of plastic Netherlands
The Earth is paved with millions of kilometres of asphalt roads. But imagine if roads could be made from recycled plastic instead. PlasticRoad consists of pre-fabricated plastic modules that make it possible to build and maintain roads in days rather months. It is made from recycled plastic, which has a much smaller carbon footprint than traditional roads while being much more durable than asphalt. A prototype is currently under development, and the first pilot project, featuring bicycle paths made from plastic, will be launched in Rotterdam later this year.
Someone finally did the math: People working in New York City spend a total 5.9 years riding in elevators – but they also spend 16.6 years waiting for elevators. Every year. This wasted time is a problem for office buildings all over the world. But German firm Thyssenkrupp is seeking to address this with a new elevator system driven by motor technology instead of the cables and gears that are most common today. This makes it possible to operate several elevators in the same shaft and for them to move both vertically and horizontally. A 246-metre-tall tower is being built in Rottweil, Germany, where the new system will be tested in 12 shafts.
Change
Artificial coastlines clean the ocean
The young and the elderly under the same roof
Netherlands
Netherlands
In Deventer, Netherlands, the Humanitas nursing home has developed a model that helps to both alleviate the housing shortage for young students and improve the social lives of elderly residents. Young people may live for free at the nursing home, as long as they spend 30 hours a month with the elderly residents – keeping them company, eating together, and teaching them how to use email, social media and smartphones. Since Humanitas started offering free housing in exchange for charitable work in 2012, several other nursing homes in the Netherlands have followed suit.
“The idea came to me after a holiday in Greece. I was 16 years old and we were Scuba diving when I realised that I was swimming with as much plastic as fish.” Boyan Slat, CEO and Founder of The Ocean Cleanup
It is a fact of life under the sea that fish swim with plastic. The Ocean Cleanup is striving to change that with a system that enables the ocean to clean itself using its currents. By deploying an 'artificial coastline', made up of hundreds of metres of barriers that are fitted with an underwater net and attached to an anchor, the oceanic currents can collect the plastic in the water. The plastic that is captured in the net can then be hauled up and sailed to land. A prototype of the system was successfully tested last year in the North Sea. And within the next year, the first major project will be launched in the Pacific Ocean.
ARTIFICIAL COASTLINES CLEAN THE OCEAN “Another fantastic idea with huge potential. The problem with anything that operates on an international scale is: Who is going to pay for it? A lot of people are working on solutions to clean the world’s oceans. It is the personal story that makes this idea especially unique.”
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What I’ve learned from money
Interview by Kasper Steenbach / Photo by Getty Images /FilmMagic
“The idea of the cigarette tin has never really left me: If there was money in the tin, I could spend it. If it was empty, I didn’t spend any.” I was 15 years old when I got my first job and I earned 3 pounds, 5 shillings. That was a week’s wages, mind you. I lived at home with my parents until I was 18 so I could save up for new parts for my racing bicycle. I would upgrade my gears from Simplex to Campagnolo or buy new tape for the handlebars. My mum stayed at home, my dad made deliveries for a local clothing shop, and they never talked about money or gave me good advice about it. But I kept all my cash in an old metal
Born in 1946 in Beeston, southwest of Nottingham, England. Originally wanted to be a professional racing cyclist, but a serious crash put an end to that dream. Designs and sells clothing in his own name and under the name PS Paul Smith. Currently has 118 shops all over the world. Annual revenue of €246 million.
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Sir Paul Smith
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cigarette tin, which my father had given me for Christmas once. So in a way, I learn to watch my money thanks to him, whether he was aware of it or not. My clearest memory of having a sizeable amount of money was when my dad gave me 21 pounds on my 21st birthday. Those 21 pounds turned out to be a very good investment: I spent them on booze at Yates Wine Lodge in my hometown of Nottingham. That was the night I met Pauline, who would later become my wife. We’re still together 50 years later – so yes, those 21 pounds were well spent. I love giving gifts, but they aren’t necessarily all that expensive. Instead, I make an effort to find something personal. I might spend two years looking for a rare book, which I had heard a friend express an interest in. When I started earning money as a designer and shop owner, I was very conservative with my money. I have never spent more than I had, because that was how my parents had lived. The idea of the cigarette tin has never really left me: If there was money in the tin, I could spend it. If it was empty, I didn’t spend any. In my business, we’ve always been very careful about borrowing money, which probably seems old fashioned, but it meant that I avoided bad loans. I have always kept both feet planted firmly on the ground, and our development as a business has never been characterised by huge fluctuations, but rather by steady growth. When young design students ask me for advice today, I always tell them to get as much experience in the industry as possible. Hands-on experience is crucial. If it means selling clothing in a store in their spare time, then that’s what they should do. I’ve worked as a stylist, photographer, consultant for a shirt manufacturer and held all kinds of other jobs. And I trained with a professional tailor before opening my little three-by-three-metre shop in a basement under another shop at 10 Byard Lane in Nottingham. Everything grew from there.
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A ROB OT T H AT COM BATS IS OL AT ION
“It’s more than just a camera. There’s a person inside and it has your friend’s voice.” Karen Dolva has sent more than 200 robots out on a mission: To combat social isolation and loneliness among children and to be their eyes, ears and voice in classrooms all over the world. Text by Sandra Meinecke / Photo by Rene de Haan
Karen Dolva, aged 27, is not afraid to let her robots take over the world. In fact, with the backing of companies, organisations and private investors, she is working hard to make it happen. Her robot, the AV1, seeks to make the world a better place for children and young people who are sick and unable to attend school. There is no reason to fear this type of robot, according to the Norwegian entrepreneur. “We know that loneliness and isolation are a huge social problem. While talking with a friend, I realised that this was also true of children who are hospitalised for extended periods of time. The thought is almost unbearable,” explains Karen Dolva. That was when she began exploring how she could help these children. However, she came to the conclusion that she needed assistance. Technological assistance. With a background in interaction design, her solution was to build the world’s first telepresence robot, specially designed for children and young people with long-term illnesses. With their own private avatar, they can participate in the classroom and in the school yard from the comfort of their own home or hospital bed. An app on their mobile phone lets them control the robot so it
blinks, turns its head, responds to the teacher and speaks with friends. Shouldn’t children be allowed to take time off when they’re sick? “Yes, of course. But this is about helping them to avoid feeling socially isolated. We’re talking about children who have no alternative. They can’t be physically present, even though they want to be. So why not exploit the technological possibilities available to us so they don’t feel so alone and excluded?” asks Karen Dolva, who goes on to explain that some children have a permanent seat for their robot in the classroom, while others choose to have their robot double participate in excursions or school events only when they feel up for it. Have there been any sceptical reactions to the idea of replacing a child with a robot? “Yes, we’ve had a few people contact us about that. But not a single complaint has come from a parent of a child with a long-term illness, who understands what it means. Many of our investors are private individuals who’ve experienced isolation, and we’ve received funding from the Norwegian Children’s Cancer Society, which is well aware of the issue. One of our goals with the AV1 is also
to prepare the child for returning to school without falling too far behind socially.” What if their classmates forget about the robot? Couldn’t it make the child feel even more lonely? “We were actually afraid that would happen, but based on the feedback so far, it hasn’t been the case. It’s more than just a camera. There’s a person inside and it has your friend’s voice. The children have been very supportive of the idea. They’re from a hightech generation and it only takes them four seconds to get to know their sick friend’s avatar. They decorate it with stickers and bring it out with them during break, because it’s pretty cool to have a robot with you in the school yard. Luckily. So the more robots we build, the fewer lonely, sick children there will be.”
Karen Dolva’s robot has a speaker and a microphone that allows children, teachers and friends to both hear and speak to each other. It is also possible to draw eyes on the little robot – or dress it up in a bow tie.
More robots on the way Until March of this year, the number of AV1 robots could be counted on one hand. But with investments in the order of 25 million Norwegian kroner from a Norwegian pension fund and two family funds, production is picking up speed. The AV1 is currently manufactured at a factory in Norway. It is available online and has already been purchased by 250 sick children in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK. In most cases, the robot was paid for by the children’s schools. Now, No Isolation, the company behind the AV1, is developing technology that can help alleviate loneliness among the elderly.
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Interview by: Kasper Steenbach
A Nordic region w i th o u t b o r d e r s The world would be quite different if four Nordic countries became one. But how would it impact our chances in the upcoming World Cup finals? We asked Mattias Göransson, founder of Swedish magazine Offside, the leading football publication in the Nordics, to form a team comprised of the best players from Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. GOALKEEPER
DEFENCE
In Nordic football, the team is almost always the star. Schmeichel is not a child of the discipline and organisation that characterises the Nordic welfare model. He grew up with front-row seats to his father’s European Championship and Champions League finals, and now it’s his turn to play. His insatiable appetite for winning will hopefully rub off on the rest of the team, especially the Swedish members who tend to play far too nice and clean – except for Zlatan, of course.
If we want to capture the attention of audiences at home and around the world, we have to play sensational football. The Nordic team plays offensively and is goal-seeking, and that begins with a couple of fast and aggressive backs. It takes brilliant midfielders. Lindelöf is cool and collected and can adapt to any situation and environment. And together with Kjær’s international grit in close action, our playing style will be offensive, but less naïve than, say, Brazil’s.
Kasper Schmeichel
Denmark, Leicester, b. 1986
Daniel Wass
Denmark, Celta de Vigo, b. 1989
MIDFIELD
Talented players in the Nordics never view football as a way out of poverty. So what can compensate for that crucial survival instinct in the 90th minute? Our players are very well educated, so they’re good at thinking on their feet, and they’ve been raised in an intellectual society with all its creativity and positive attitude towards life. That’s how we should play ball, and who would be better than Eriksen and Forsberg to lead the way in this playing style. Tettey (born and raised in Ghana) and Delaney (who has an American father) will add international flair to the line-up.
Victor Lindelöf
Sweden, Manchester United, b. 1994
Alexander Tettey Norway, Norwich, b. 1986
Simon Kjær
Denmark, Sevilla FC, b. 1989
Ludwig Augustinsson Sweden, Werder Bremen, b. 1994
Thomas Delaney Denmark, Werder Bremen, b. 1991
Christian Eriksen
Emil Forsberg
Denmark, Tottenham, b. 1992
Sweden, RB Leipzig, b. 1991
Zlatan Ibrahimovic´
Sweden, Manchester United, b. 1981
SUBS’
Kasper Dolberg Denmark, Ajax, b. 1997
ATTACK
Some say that the greatest Nordic football player achieved success despite the Swedish social-democratic welfare model, NOT because of it. He defied his team mates, their parents, and his coaches, who wanted more teamwork rather than risky solo moves. Zlatan has always loved the spotlight, so when the Nordic team calls him up, he will, of course, drop his national team boycott. It will be the perfect way to round off his career and will definitely appeal to his ego. And what could be more beautiful than sending the most talented Nordic attackers to learn from the greatest Nordic attacker of them all?
BENCH
Robin Olsen
Lukáš Hrádecký
Håvard Nordtveit
Omar Elabdellaoui
Markus Henriksen
Jimmy Durmaz
John Guidetti
Goalkeeper, Sweden
Goalkeeper, Finland
Defence, Norway
Defence-midfield, Norway
Midfield-attack, Norway
Midfield-attack, Sweden
Attacker, Sweden
The team was selected in mid-August and does not take into account any team changes or injuries occurring after that time.
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The village that went online Text and photos by Lars Just
The movement is as simple as it is international. A man pulls out his mobile and goes online. Further down the mountain, a mobile mast peaks out above the brown tree tops, reaching towards the sky in an otherwise deserted part of Africa’s inner plains. Sagara B went online two years ago. In the middle of the small village, the Danish company, Bluetown, erected a mobile mast that runs on solar power and supplies
Wi-Fi in a radius of just over 500 metres. Many predict that the internet will give Africa the boost this corner of the world needs. Today, there are more than 300 million smartphones on the continent, but only a third of Africans are online. Share travelled to East Africa to see what happens when the unconnected world becomes connected.
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Contact. Despite Sagara B’s remote location, the internet has connected the village with the rest of the world, enabling the residents to communicate with relatives, watch the news and make purchases.
Tanzania
Smartphones. The company behind the mast has donated a number of free smartphones to the residents in the village and hired a local resident to teach them how to use the phones. The internet costs the equivalent of â‚Ź0.07 for a day and â‚Ź0.34 for a week.
Washing the mobile mast and solar panels. In addition to nine masts in Tanzania, Bluetown has initiated projects in India, Rwanda, Ghana and Iraq. The masts are connected via existing infrastructure, such as fibre optics, or via satellites, balloons or drones.
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Maria Willam checks the morning news with her children, Kyler and Jamila. Maria mostly uses the internet to chat with friends and spends two to three hours a day online.
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Ambitions. “I think the internet gives young people new inspiration for what their future can hold beyond what they see here in the village. In the past, they didn’t have many ambitions, but now they see a world of opportunities. And I believe that’s the most important reason to have the internet.” Iman Matonya is a teacher and uses his iPad in the classroom every day.
Beatrice Sudai doesn’t like the internet. She thinks her children spend too much time online instead of helping with the household chores. And she gets irritated when her husband checks Facebook during dinner.
Business. One young person in the village has started his own business, charging phones for €0.07 per charge. You can see the entire ‘shop’ on page 2.
Joseph Sudai is a tailor, and the internet has changed how he does business. He now receives orders for clothes over WhatsApp and places orders for cloth online that are delivered to him, which saves him the long journey to the nearest major city. All payments are made over the phone via a mobile payment service.
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‘Little by little, a little becomes a lot’ Tanzanian proverb
Interview by Martin Leer Scharnberg / Photo by Getty Images
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My eureka moment “I was shocked. It was just a heart…”
Examples of Shigetaka Kurita’s original emoji. Some were used in to represent a fish, and unexpected ways. People used the camera the yellow , which Shigetaka Kurita intended to be the symbol for the metro, was used to represent McDonald’s.
THREE PATHS TO A GOOD IDEA Multiple solutions A really good idea solves several challenges at once. For instance, the emoji solved the challenge of the lack of space on mobile phone screens and the challenge of expressing emotions and moods digitally.
Forget about everyone else A good idea starts with you. Don’t try to figure out what other people want. If an idea works for you, then it will probably work for others.
Steal and borrow Trailblazing ideas that nobody has ever seen before don’t exist. New ideas come from tweaking, combining and building on other people’s ideas. If I hadn’t invented the emoji, someone else would have.
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I drew the first emoji by hand in 144 pixels. 12 quadrants high, 12 quadrants long, and then I filled them in. I imagined the emoji would be used to send short, precise messages about what people were doing, where they were or how they felt. I then restricted the field to symbols that could be useful in daily life. My primary inspiration was the way the weather is visualised on the news. It took a month from the birth of the idea, until the first set of emoji were ready, which were were launched on February 22, 1999. Losing all those customers because of a heart left an impression on me, and that’s why not just one, but five of the first 176 original emoji are hearts.
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I was shocked. It was just a heart. Customers were leaving us for a simple little heart. That’s when I realised that symbols had to be part of any text service. It was an eye-opening experience. Not only did I comprehend the value of symbols, I had also found the solution to the lack-of-space issue we had with the new, small mobile phone screens compared to emails on computers. If people could write using symbols instead of words, they didn’t need much space. I thought this could vitalise the mobile phone, which was a market we were extremely vested in.
Today, Shigetaka Kurita is 45 years old and works for a large Japanese IT company. He was on the payroll at NTT DoCoMo when he designed the original emoji, but other than that, he has not profited from his invention. Last year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York added Shigetaka Kurita’s 176 emoji to the museum’s permanent collection.
Ph oto: B e h rous M e h r i /AF P
Mobile phones were gaining ground in 1998, but the pager was still the most popular device in Japan at the time. I worked as head of development at an IT company whose pagers not only sent numerical messages like phone numbers, but also had a function where people could send a heart symbol to each other. Our biggest competitor offered the same option, and when we released a new pager without the heart function, we suddenly lost most of our customers to them. News of the missing heart spread among schoolchildren and students, so they dropped us.
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RE USA BL E GIF T W R A PPING
“My dream was to start an environmentally friendly company that could be run from anywhere in the world.” Designer Jennifer Jansch’s idea is simple: why not wrap gifts in a reusable bag? It is good for the environment and the reusable bag is a gift in itself. Text by Gry Koefoed / Photo by Henric Lindsten
Four billion trees are felled every year just to make paper. Some of these trees are transformed into gift wrapping, using a highly polluting process. Finally, after a very short lifespan, the wrapping is transformed into millions of tonnes of rubbish in the USA alone. Swedish designer and home interior stylist, Jennifer Jansch, set out do something about it. Instead of messing about with gift wrapping and tape and never having enough hands to make a perfect bow, you simply place the gift in a cloth bag, pull on the ribbon and voilà, your gift is wrapped. The recipient can reuse the bag, or use it for storage. Six years ago, she and her husband sold their home in Stockholm along with practically everything they owned and bought a one-way ticket to New York with their three children. Today, her environmentally friendly Bag-all cloth bags are sold by retailers in 27 countries, including the prestigious Bloomingdale’s department store in New York. What was the plan when you arrived in New York? “My dream was to start an environmentally friendly company that could be run from anywhere in the world. It’s important to me that my company
and my product are environmentally friendly. I have always been environmentally conscious, but when I had my three girls, it became even more important to make sure we left behind a healthy planet for them and their children to grow up in.” Once Jennifer Jansch got the idea for reusable gift bags in cloth, Bag-all Inc. quickly took off. “When I get an idea, I can’t stop until it becomes a reality. So I immediately pulled out my sewing machine and started experimenting with different bag designs.” Do you remember how you felt when you launched your idea? “I remember the joy when I sold my first gift bag. My webshop had been open for a couple of weeks and hadn’t had a single sale, just a few visitors. So, I was a bit disappointed and worried. Suddenly my phone went ‘ding’ – the sound of an incoming order. The whole family jumped up and down and I rushed to pack the order with great care. Then I jumped on my bike and rode to the nearest mailbox, which was more than 3 kilometres from our cottage in Sweden, where we were on holiday. Along the way, it started to rain, but I couldn’t have cared less – I had just received my first order.”
Where do you do business today? “Bag-all is currently sold in 27 countries in addition to brick-and-mortar stores in New York and Stockholm. I’m not interested in investors, so I consistently reinvest all profits in the company so we can expand. I don’t want to have to justify to an investor why I need pompoms at $7 a piece instead of $0.67.” What drives you? “I do it because I love it – spreading the idea of recycling and creating jobs for people. I have amazing staff. One of them is on holiday in Florida right now, and she can afford to do that because she works here. That makes me happy. We also have a lot of workers in China and India, and being responsible for giving so many people jobs is very satisfying. The pompoms we have on some of our bags are made by a mountain tribe in Thailand and they can send their children to school in the village with the money they earn. It’s like rings in water – it’s wonderful to see that the children are going to school and getting an education.”
Soon, Jennifer Jansch, her husband and their three daughters will once again pull up stakes – this time to live in Bali. The company is moving with them.
Gift wrapping is a contaminant • Gift wrapping is often dyed and laminated and contains materials such as gold and silver thread, which means it can’t be recycled. If it is thrown into the recycling bin, it becomes a ‘contaminant’, meaning none of the contents of the bin can be recycled. • In Denmark alone, 825 tonnes of gift wrapping are thrown out every year. • In 2010, more than $9 billion in gift wrapping was sold in the USA, according to the Wall Street Journal. This figure is expected to be even higher today.
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This is not meat It looks like beef, but doesn’t come from a cow. American companies are trying to reinvent meat, fish and dairy products. Share has tasted the future, where a steak is made from plants, a meal can be downloaded and printed in the kitchen at home, and meal worms are the livestock of the future. TEXT
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WHAT YOU’LL BE EATING IN 2050
P hoto: Im po ssi b le Foo ds
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merican Bob Eisenbach holds the future in his hands. It is not the sesame roll, the caramelised onions or the Cajun dressing, but rather the patty at the heart of the very traditional-looking burger – and now he is taking a huge bite. “It’s really good,” he says. “It’s still pink in the middle and crispy on the outside, just the way I like it.” Bob Eisenbach has just tasted the meat of tomorrow – a patty made from plant proteins that is just as juicy and even ‘bleeds’, making it very difficult to tell the difference from the real thing. It has been dubbed the Impossible Burger and here at Public House, a sports bar in San Francisco that also serves pulled pork, hot dogs and chicken wings, it has become a surprise hit since its launch earlier this year. “In the beginning, we sold around 100 of them a day – so many that I started dreaming about them in my sleep,” laughs head chef Jorge Lumbreras as he flips burgers at the back of the kitchen. For a while, Public House actually sold more Impossible Burgers than beef burgers, and customers from all over the USA, Germany and Japan have found their way to the restaurant to taste the special burger. “I’ve had customers who said they would stop eating beef if they could buy this burger patty in the grocery store,” says Jorge Lumbreras. Returning customer Bob Eisenbach says he’d do the same. He has become a huge fan – this is the tenth time he has had the burger. “It’s like there’s a cognitive disagreement about everything the experience is telling me, that this is meat I’m biting into. In a blind taste test, I wouldn’t be able to guess which one wasn’t made from meat,” he says. Sustainable meat
Meat-free meat is one solution to the world’s enormous environmental problems. Raising livestock requires vast amounts of feed, water and land, and according to
WHAT YOU’LL BE EATING IN 2050 Text by Sole Bugge Møller / Photos by Noel Spirandelli
Meat and the environment We eat enormous amounts of meat in the West and, if we continue at this rate, carbon emissions will increase by 50 percent by 2050. Even if we follow the WHO’s dietary advice on how much meat we ought to eat, carbon emissions would still increase by seven percent. “If we eat just a little less meat, it can make a huge difference in our carbon footprint,” explains Charles Godfray from Oxford University, adding that there is also a health-related bonus in the form of fewer lifestyle diseases. “Many studies show that a high intake of processed meat, and especially red meat, has a negative impact on health.”
The ambition of geneticist and veggie-burger mastermind Pat Brown (right) is to make a burger so delicious Texans will eat it. That is what they are working on in Redwood City, south of San Francisco, where two thirds of the Impossible Foods staff are experimenting with refining the taste, smell, consistency and appearance of the ‘meat’.
Animals are a prehistoric technology for turning plants into meat. It’s obvious – both from a deliciousness standpoint as well as a nutritional and affordability standpoint – that we can outperform animals.
Meat in figures
Pa t Brown , i nventor of Im p ossible Burger Meat production emits
7.1
gigatonnes of CO₂
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, meat production is responsible for 15 per cent of all our carbon emissions. At the same time, our meat consumption is expected to increase by 60 per cent by 2050, as the earth’s population approaches 10 billion. “The current system for mass-produced meat is on the verge of collapse, and is unsustainable in a future where we need to feed 10 billion people,” according to Emily Byrd, head of communication at the Good Food Institute, a non-profit organisation seeking to promote innovative foods. Experts agree that there is a need for more sustainable ways to develop foods and this is where Impossible Foods enters the picture. According to the company’s calculations, replacing just one traditional beef patty would save the equivalent amount of carbon as a 29-kilometre car ride, as well as saving the equivalent of 25 days of drinking water. Impossible Foods is not the only company to see the writing on the wall and innovative food processing companies are considered a hot investment in Silicon Valley. Hampton Creek already sells egg-free mayonnaise and cookie dough, and the company has recently announced that they have started to manufacture artificial meat from stem cells, which they expect to sell in stores by the end of 2018. That is three years earlier than competitor, Memphis Foods, expects consumers to be able to eat lab-grown beef and poultry. Start-ups like New Wave Foods and Finless Foods are trying to produce fish and shellfish to address the issue of overfishing (New Wave Foods’ shrimps made from algae and plant protein have already been served at selected restaurants in
per year, corresponding to around 15 percent of our total greenhouse gas emissions. That’s about as much carbon as the combined
transport sector – cars, lorries, buses, ships, aircraft – emits globally.
Beef is the biggest culprit, responsible for
65
per cent of all emissions from livestock. Meat is not a very efficient source of calories. For every 99 calories a cow eats, we only get
1
little calorie
in the form of meat, while the corresponding figure for chicken is 89 calories to 1.
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San Francisco and in the canteen at Google’s headquarters), while Perfect Day Foods make milk and dairy products by fermenting whey protein. And then there is Beyond Meat, which makes chicken strips, ground meat and burger patties from soy and pea protein. The products are available in grocery stores across the United States and taste so similar to conventional meat that their Beyond Burger was allegedly sold out in an hour when it was first put on the shelves in a Whole Foods store in Boulder, Colorado. Recreating meat from scratch
“Impossible” is written in big white letters across Pat Brown’s chest. It certainly wasn’t an easy mission when the scientist quit his job at Stanford University in 2011 and founded Impossible Foods with the declared goal of “reinventing” meat made solely from plants. Until then, he had headed up a genetics lab at Stanford, but didn’t feel like he was making a difference. He took a sabbatical to think about how the biggest environmental problems in the world could be solved, and came to the conclusion that meat is one of the biggest climate sinners. So he organised a conference to bring together the brightest scientific minds in the field. But he also came to the realisation that academia was not going to be the solution. “I realised that it was a complete waste of time, because I’m not going to move the needle by educating and persuading people. A much surer way is to make products that outperform conventional meat in all the ways consumers value,” says Pat Brown. With his background in research, he initiated a collaboration with scientists who could break meat down into its component parts and then rebuild it, molecule by molecule. The result is the Impossible Foods lab in Redwood City, south of San Francisco. They have 100 scientists working to refine the taste, smell, consistency and appearance of the meat. The lab is filled with beakers, Petri dishes and flasks of liquid nitrogen as well as a blender here and there. One of the employees is pressing a little meatball flat with a machine that vibrates to see how the meat behaves under pressure. Another is stretching a piece of meat out between two small clamps to see when the meat fibres tear. In a little cubicle with plastic walls, a man is sticking his nose into a funnel to smell meat and describe the aroma.
Bloody breakthrough
Celeste Holz-Schietinger spends her days in the lab. She is Impossible Foods’ leading flavour scientist, and her primary objective is to figure out how a meat-free burger can make mouths water. “I’m trying to understand what kind of sensory experience we get from eating meat and which components are responsible. Then we find out which plants have the same characteristics,” she says. Impossible Foods’ current recipe is the fifteenth incarnation of the burger, and Celeste Holz-Schietinger admits that the previous versions were not particularly appetising. “They were very complex, because we still didn’t fully understand how the components of beef interacted with each other,” she adds. The breakthrough was the discovery of leghaemoglobin, which can be extracted from the root of soy beans. The protein is nearly identical to haemoglobin, which is found in blood and gives meat its red colour and has a metallic taste. “We quickly discovered that haem also produces the meaty taste,” Celeste Holz-Schietinger explains. To extract it, scientists at Impossible Foods inserted a plant gene into a type of yeast cell. This causes it to produce haem, which they can then concentrate and add to the meat. It has made a huge difference to the taste. In the beginning, 94 percent of the test subjects preferred a conventional
The Impossible Foods burger contains
Wheat protein and potato protein (without carbohydrates and starch)
Haem enriched with vitamins, amino acids and sugar
Xanthan and konjac
Coconut oil with a little added soy protein
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Head chef Jorge Lumbreras serves up veggie burgers at the Public House sports bar in San Francisco. Customer Bob Eisenbach (above) says it is like biting into a bloody burger.
burger made from beef, rather than the new burger, in a blind taste test. However, in the most recent test, that figure dropped to 53 percent. This means that nearly half of the taste test subjects preferred the meatfree burger to the real thing. But Celeste Holz-Schietinger is not resting on her laurels. She is convinced that the taste can be refined even further. “This is not the final result,” she proclaims. Texas or the drawing board
For now, Impossible Foods only sells their burgers at select restaurants in the USA. The first was star chef David Chang’s Momofuku in New York, a move that gave Impossible Burger the necessary hype and exclusivity to make the burger something of a phenomenon. But it was more than just a smart marketing move. “Half of all ground beef produced in the US is consumed in restaurants, so there’s a huge market to expand into. However, longterm we’re planning on being in grocery stores and restaurants all over the world,” says Pat Brown. He fully understands that if Impossible Foods and the other meat alternatives are going to get Americans and the rest of the burger-loving world to give up meat for dinner, it will be through our taste buds. And one of the biggest tests for the company is its recent expansion into Texas, an American state famed for steaks and barbecues.
“We need a product delicious enough that people in Texas want to eat it. If we can’t satisfy Texas, we might as well go back to the drawing board,” admits Pat Brown. Meat alternatives have existed for decades – primarily in the form of various tofu products – without reaching the masses. But the new generation of veggie burgers is much closer to achieving the coveted meaty taste, bringing new potential for mass distribution. “If you had asked me five years ago, I would have said that meat alternatives don’t look very promising, but that has changed dramatically. Primarily because it now provides as much enjoyment as eating meat,” explains Charles Godfray, director of the Programme for the Future of Food at Oxford University, which is exploring how we can innovate the food system. According to market research firm Lux Research, demand for meat alternatives will double by 2024, and one third of all our protein will come from plant-based foods by 2054. “It has the potential to be a very important part of the solution to our environmental problems, and I think it can completely transform the meat industry,” concludes Charles Godfray. Tastes like discount meat
In California, Impossible Foods plans to revolutionise more than just ground beef. They have developed comprehensive knowledge about meat in their database and are already experimenting with other products, like steak, fish, chicken and dairy products, although Pat Brown emphasises that their focus right now is on perfecting the burger. “Animals are a prehistoric technology for turning plants into meat. It’s obvious that – both from a deliciousness standpoint, as well as a nutritional and affordability standpoint – we can outperform animals in that task,” concludes Pat Brown. But the race isn’t over yet. At the Public House sports bar, another customer, Graham Heimberg, has just eaten an Impossible Burger for the first time, but he has not fallen head-over-taste-buds. “It tastes a little like discount meat,” he says, adding that the flavour was too mild and lacked richness, in his opinion. “It’s impressive that it tastes so much like meat, but if you compare it to good-quality beef, I would choose the latter.”
The price of a cow-less burger So far, meat alternatives cost a little more than ordinary meat. A package of two Beyond Burgers patties costs $6 – about the same as a package of organic beef – while Impossible Burgers generally cost the same as beef burgers at the restaurants where they are served (though, the company will not reveal whether they subsidise the price). Impossible Foods will soon open a factory in Oakland, which will have the capacity to manufacture 4 million burger patties a month. This should bring down the price per kilo. In theory, meat alternatives are less costly to manufacture than conventional meat because there is less waste and the process requires less energy.
Stem cell beef The world’s first cultured beef patty was created at Maastricht University in the Netherlands in 2013, where scientists produced a beef patty from stem cells from two calves. However, the project had a price tag of €250 million, so it will be a while before the burger reaches your grill. But several American companies have similar meat products on the way to consumers – one company expects to go to market as early as next year. And ‘clean meat’ has a huge potential, according to Emily Byrd of the Good Food Institute: “It’s not very efficient to raise a whole cow with eyes, a tale and hooves, when what you want from it is a steak. With clean meat, you can cultivate the exact piece of meat you want and nothing else.”
P r i nt y o u r m e a l 3D-printed food can be tailored to individual needs. Experts predict that personalised food will revolutionise how and what we eat within the next few years. Text by Anders Ryehauge
How 3D meals are printed
“I think we’re coming to a turning point,” says Daniel van der Linden. He is a business developer at TNO, an independent firm that works with applied science within a wide range of fields in The Haag, Netherlands. The company – which has experimented with 3D printing for 25 years – has worked on printing food for the past seven years and is considered the market leader in the field. Daniel van der Linden calls the advent of the 3D printer a paradigm shift in the food industry. The printer works like an ordinary printer, only it uses food instead of ink. So far, the printer has had its commercial breakthrough in the chocolate and sweets industry, but on an experimental basis, strides have also been made in printing meat and vegetables. Today, printing food requires blending the food before filling it in the printer. With the help of a computer program, it is then possible to design the shape, texture and structure of the food with millimetre precision. “What we call personalised meals is one of the big trends, and 3D printing has tremendous potential in this area, because you can design every detail,” says Daniel van der Linden.
Today, 3D printers require blending the meat, potatoes or a carrot beforehand. In a computer program, you can design the food, taking into consideration the shape, structure and texture. This makes it possible to control the taste and calorie content, add vitamins as needed, and cater to our different bodies. Currently, the greatest challenge is ensuring that the printed food is as crisp and juicy as possible.
P hoto: Food Ink
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WHAT YOU’LL BE EATING IN 2050
A completely personal meal
One of the first 3D food printers on the market, Focus, has been developed by the Dutch company, byFlow, based in Eindhoven. The price is around €3,000. “We’ve already reached the stage where the food is of high quality and the printer is easy to use. However, it is unfortunately still very expensive for the ordinary user,” explains Frits Hoff, CEO, byFlow. Last year, a select few individuals were invited to taste food printed by Focus at
Food Ink, a pop-up restaurant in London. The nine-course meal – featuring colourful delicacies such as mashed potatoes with squid ink, flower-shaped guacamole, little goat cheese tarts, and steak tartare – was devised and designed by several top chefs from Spain, one of whom worked for a period at elBulli, which has been crowned the world’s best restaurant five times. Most of byFlow’s current customers are institutions, which buy the printer for research purposes. However, the company has also begun to sell to restaurants, bakeries, chocolate factories – and private individuals. Frits Hoff compares the food printer’s current stage with the espresso machine five or six years ago, when only a handful of luxury consumers could afford one. Today, espresso machines are found in most offices and in many private homes. The Technological Institute in Aarhus, Denmark, is experimenting with a very simple 3D printer that takes just eight minutes to print a carrot. So far, the experts have studied whether the technology can influence children’s attitudes towards healthy food. They printed star-shaped carrots for 21 children and let them choose between the star and a traditional carrot. Seventeen children chose the star. The technology is ripe with possibilities, according to Mia Fiilsøe Falkeborg, specialist at Technological Institute. “We’re seeing a great deal of focus on the personalised meal at the moment. How can we make delicious, healthy and natural food that is tailored to the individual’s needs? A 3D printer can do that. It’s ingenious. You just press a button and out comes your favourite meal. You can even add vitamins, adjust the calories and whatever else will suit your needs,” she says.
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Photo : Techno lo gical Institu te
In the future, you will be able to use a 3D printer at home to print good quality and aesthetic pre-designed food by simply buying food in a container and starting the printer. The Dutch company byFlow is collaborating with several Michelin chefs, including the renowned Jan Smink. He is a chef at Librije, which has been crowned the best restaurant in the Nether lands multiple times. The chefs are designing recipes that ordinary users will be able to access, for instance via an app.
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Become your own Michelin chef
3D-printed food has the potential to get more children to choose healthy vegetables. In an experiment with 21 Danish children, 17 chose a 3D-printed star instead of the traditional carrot.
Health in layers
at a German nursing home, where many of the elderly residents had difficulties chewing and swallowing. Up to 25 personalised meals were printed an hour, consisting of meat, potatoes, carrots and peas, which looked just like the traditional meals they already knew. The difference was that the food had a textural structure designed to meet the individual elderly person’s needs. Daniel van der Linden believes that the 3D printer for food will have its breakthrough within the next 12 to 18 months. It will be used at hospitals and nursing homes to start with, but as the functionality increases, the price drops, and people get used to the idea, the printer will enter people’s homes. “Not everything we eat in the future will come from a printer, but it will be a fantastic addition to traditional food. Being able to use a food printer at home that can cater to the needs of your age, weight and health, and print the exact snack or meal your body needs, would have a significant impact on your life.”
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In recent years, new research has shown how differently our bodies react to exactly the same foods. Because the 3D printer prints in layers, it is possible to create a very detailed food structure. For example, you can add small amounts of sugar or salt right at the start, to ensure the food is both flavoursome and healthy. It will also be possible to cater for illnesses, allergies and other health issues. byFlow has also joined forces with a company that specialises in genetic analysis, which can predict a person's individual needs. CEO Frits Hoff believes this will make it possible to significantly reduce the use of medicine “New research is helping us to understand precisely what you need depending on your genetics and DNA. We’re learning more every day about how important personalised food is for good health,” he says. In 2015, TNO concluded a three-year project supported by EU funding. The company used 3D printers to personalise meals
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A million tonnes of food goes straight in the rubbish bin Every year we throw away 1.3 billion tonnes of food globally. That corresponds to – wait for it – around one third of all the food produced in the world. We have collected four simple app solutions that can help you make a difference. Text by Anders Ryehauge
If we could get used to “reusing” food – from our neighbours or a local restaurant – we could all make a significant impact on reducing food waste. Nearly half of all fruit, and 20 percent of all meat, ends up in the rubbish bin. British daily The Guardian has calculated that the scale of our food waste is so enormous that we could build a mountain three kilometres wide and as high as Mount Everest using food discarded in a single year. This is more than just an immense amount of waste, it is also costly for individuals. One study from the UK found that the average family throws out food worth around €800 a year. In recent years, a large number of EU-funded projects have been launched with the goal of reducing food waste. And the smartphone has made it even easier. We have found four simple apps you can download on your phone in Europe.
1. The Helsinki-based app Froodly allows users to share information about marked-down products in their local grocery stores. You can upload photos of the marked-down product along with information about price and location to tell others about it. When you share information, you are rewarded in various ways, such as with coffee vouchers at cafés. Froodly was launched in spring 2016 and in 2017 will expand to the international market.
2. The Finnish food waste app ResQ was launched in 2016. It enables users to find restaurants that sell surplus food at a reduced price. The goal is to expand internationally during 2017 – last spring the app launched in the Swedish market.
3. Too Good To Go was founded in Denmark in late 2015. Since then it has expanded to cover much of Europe and several major cities in the USA. The app can be used to search for restaurants, cafés, hotels, grocery stores and bakeries selling surplus food at reduced prices. Too Good To Go won the Nordic Council Environment Prize in 2016.
4. Olio aims to reduce food waste by connecting neighbours all over the world. You can use the app to announce when you have made too much food, so anyone nearby can come and get some. The creators released Olio in northern London in 2015, but it has since expanded into a global enterprise.
Mads Friche had an idea. And now pigs and cows on the old farm in Western Jutland have been replaced by crates of – meal worms.
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WHAT YOU’LL BE EATING IN 2050
The meal worm i s th e n e w b e e f The insect is a surprisingly good contender for the new farm animal. These little creatures are already enjoyed by two billion people without hesitation. However, mass production is a new and untried phenomenon. But not for long. Text by Anders Ryehauge / Photos by Michelle Berg
On an old farm in Tarm in Western Jutland, Mads Friche spends most of his waking hours in the company of approximately 200 kilograms of living meal worms. In collaboration with two partners, he has founded Heimdal Entofarm, Denmark’s first dedicated insect farm. The team expect to receive approval to sell insects as food later this year. For now, though, most of their time is spent experimenting with the meal worms to achieve the best conditions for a sustainable farm. The life cycle of the meal worm is very different from that of traditional livestock. They start out as eggs, become full-grown worms, and after a
period of time in pupa, they change into beetles which then lay more eggs. Much of what Mads Friche and his colleagues are testing is how temperature and humidity affect production and how best to sort the crates of meal worm into different stages. “This is all new knowledge. Insect farming is still a relatively small and niche industry, and there is very little information available about meal worm production. We have already learned a great deal, like how best to feed them to support their development. But the two big challenges are scaling up the production to thousands of tonnes, and automation, as with traditional farming,” he explains.
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WHAT YOU’LL BE EATING IN 2050
Mads Friche likes to sprinkle dried meal worms on his soft-boiled eggs. In the ‘stables’, meal worms are stored in plastic trays.
Insect farming in Sem, Norway
Insects permitted as food in EU from 2018
“Protein will be the new gold,” according to Frederick Richard. He is founder and CEO of Nordic Food Supplements AS, which is headquartered in Sem, Norway. Since October 2016, they have been conducting research into meal worms as livestock. They started with a few kilos of meal worm larvae and rented a farm, where they began testing temperature, humidity, environment and lighting. Today, the farm houses just over 100 kilos of meal worms. Frederick Richard sees the biggest potential for insects as animal feed. “It will be difficult to convince people to eat insects for dinner. But I don’t think people will care as much whether their chicken feed contains insects or soy beans, and that alone would be a huge benefit to the environment.”
Until now, the sale of insects for human consumption has been prohibited according to the European Union Novel Foods Regulation. However, the law is a little fuzzy, which has resulted in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK permitting it anyway. In spring 2017, EU legislation was changed so that as of January 1, 2018, companies will be able to apply to sell specific types of insects. Meal worms and crickets are expected to be the first insects to be approved for sale for human consumption.
Meal worms, along with crickets, grasshoppers and the black soldier fly, ought to replace the much more resource-intensive pigs and cows and become the new primary livestock, according to leading experts in the field, a number of first-movers in the Nordic region, and UN recommendations. Just over a million insect species have been identified around the world, but it is estimated that there could be 10 million or more that have yet to be discovered. At least 2,000 types of insects are considered edible and around two billion people already eat insects that are primarily foraged from the natural environment. In recent years, Noma in Denmark and The Fat Duck in the UK – both crowned the world’s best restaurant on multiple occassions – have attracted a good deal of attention for featuring insects on their menus. But the novel development is not so much in serving insects on a plate, but rather the domestication of certain species of insects and turning them into new types of livestock. “The revolution is upon us, it’s just getting started,” says Lars-Henrik Lau Heck-
mann. He is a project manager at Technological Institute, an independent body in Aarhus that is conducting research into the technology of the future. Farming of tomorrow
Thai insect farms
The oldest and most well-developed exam-
Insects in fizzy drinks and snacks In autumn 2016, Pepsi’s CEO, Indra Nooyi, announced that the company was investing in research into insects as a potential source of protein in soft drinks and snacks. She predicts that insects will be the most common snack in the western world by 2026.
P hoto : Po lfoto / Zhang Che nl in X inhua
Lars-Henrik Lau Heckmann is currently involved in six major new projects that are investigating how to scale up insect production. One project, called Invaluable, is funded by Innovation Fund Denmark and has a budget of €3.7 million, making it the largest European research project to date on insects as feed and food. “The possibilities in the future are huge for insects as animal feed and human food. They can have a significant impact because traditional farming places tremendous strain on the earth’s climate and environment. They will be a brand new commercial foodstuff that can be produced in volumes that can actually make a difference on a global scale.” Lars-Henrik Lau Heckmann predicts that within a few decades at least 10,000 new insect factories or ‘insect farms’ will crop up in Europe. Each will be able to produce at least 10,000 tonnes of edible insects a year. He believes that it has the potential to be a billion-euro industry, but right now the industry is still in its infancy. “It’s like a pig that has recently been domesticated but has only just become industrialised,” he says. “When you compare one insect with another, they’re just as different as working with pigs or cows. So right now, we’re focusing on developing value chains for the four different insect species on an industrial scale.” Technological Institute recently established an industrial incubator in which the production of meal worms can be tested under conditions that would be relevant for industrial purposes. They can measure temperature and feed intake to see how they influence output in large-scale production conditions. “We are at a point where we’re learning something new all the time. It’s like sending a rocket to the moon for the first time. We need to have the basic systems in place before we can put it all together and say: Okay, now we’re ready to cut the red ribbon,” says Lars-Henrik Lau Heckmann.
Insects on Mars In 2014, the China National Space Administration conducted an experiment in which three taikonauts lived for three months in isolation and had to survive on meal worms and plant crops they grew themselves. The aim of the experiment was to demonstrate that it could be done, for instance, in connection with expeditions to Mars. They succeeded.
ples of domesticated insect production for food are found in Thailand, where farmers have spent the past 20 years expanding and developing a farming system for crickets that, in addition to supplying food for the individual household, has improved the owner’s employment and income opportunities. “Insect farming for direct food consumption is a relatively new innovation. We’ve been domesticating plants and animals for more than 12,000 years, but it wasn’t until the 21st century that we began cultivating crickets for use in laboratory experiments. The basic technology has been available in Thailand since 1997, and it has already grown into a multi-million-euro industry with more than 20,000 cricket farms,” says Afton Halloran, a member of the GREEiNSECT research team at the University of Copenhagen. She has previously worked as a consultant for the Insects for Food and Feed programme under the auspices of the UN and is co-author of the book Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security. “Few animal species have been efficiently domesticated for human food consumption. The recent arrival of insects is the only real development in this area of food consumption in modern times. It’s at a very early stage. You could call it 1.0,” she says. The great advantage with insects is that they can be stored in their thousands in little crates – or stables – where they can be fed with waste products, such as old vegetables. They are very resource-efficient and, once they’re fully grown, can be used as feed, either in their original form or as powder, oil or a substitute for minced beef, for example. In the past few years, several insect farming projects have been initiated in the Nordics. Finnish crickets
In autumn 2014, Robert Nemlander founded the agritech firm EntoCube in the Finnish city of Espoo. Nemlander, a former astronaut candidate, was included in the Leaders of Tomorrow’s top-100 list of leading young entrepreneurial talents in spring 2017. EntoCube has invented a transportable farm that can produce up to 10,000 crickets a day, enough to feed 10 people. The crickets can be fed surplus salad from restaurants, for example. They are now building an indoor insect farm in an abandoned pig farm that will be the largest
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WHAT YOU’LL BE EATING IN 2050 Ph oto: EntoCub e
Swedish entrepreneurs are ready In 2013, two PhD students in nutrition, Emma Aspholmer and Ellen Gellerbrant, founded the first Swedish insect company, Hakuna Mat. They sold insects imported from Thailand and the Netherlands, but were closed down in 2015, due to Swedish legislation. However, they continued their research into insects as food until they were forced to stop last year. “Our dream was to make insects a regular part of Swedish cooking. But Sweden is one of those countries that adheres to a strict interpretation of the legislation. We aren’t permitted to sell or conduct research into insects. So for now, we’re working for free to try to change the legislation,” explains Emma Aspholmer. In autumn 2016, the insect farm Nutrient opened its doors in Hedemora, Sweden. They ‘grow’ meal worms and have found a sponsor willing to finance their activities for the next three years while they wait for the legislation to change. At some point, they hope to sell the worms as food.
A lorry parks in the courtyard and unloads a container. Open the doors and you have a fully functional cricket farm. Miniature farming. Finnish EntoCube is behind the idea.
cricket farm in the Nordic region when it is completed this autumn. “I think it’s important that we talk about insects as a positive and future-oriented vision that will make us healthier and create jobs, rather than describing edible insects as a necessary evil to avoid a gruesome fate. People should view insects as an opportunity rather than a necessity, because food is about emotional attachment,” explains Robert Nemlander. In most EU countries, it continues to be illegal to sell insects as food for human
“I think it’s important that we talk about insects as a positive and future-oriented vision that will make us healthier and create jobs, rather than describing edible insects as a necessary evil to avoid a gruesome fate. Rob er t N eml an de r, form e r astronaut cand i date, now CEO of ag rite ch com p any EntoCub e
consumption. But in Finland, they are operating in a grey area, where it is permitted to sell insects as long as they are marketed as “not intended for human consumption” or as “kitchen decoration”. In November, the Finnish retail chain Ruohonjuuri began selling EntoCubes’ jars of crickets, Sirkkapurkki, in their stores (although they are labelled “not intended as food”). Recent surveys have also shown that Finland is the EU country with the most positive attitude towards edible insects, with a 70 per cent approval rate. At Heimdal Entofarm in Denmark, Mads Friche recently welcomed a delegation of seven people from the innovation department of the Arla dairy corporation. They were very interested in the potential for food production, which is a huge breakthrough, according to Mads Friche, as it demonstrates that large companies are showing an interest. Still, Mads Friche does not see serving insects for dinner as the primary market. Instead, he sees an enormous potential for powdered insects for use in pasta and bread, and for insects as a partial replacement for foods like minced beef. “Let's say that minced beef in the future contained 20 per cent insects. That alone would be a huge boon for the environment.”
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Nordea Insights ANALYSIS, PEOPLE AND NEWS
How can finance fight c  limate change? Frode Pleym, Head of Greenpeace in Sweden, discusses the financial sector's role in tackling climate change with Sasja Beslik, Head of Sustainable Finance at Nordea. ↳
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A N A LY SIS
G U I D E
C O L U M N
Rise of the electric car
International living
Spreading your assets
Unique investment opportunities are to be had, as the internal combustion engine makes way for the electric motor.
Having a career that crosses borders can be fulfilling, but following a few simple steps will help you avoid the pitfalls.
International diversification is key to ensuring a steady and long term return on your investments.
Interview
T E X T F O T O S
K A R I N
S T R A N D
M A G N U S
G L A N S
Climate crisis or financial crisis – can either be avoided? How can Nordea address the threats posed by climate change? This summer, in Almedalen on the Swedish island of Gotland, Nordea started a public dialogue with Greenpeace on issues related to climate change, with the goal of inspiring other banks and financial institutions to follow its lead.
Sasja Beslik, Head of Sustainable Finance at Nordea
Climate change is the greatest challenge of our lifetime. On this, Nordea and Greenpeace agree. But while they also agree that the financial sector has a key role to play in dealing with the threats that climate change poses, they differ on how to go about it. “We can implement certain changes on our own in the financial sector, but to really make a major difference requires nothing less than a complete overhaul,” explains Sasja Beslik, Head of Sustainable Finance at Nordea.
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“Institutional customers demand short-term profits, so if we are going to be able to create long-term sustainable investments, there will have to be a change in the system.” Beslik emphasises that it is not enough to simply refrain from investing in companies that operate in the oil and gas sector, for example. In countries such as the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom, fossil fuel reserves are owned by the state and are factored into their growth forecasts. “In order to create long-term change, we would therefore also need to stop investing in government bonds. To do that, we would need to restructure the entire financial industries sector, including our instruments. It is important to understand that the issue is far more complex than it may seem, and that many of the measures that appear to be simple and obvious would only be symbolic and would not help the climate in any way,” Beslik says. Frode Pleym, Head of Greenpeace in Sweden, agrees that it is a complex matter, but warns that this is no reason to delay action. “We must not get so fixated on believing that everything is complicated that it paralyses our ability to act. Switching from a short-term quarterly report approach to a long-term 25-year one is easy to implement in practice. Everyone understands that if we don’t have a planet, then there won’t be anything left for the financial sector to invest in.” One central problem that Beslik identifies is that while everything in the financial sector has a price, the same is not true when it comes to the environment. “This is something that is missing from the Paris Agreement, unfortunately. If the financial sector knew that oil companies would have to pay
The main responsibility for the investments rests with the players who can make a big difference, like government authorities and major companies. Fro de Pl ey m , H e ad of Gre en p e ac e i n Swe d e n
environmental taxes in ten years’ time, for example, then they would presumably stop investing in those companies straight away. At present there are no set costs, and therefore we can only speculate,” he says. Despite this, Pleym says there are other reasons to be hopeful, pointing out that the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded this spring that a revolution is underway in the energy sector. “In 2016, global investment in renewable energy surpassed that of investment in oil and gas for the first time. I can only quote the Executive Director of the IEA, Fatih Birol, when he says ‘Anyone who does not understand what is going on – governments, companies, markets – is not in the right place’.” So how should the individual consumer be thinking? What can I do for the climate? “Capital is an international player, and retirement savings are invested globally. When saving for your retirement, you should put pressure on your bank so that you’re not surprised to learn you have shares in a Chinese steel company that is polluting the environment,” says Beslik. “Many people believe that they are doing the environment a favour by eating organic bananas and recycling cans and bottles. But the impact that these actions have on the environment is essentially zero compared to the environmental impact of their pension savings.” Frode Pleym, head of Greenpeace in Sweden
Paris Agreement
Seminar at Almedalen on Gotland
At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris 2015, the long-term goal to keep global warming to 2°C was lowered to 1.5°C. The 195 signatories from around the world pledged to regularly renew their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
On July 5 of this year, Nordea and Greenpeace arranged an interactive seminar to discuss the challenges and opportunities that the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals present to the financial sector. Approximately 150 people from the banking sector and various governmental agencies attended to debate the topic: “Money or the planet – is the financial sector the problem or the solution to climate change?” A follow-up seminar in Almedalen, Sweden, is planned for 2018.
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Interview
Pleym agrees that individual savers ought to put pressure on the banks and financial institutions that manage and invest their money. “The main responsibility for the investments rests with the players who can make a big difference, like government authorities and major companies. But individual savers should be aware of
Sustainability in focus for Nordea Nordea’s vision is to be the leading Nordic bank in asset management. Nordea cannot meet this goal merely by ensuring a good return on investment, however. The invested capital must also be used to promote social and environmental sustainability. Nordea’s Sustainable Finance Team is working to integrate these issues into all of the bank’s business operations. “We decide on the strategies – not only for sustainable investments but also linked to the bank’s lending and advising services,” explains Ylva Hannestad, a specialist on the Sustainable Finance Team, which works throughout the Nordic Region. When it comes to investment, Nordea has a dedicated team that performs in-depth analyses of the business models and profitability of different companies. The team also examines the sustainability practices of these companies and how they manage the risks that arise as a result. “The visits we make out in the field are another key aspect of this work. There we review how the companies are managing their risks in practice,” says Hannestad. The Sustainable Finance Team is also tasked with integrating sustainability into Nordea’s advisory process. One aspect of this is training Nordea’s financial advisors so that they, in turn, can keep their customers informed. “We should have a good offering of funds and be transparent to our customers so that they are aware of how sustainable their portfolios are,” Hannestad says. Nordea already publishes the carbon footprints of all its equity funds on its website. The goal is to enable Private Banking customers to see how sustainable their portfolios are, whether using digital tools or meeting with an advisor from the bank. By actively selecting funds based on the information supplied by Nordea, each investor can contribute to a more sustainable world. “The whole purpose of our work is to help our customers adapt their portfolios so that they become more sustainable. We offer clean funds such as the Climate Fund as well as Stars funds. The companies that are placed in these funds are strong from a financial perspective, while also being committed to environmental practices, social responsibility and business ethics,” adds Hannestad.
Nordea’s sustainability teams 1 The Responsible Investments Team works with key financial ratios and looks at investments from a range of indicators, such as human rights, labour conditions, and the environmental and business ethics associated with the bank’s assets. 2 The Sustainable Finance Team works to integrate sustainability-related issues into all of Nordea’s business areas, investments, lending, and advising activities. 3 The Group Sustainability Unit works with Nordea’s internal overall sustainability strategy. This unit is responsible for coordinating sustainability measures and the engagement from key business areas, as well as for promoting Nordea as a sustainable business and a good corporate citizen.
where their money is being invested and help drive the trend towards sustainable investments,” says Pleym, adding that Greenpeace is determined to continue its actions to draw attention to specific threats to the environment alongside its lobbying efforts. The dialogue that Nordea and Greenpeace initiated this summer on the relationship between financial investments and the threats posed by climate change will receive a follow-up in 2018. “I will present a report to Greenpeace on what we have and have not done to improve sustainability during the year. By then, I hope that we will have made some progress in integrating Nordea’s lending into our work,” says Beslik. “Nordea’s sustainability teams deserve all the credit for their work, though my hope is that the whole of Nordea will become sustainable, making these teams superfluous,” adds Pleym. “I also hope that this will be the case for all other banks and financial institutions. After governments, financial markets are the most important players in the race against the clock to meet the commitments made under the Paris Agreement.”. Reference to stars and climate funds mentioned in the article /magazine should not be construed as a recommendation to the investor to buy shares of said funds. Any investment decision in these funds or any other Nordea funds should be made on the basis of the current prospectus, along with the Key Investor Information Document, the current annual and semi-annual reports, which are available at Nordea.lu. after having assessed the risks associated with investing in these fund. Note that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results and is therefore not a guarantee of future performance. The value of an investment in a fund can go both up and down as a result of developments in the market and there is no guarantee that the investor will recoup the full amount.
Tips
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What will MiFID II mean for you? Regulation itself seldom makes for an interesting read, but when it means that you as a client will enjoy greater cost transparency and a new level of investor protection, it might be worth your attention. T E X T
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One of the cornerstones of good private banking is knowing our clients well. That means securing a full picture of your aspirations and ambitions, understanding your risk appetite, helping you to navigate a complex financial environment, sharing ideas and knowledge and ensuring that the service that we offer you really do match your needs. From January 2018, the way all banks and wealth managers talk to their customers will change quite a bit, and change for the better, we might add. Nordea Private Banking supports and embraces the intention behind the MiFID II regulation – we strongly believe that it will help us to serve you better.
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Keep a record Keeping track of our interactions with each other will enable you, as well as relevant authorities, to be able to go back and check and demonstrate that we have acted in your best interest. This is part of the increased investor protection demanded by financial regulators. It may seem like more paperwork, but in fact it is simply documentation of conversations that we have already been having.
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The full picture Having the full picture of our client is not only a regulatory requirement – for us it is a necessity if we want to serve you well. From now on we will ask you more detailed questions and on a more regular basis, particularly about your risk appetite and your overall wealth situation. This is so that we can be sure that we are offering you the right kind of advice, each time we talk.
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Increased transparency Knowing exactly what a service, product or transaction costs, and knowing that your trade is made under the conditions of best execution, will provide you a with a full cost overview and comfort that you are getting value for money.
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Informed decisions When you make an investment decision, we want to be sure that you have all the information you need. Under the new directive, we will provide a pre-trade report to explain the product, the related risk and how it fits in your portfolio before we execute the trade. This will give you all the information that you need to take an informed decision. We will also provide a detailed confirmation once the transaction has been processed.
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In 1992, the single European market was created. Since then, the world we operate in – and the financial markets especially – have changed almost beyond recognition. European directives and regulations are created to keep up with those changes, with a view to maintaining competition by ensuring a level playing field, and investor protection through strict control of financial institutions and transparency towards their clients. MiFID (the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive), and its updated version MiFID II, aim to do just that.
T H O M A S
Analysis
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Illustration: Peter Berke
Battery
Engine Engines in electric cars require different parts than conventional cars, which will have a major impact on suppliers to the auto industry. And with fewer moving parts, electric cars need less servicing, which is currently a major source of revenue for car manufacturers.
Electric cars go mainstream The transition to electric vehicles presents unique investment opportunities. Here we explain who some of the winners and losers might be, and how Nordea is preparing for an electric future. By Mathias Nimlin Head of Trading Services
Electric cars require large lithium-ion batteries to run, increasing demand for the element that is mined around the world. Similar increases in demand will be felt for other minerals needed to make the batteries, such as cobalt.
Tyres A mid-size electric car will go through tires 30 percent faster than a conventional vehicle, as they can weigh up to 400 kilograms more, benefiting tire manufacturers.
After more than a century powering cars, the internal combustion engine is facing some serious competition. Technological developments mean that electric cars now have a range that suits the needs of most consumers, and producers have begun releasing affordable and increasingly attractive alternatives. Political pressure is helping the transition too. The UK and France have committed to phasing out diesel and gasoline cars by 2040, and Norway’s even more ambitious plan will ban cars powered by fossil fuels beginning in 2025. Between now and 2025, the market share of electric cars will increase from below 1 percent to 25 percent, Âaccording to Volkswagen. Volvo has an-
EV share by region (% of total car sales)
Sales of electric cars are expected to increase as the cost of parts decrease and the volume of sales increases. We expect to see a more rapid transition take place from around 2020. %
30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2015 2016 2017E 2018E 2019E 2020E 2021E 2022E 2023E 2024E 2025E Europe
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Some of these commodities – such as rare earth minerals and lithium – are relatively abundant, but because of limited demand, they are currently only mined by a relatively small number of companies. The expected increase in demand for these minerals will attract more producers. Large batteries have helped give electric cars a range of several hundred kilometres, but they have also significantly increased the cars’ weight. A standard mid-size electric car can be up to 400 kilograms heavier than a conventional car, meaning it will consume up to 30 percent more tires. This opens up new opportunities for manufacturers to sell more tires – or to produce more resilient ones – to meet the increased burden of electric cars. And as manufacturers attempt to offset battery weight, expect to see an increase in demand for lighter metals like aluminium rather than steel and iron. We can also expect demand for platinum and palladium to drop off, as these metals are used in the catalytic converters of conventional cars. Finally, opportunities are anticipated in the research and technology sectors. Producers of electric engine technology are expected to benefit, particularly suppliers of semiconductors, since electric cars need between seven and ten times more semiconductors than conventional cars. Suppliers of renewable energy technology are expected to see a boost from increased electric car ownership.
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nounced that by 2019, all its cars will be either completely electric or a combination of electric and internal combustion engines – so-called hybrids. If this vision proves correct – and there is good reason to think it will – there will be winners as well as losers. New companies and technologies will gain traction, some old incumbents will be challenged, and others will go out of business. This situation could present enormous investment opportunities for Nordea and its clients. Investing in the right businesses and sectors early could reap rewards as sales of electric cars grow. But there are also risks, especially for investments in businesses or sectors that could be affected by reduced demand for internal combustion engine components. We are closely watching the situation to ensure our investments and your portfolios will benefit from the transition. Nordea seeks to identify optimal investments by examining the fundamental differences between conventional and electric vehicles, and their demands on technologies, infrastructure and resources. One major difference is the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars. These batteries require cobalt and manganese, while electric engines use semiconductors that require a number of so-called ‘rare earth’ minerals. Copper is expected to be a big winner, as it will be used to transmit the power through the vehicle.
China
The shift away from gasoline and diesel will need to offset by increased electricity production – likely to come from solar and wind – as governments move toward clean energy production to comply with international climate change agreements. After all, when energy prices from renewable sources are competitive with fossil fuels, who wouldn’t take the environmentally-friendly option? What about sectors that could be negatively impacted? Car manufacturers outsource the production of many parts to so-called tier one suppliers. But electric engines not only require a different set of parts than internal combustion engines, they use relatively fewer, too. For example, tier one suppliers deliver about 68 percent of the parts in a VW Golf, compared to only 28 percent in the comparably-sized Chevy Bolt. So as demand for combustion engines dries up over the coming decade, many of these suppliers will see their businesses shrink unless they can adapt to the new market. Electric cars also need much less service and maintenance than conventional combustion cars, since they have up to 80 percent fewer moving parts. Service, however, is a major source of revenue for car producers and is far more profitable than car sales themselves. It will take time before significant effects are felt, however, due to the large number of conventional cars on the road today with an average life expectancy of at least 10 years. The demise of the internal combustion engine is not only good news for the planet. Investors who understand the monumental effect that the transition will have on markets can stay a step ahead. Nordea is already taking action, and earlier this year launched a structured investment product that is focussed on the raw materials used in electric car production. It is now closed but has been a great success and has already increased handsomely in price. As we look forward to launching new, and similar products, this is only the first step we’re taking to harness the opportunity ahead in the years ahead.
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Analysis
A for alternative investments In the ongoing race to generate returns, investors have begun looking for alternatives to the classic investments in shares and bonds. This is what you need to know before embarking on alternative investments.
Alternative investments are often associated with risk and speculation. And while this can be true, you have already made one of the most common types of alternative investments if you have bought your own home. You probably think of your house or apartment as a home rather than an investment vehicle for making money. But if you expand your portfolio with several office buildings in London or Amsterdam, or a shopping centre in Berlin, these are pure investments with a view to generating returns. Alternative investments, however, are more than bricks and mortar. They include practically all asset classes that are not considered to be listed equities or the most prevalent types of bonds. The most common types of alternative investments are property, commodities (such as oil), unlisted shares (also called private equity) and infrastructure, such as bridges and road systems. In this article, I will take a closer look at what makes alternative investments interesting and how they can supplement traditional equities and bonds in your portfolio. More building blocks
For many years, alternative investments were primarily reserved for professional investors, such as pension funds. However, in recent years, these types of investments have become increasingly popular among private investors who have become aware of the opportunities they present. This is due, in part, to the fact that since the financial crisis we have operated in a low-interest environment, in which central banks have taken extreme measures to kick-start growth, keeping interest rates as close to zero as possible and using ‘quantitative easing’, which basically means printing money.
While this has enabled companies to take out cheap loans for new investments, pensions savings have struggled because some of the most secure types of bonds essentially generate no returns. In such a market investors need to look elsewhere for new opportunities. This is where alternative investments enter the picture. Alternative investments add an extra dimension to your portfolio. Think of it like this: if equities and bonds are the only building blocks in your portfolio, alternative investments now give you more building blocks – or an extra source of returns, if you will. This is only possible because alternative investments have different characteristics than equities and bonds, making them interesting from a portfolio point of view. In this regard, it is important to emphasise that at Nordea, we do not consider alternative investments as a replacement for equities or bonds, but rather a supplement. So how does it all work in theory? Put simply, by including alternative investments in your portfolio, you are exploiting the only ‘free lunch’ that financial markets offer. In practice, this means achieving a higher expected return without increasing the risk – or achieving the same return at a lower risk. Better diversification of risks
Alternative investments cover a diverse range of investment opportunities, but not all are equally accessible to the ordinary private investor. Take, for example, the direct investment made by a pension fund when it purchases a plot of land and builds an apartment block on it. This type of investment is essentially only possible for institutional investors with sufficient financial muscle to invest on their own, so I will not spend time on this here.
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Alternative Investments:
Pros
Illustration Mette Ehlers
• Adds an extra dimension to a portfolio as a supplement to traditional investments in equities and bonds. • Opportunity for positive returns when equities fall. • Can generate positive returns despite low or rising interest rates. • When used correctly, they can give a portfolio a better risk/reward ratio, especially in the current low-interest environment.
Alternative investments are not for everyone
There are many advantages to alternative investments, which can be used to achieve a better risk-adjusted return to reward ratio in your portfolio. But it is important to stress that alternative investments are definitely not suitable for all investors – it all depends on your time horizon, the purpose of your investment and your tolerance for risk. Careful guidance is needed to determine whether alternative investments are right for you and your portfolio.
By Christoffer Fuglsig Pedersen Senior Strategist
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The types of alternative investment that are aimed at private investors will almost always be ‘packaged’ in some way, for example in a fund or a bond. This makes them more accessible and easier to sell because they require a much smaller investment. This solution also makes it possible to gain access to a large portfolio – of properties or listed property companies, for example – in one and the same investment, thereby achieving better risk diversification. At the same time, it is possible to join forces with some of the best asset managers within a given type of investment universe. The types of alternative investments we offer our Private Banking customers are therefore also packaged in funds, making it easy to fit them into our existing portfolios.
• Can have limited liquidity and thus investors need a longer time-horizon. The market in which these types of assets are traded generally lacks depth, liquidity and transparency compared to the market for traditional investments. • Some alternative strategies involve high leverage, which increases the potential when markets are stable, but increases the risk in times of crisis. At Nordea, we generally use alternative strategies with low gearing ratios to minimise risk.
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Cons
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Guide
How to
Live happily abroad
By Lars Lindved Wealth planner
There’s no denying that we live in a globalised world. From the food we eat, to the media we consume and the holidays we take, borders don’t mean what they once did. This is also increasingly true when it comes to work and studies, as borders can no longer contain ambition and hard work. As a result, many people end up with international careers that span countries, if not continents. This can be enriching, in more ways than one. Experiencing new languages, foods and cultures can be a unique and cultivating privilege. And allowing yourself to take opportunities – no matter
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Taxes
Investments
Everyone’s taxation situation is unique, and depends on income, wealth, family situation and location. Among the tax-related issues to keep in mind is wealth taxation. In some countries this could be significant, and amount to an annual taxation on your assets of 2-3%. And while inheritance tax in the Nordics can be very modest, in other countries you can face rates of up to 65%. Socalled “exit taxes” on assets such as shares, can also be applied when you leave one country and take up residence elsewhere. Double taxation treaties are the final consideration. Both your country of origin and country of residence may have taxation rights to your income, so it is important to know where you have an obligation to declare your income.
Residency may have a big impact on accessing and managing your investments. Your new country of residence may not allow “self-management” of your pension scheme or capital insurance policy. As a result, the pension scheme or policy could be regarded as being paid out into a private account instead. Your existing advisor may also not be allowed to advise you on your investments after you change residency. Both would naturally have significant consequences, especially regarding taxation. There may also be adverse tax consequences of making investments that are tax efficient and tax compliant in your previous country of residence, but which do not have the same status in your new country.
where they are – can often be a good strategy for developing a career that provides a more comfortable lifestyle. But having assets, pensions and investments spread across several countries can be complicated too, and present challenges that many don’t have to consider. From taxes to inheritance, the decisions you make can have an enormous impact on the future welfare of yourself and your family. Here are four areas to think about and seek advice on – doing so help ensure that an international life is the pleasure it ought to be.
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Prepare for succession Do you know what will happen to your assets when you are no longer here, and do you have this plan in writing? Planning for your succession, and ensuring that your family is provided for in the manner that you wish, is an important concern for international workers. When thinking about inheritance planning, there are a number of key objectives that you should consider. Firstly, consider who should inherit and how much. Then ask yourself whether you want certain beneficiaries to inherit specific items, and whether to attach conditions or terms to their inheritance. Finally, consider whether some of your assets – and which ones – should be given to charity.
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Write a will We recommend that you write a will even if you do not have any specific wishes. It could prevent conflict from erupting among your heirs while they make important decisions in an attempt to satisfy your intentions. Before you do, you must first identify the countries where you might have property, pensions and other assets, and consider their respective regulations on estate distribution, forced heirship rules, and tax law. The choice of jurisdiction can have a major effect on the allocation of inheritance. For example, in the UK there are no clear rules regarding the safeguarding of inheritances for children or one’s spouse – the entire estate can be freely allocated by will. In Spain, however, children are entitled to inherit at least two thirds of a parent’s assets, while Swedish rules entitle the children to only one quarter. The new EU and EEA rules that came into force in 2016 provide greater flexibility as you may be able to choose to apply the succession rules of your country of citizenship to your estate. However, this also places extra demands on you, as you need to do the necessary research to understand the consequences of actively selecting the jurisdiction and rules that apply to your estate.
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On the merits of international diversification In the aftermath of the financial crisis, investors who had advocated international diversification felt the heat. As markets fell in tandem, the strategy of spreading equity investments globally did not prevent negative returns. Although many equity markets fared a lot better in 2008 than the Nordic markets, investors had likely hoped for more. Towards the end of 2007, world financial markets had already begun to shiver, but were still far from bottoming out. Commodity prices were high, and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) were investor favourites. For Nordic investors, this was coupled with a love for their own domestic markets. It was very hard to get Nordic investors to accept recommendations to allocate some capital to more “boring” equity regions, such as the United States or Japan. A decade on, it is not the investor favourites of 2007 that have prevailed, but rather these boring regions. The difference in returns between the best (North America) and worst regions (emerging markets) is over 110 percentage points. In the short run, relative returns are largely driven by risk appetite. During market panics, risky assets tend to move in tandem, undermining the benefits of diversification. Over a longer time horizon, however, relative returns are largely driven by differences in economic fundamentals, such as economic growth, fiscal policies or corporate earnings. This is where international diversification excels.
There are two related reasons for international diversification. First, it is always incredibly difficult to pick the regions and sectors that will win or lose in the next five to ten years – few would have picked the US over emerging markets in 2007. The task is not any easier today. Therefore, the risk associated with betting everything on one horse is quite large – there is both the risk of betting on the wrong one, as well as the risk of missing out on the winner. The second reason is a case in point for Norway and its sovereign wealth fund. It is exactly when a country’s longterm outlook and fundamentals worsen that the benefits of investing globally emerge. The outlook for Norway is naturally a bit worse when the price of a barrel of oil is USD 50 rather than USD 100, since less money will flow to both the Norwegian state and to the fund. But a weaker economic outlook would also predict the depreciation of the currency, which would lift the value of holdings and cashflows from abroad. Norway currently buys a lot of goods and services from abroad, and this will remain the case in the future when the oil runs out. International diversification is therefore a good way to mitigate poorer long-term prospects for the domestic economy that may affect future labour income, house prices, and other important assets on the household balance sheet. The merits of international diversification are therefore evident. While they may not be apparent in any given month, quarter or year, over time, the benefits do become stark.
By Ole Morten Nafstad Head of Investment Advice
Text by Martin Leer Scharnberg
INVESTMENTS THROUGHOUT THE AGES
Shoes are not just shoes. For some, they are investment vehicles. The world of sneakers has developed its own financial ecosystem since the 1980s. This pair of shoes may look like they are ready for the rubbish bin. But that would be throwing out a fortune, as these are the most expensive sneakers in the world. They were worn in 1984 by a young basketball player named Michael Jordan at the Olympics in Los Angeles, where USA beat Spain for the gold, with Michael Jordan as the top scorer. After the game, he signed his Converse and gave them to a ball boy. This year, 33 years later, the shoes were sold at auction for $190,372.80. They were the last pair of sneakers Michael Jordan wore as an amateur player. He later became an international star and launched his own shoe brand, which has since helped to define sneaker fashion – and the sneaker market. Air Jordans are responsible for 90 per cent of all revenue in the resale market.
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S n e a ke r s
Kanye West One of the biggest names in sneakers today is musician and designer Kanye West. In 2015, he launched Yeezy Boost 750 Triple Black. The shoes were sold in stores for $350, but within just a few weeks, they were being traded for anywhere between $1,500 and $2,000.
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Sneaker stock exchange The website StockX.com is known as the world’s stock market for sneakers. Thousands of sneakers are traded 24 hours a day, and it is possible to follow the price development of each individual pair from initial listing to the current date. Any user can create their own private sneaker portfolio and follow the price trend of their collection.
Now the Adidas I possess for one man is rare Myself homeboy got 50 pair Got blue and black, cause I like to chill And yellow and green when it’s time to get ill In 1986, the rap group Run DMC released the song ‘My Adidas’ – a tribute to Adidas sneakers. The song was a huge hit and gave a powerful boost to sneakers as a fashion trend.
Photos: Ge t t y Ima g e s / D i mi t r i os Ka mb our i s / Mi cha e l Ochs Archi ve s / Roy Rochl i n / F i l mMa g i c
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American shoe brand Keds produced its first shoe design, Champion, in 1916. They were the world’s first mass-produced shoes with canvas uppers and rubber soles. They were also the first shoes to be marketed as ‘sneakers’. They got the name because the rubber sole was so quiet you could sneak around.
Limited editions from the big brands have turned sneakers into a vehicle for investments. The market is characterised by limited supply and colossal demand. In 2015, nearly nine million sneakers were resold for more than $1.2 billion.
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A driving force for schools all over the world “We live in a globalised world, but the schools that are charged with developing the minds of the future are hopelessly anti-global.� This declaration comes from Finland, renowned for having the best schools in the world. Now, the Finnish non-profit organisation, HundrED is sharing the boldest ideas for teaching with the rest of the world. Text by Mette Nexmand Model photo by Michelle Berg
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Two classrooms. One is in a village in Ghana and technically not a room. A YouTube video shows an outdoor area cleared of brush and dotted with little whirlwinds of red earth. The camera zooms in on a bare tree with exposed roots, and in the background we see Ghana’s verdant green mountain slopes. The pupils are the energetic focus of the video – dressed in orange and brown school uniforms, they are pushing themselves and each other around on a roundabout. Skinny legs and arms keep the ride spinning in a seemingly endless rotation. However, this is no ordinary playground break – and this is more than just a roundabout. It is the driving force of a movement aimed at changing primary schools all over the world. We will later return to how playground equipment can spin in Africa, and produce change on the other side of the world. The butterfly effect from a child’s perspective. First, we jump nearly 9,000 kilometres to classroom number two. The scene is now set in a Nordic school, more specifically Hagelstamska School in the Finnish town of Kauniainen, not far from Helsinki. We see furniture in pale Scandinavian wood, smooth and clean surfaces, laptops for every child, and architecturally designed windows looking out over a world where the trees are solidly rooted in the ground. The pupils in this class are working with 3D printing, the manufacturing technology of the future. Everything from pencil sharpeners to a city can be printed in three dimensional plastic with the help of computer data. These children’s minds are being filled with knowledge that will be in high demand in the labour market in a few years. 100 ideas from Finland – and 100 more from the world
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The two schools in Ghana and Finland are obviously very different, but both projects belong under the same ambitious umbrella. They are about the driving force of ideas. As the Ghanaian pupils spin on the roundabouts, they produce electricity for a microchip that recharges portable LED lamps. The children then bring these lamps home with them so they can study at night, where electricity is otherwise a luxury they cannot afford. This method has so far generated 3.5 million hours of light and enabled 15,000 children in remote areas to do their homework. Both ideas, ‘Empower Playgrounds’ and ‘Pedagogy and 3D printing’, were selected for the Finnish project, HundrED, which has the declared goal of being the world leader in educational innovation – innovation that can be put to use right now, all over the world. HundrED’s online service has hand picked an impressive catalogue of educational ideas from Finland. The organisation’s website already features 100 concepts and, later this year, the best global initiatives will be presented. Every idea has been tested at selected schools, and the results are documented and updated regularly at hundred.org.
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Grandparents helping out in the classroom Grandparents are being trained by professionals to read with the youngest pupils. The idea is for qualified grandmothers and grandfathers to spend 30 minutes a day reading with the youngest pupils.
The world’s biggest parents’ meeting One night a year, parents from all over Finland will gather for one giant digital parents’ meeting to exchange experiences. This unique idea has never been attempted anywhere in the world.
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Turning school canteens into restaurants After a successful experiment in the town of Turku, a process has now been initiated to transform dreary school canteens into restaurants that are so inviting that everyone will want to eat there. Every day.
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Teaching children about leadership in the financial sector Money Flow Challenge is an award-winning game designed to teach upper secondary school pupils, in particular, how to manage their personal finances.
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Discussing yesterday’s global news How can we ensure that news from all over the world is communicated properly to children? Teachers are developing methods to paraphrase what adults watched on the evening news the night before.
Learn to focus on your studies Upper secondary school can be very demanding. But these tools are equipping pupils to handle the stress and personal crises that can often arise.
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What’s happening in the world, and how we can teach about it Campus is a series of expert lectures made available to schoolteachers free of charge. They are an excellent source of new information, for example about international research.
Adventure education Imagine a school day full of adventure. In a 6th grade class at the local school in the town of Vallila, pupils get to learn as they play, while their teachers experiment with drama and computer games as they teach the energetic kids.
All the research suggests that children learn better when they do something during their hours at school that has an impact on their lives. S aku Tuom ine n , ent repren eu r
The founder and creative director of the organisation is Saku Tuominen, who has worked with innovation development and communication for 25 years. Why are roundabouts and 3D-printed houses the future for schoolchildren? “They aren’t really. It’s the pedagogics behind them that interest us. 3D printing is the future, yes, but if the teacher uses new technology in the classroom in a sloppy manner, it can actually be quite damaging. There’s no point in giving all the pupils tablets if the teacher doesn’t understand the purpose of the digital tools. We’re interested in what and how the pupils learn as they work with this technique. The same applies to the roundabout in Ghana. It isn’t interesting in itself, but all the research suggests that children learn better when they do something during their hours at school that has an impact on their lives. That’s why these two teaching ideas meet our criteria – teachers and children all over the world can benefit from them. They solve real problems,” explains Saku Tuominen, whose CV also includes titles such as TV producer, author, lecturer – and right wing on a hockey team. Grandma helps out in the classroom
Tuominen’s and HundrED’s goal is to make the hundreds of ideas available to teachers all over the world. These are plug-and-play teaching tools that are available for general use on the website. The organisation is driven as a non-profit entity with funding from both the Finnish government and private enterprises like Nokia. The first impression you have of the Finnish catalogue of ideas is simplicity. It looks easy. You choose an ID, click, and a project opens up. It might be ‘Reading Grandmas and Grandpas’, in which grandparents are trained as teaching assistants to read with the youngest schoolchildren. For half an hour a day, Grandma or Grandpa visit the class, sit in the little Alvar Aalto chairs, and help pupils who have difficulty reading. Another HundrED idea is ‘So You Think You Can Muuv’, where ballet dancers from the national theatre teach pupils about body awareness and bravery. And ‘The School on a Sailboat’ project, which follows a Finnish family with three children as they sail around the world from 2016 to 2022, bringing along their own digital home school. These ideas are on the softer end of the spectrum, but there are plenty of examples, from research-based teaching in mathematics, and conflict resolution at a UN level, to methods for communicating international news and issues to children.
Saku Tuominen, from Finland, has 25 years’ experience in the education sector. Most recently, he has travelled to China, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Denmark, the Middle East, France and Bulgaria to talk about HundrED.
Journeys to China, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Denmark…
There seems to be no end to the treasure trove of innovative initiatives. Hundred.org serves up the same bounty of visionary teaching practices from globally recognised experts and key figures. They range from British actor Orlando Bloom’s vision for his own son’s education, to a teaching guru from Singapore who shares his experiences of an educational system ranked among the best in all international tests. And international is the key concept. “We live in a highly globalised world, but the most anti-global aspect is probably our educational systems. Global collaboration is practically non-existent – schools act like silos, keeping in all the good ideas. A country is a silo, a state is a silo, a local government… HundrED seeks to serve the ideas in a perfectly ‘wrapped’ package to make them easily accessible to all teachers, from Kuala Lumpur to Denmark. Because we’re trying to reach out to the teachers,” explains Saku Tuominen. He talks about scalability – about how ideas from HundrED need to be able to work in all kinds of schools, in different countries, across continents, and that it is easier to disseminate the ideas when you know they work. He believes slow decision-making processes are a hindrance to development in schools, and because we are talking about the lives of future generations, something needs to be done now. And Tuominen is not sitting idly by. “Most recently, I’ve travelled to China, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Denmark, the Middle East, France and Bulgaria to talk about HundrED,” he says – without even the slightest sign of jet lag. The experiences that the education entrepreneur brings home from these journeys is a natural extension of his thoughts on globalisation – or the lack thereof.
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There’s no point in giving all the pupils tablets, if the teacher doesn’t understand the purpose of these types of digital tools. S aku Tuo mi nen, entre pre neur
“On a typical travel day, I meet hundreds of educators in the morning and tell them about all kinds of innovation in learning. They love the ideas and think they could all work in their worlds. In the afternoon, I meet official representatives of the educational system, but they don’t think any of the ideas can be used. These are the gatekeepers of the silos.” Finland has the world’s best – teachers
HundrED’s hard-working teams in Helsinki and London have every right to feel idealistic about their field. They are riding on the coattails of Finland’s status as the country with the best schools in the world. Ever since the OECD conducted the first PISA test in 2000, Finnish pupils have had the distinction of earning the highest scores in Scandinavia. And they also do well in global rankings. The most recent PISA results from 2015 rank Finland 4th in reading out of 72 countries, surpassed only by Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada. By comparison, Norway, Sweden and Denmark rank 9th, 17th and 18th, respectively. Saku Tuominen has no doubts about the source of Finland’s success. “The teachers. Their qualifications have long been a top priority in society. Teachers are respected in Finland. People trust that their skills are more than satisfactory. Without trust, there is no motivation – the teachers need to be independent and free,” he declares. Turbulence in the rest of the Nordic region
In the other Nordic countries, the educational sectors have been characterised by turbulence and reforms in recent years, and the view of teaching among educators, politicians and experts is distinctly negative. Frans Ørsted Andersen, associate professor and PhD at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, has studied the Scandinavian educational systems for 14 years and has written a book in Danish about Finland, Verdens bedste folkeskole (The world’s best school system). The book builds on the associate professor’s PhD project in which he studies why Finland outpaces Denmark in a number of areas, including PISA tests.
“The education of primary and lower secondary school teachers is the key difference. Finnish society places greater emphasis on the academic skills of their teachers and devotes money to them. It is much more difficult to be admitted to the study programme and it takes longer to become a teacher in Finland. It requires a Master’s degree from university,” explains the Danish professor. In Norway, the old Bachelor’s degree programme for primary and lower secondary school teachers was upgraded to a Master’s degree programme in 2017, and the topic is the subject of heated debate in Sweden and Denmark. But it costs a great deal in state funding to upgrade such programmes, and there's an enormous distance to cover to reach the educational culture that exists in Finland, where teachers occupy a very high status in society. “Being a teacher is in the top three dream professions in Finland – right up there with doctors and lawyers. By comparison, teaching has been ranked in recent years as low as 40th by Danes. In Sweden, the standing of teachers has also declined sharply. There have been improvements, but Finnish schools have an easier time recruiting the best teachers,” says Frans Ørsted Andersen. He emphasises that the Finnish primary and secondary school system is neither more strict nor more elitist because the teachers sit at the top of the hierarchy and have complete sovereignty in the classroom. On the contrary – children in Finland spend fewer hours in school on an annual basis and receive no homework in the early years. The American point of view
The Finnish model has also become famous in the rest of the world, including in the USA. “Finland may be less ostentatiously hipster than its Scandinavian neighbours but it is filled with forward-thinking and super-smart people … Tuominen wanted to create something bold and impactful," wrote business journal, Fast Company, whent they reported on HundrEd. The esteemed educational portal, The Hechinger Report, which visited a Finnish school near the Russian border, also showed the same enthusiasm. “Fourth graders race to the cafeteria in their socks – laughing, dancing. A distinguished-looking professor proudly watches over the group, doling out high-fives to the kids," they wrote. The Hechinger Report is also impressed by Finnish children’s freedom of movement, frequent breaks where the children go outdoors “in all kinds of weather” and the fact that they ride their bikes to school. Luckily, all Nordic countries can keep up in these areas – breaks in-between classes in the pouring rain is not unique to Finland. However, the Americans’ praise proves HundrED’s and Saku Tuominen’s point: We simply do not know enough about the educational systems of other countries.
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Home schooling as they sail around the world
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3D printing is the technology of the future. But how do you teach children the best way to use the technology? One project explores what types of educational theory and practice can be used to teach topics that are still considered futuristic for many people.
How to make a village school digital New types of communication need to be disseminated to all corners of Finland – and the world – also to those living so remotely that they cannot ride the first digital waves.
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What’s the educational value of 3D printing?
‘The School on a Sailboat’ documents the life of one Finnish family. Dad, mum and three children will be sailing around the world until 2022, bringing with them their own digital home school.
054 Sex-ed planned by the pupils Children are developing their own material for sexual education. This helps to make a difficult topic easier to tackle – both for children and adults.
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Passion breeds new ideas The ‘Incubator’ is a course designed to teach schoolchildren entrepreneurial skills. The pupils work from their own ideas and passions in collaboration with Finnish companies.
Learn to solve problems – NOW! A school in Lappeenranta, Finland, has developed a special learning technique for problem-solving. The basic premise its that all types of conflict can be resolved with the right approach.
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036 The app that gives teachers new knowledge from all over the world The perfect tool for teachers who want to stay up-to-date in the fields they need, but who lack the time to study them in depth.
Pekka Hyysalo’s FightBack organisation was created to give children and young people the strength to get through life crises. HundrED is helping to translate the ideas into teaching material.
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Holistic methods for combating adversity
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W I N E S OF T H E WOR L D IN YOUR P O C K E T
“There’s an abundance of good ideas out there. The trick is execution and having the guts to stick to it.” 25 million people use Heini Zachariassen’s Vivino app to scan wines in the grocery store, and now he wants to recommend wines suited to your particular tastes. Text by Sole Bugge Møller / Photo by Scanpix /Malene Anthony Nielsen
It all started with Heini Zachariassen staring at rows of wine in the grocery store. He grew up on the Faeroe Islands, where you could basically buy just two types of wine – red and white. With his limited knowledge, finding a good bottle in the crowd seemed like an insurmountable task. There had to be a better way. Heini Zachariassen had no experience in app development, but with his co-founder Theis Søndergaard, the wine novice set out to create Vivino, an app that can scan a wine label and provide a wealth of information, from type of grape and year, to region and taste nuances. Today, it is the world’s leading wine app, with 25 million users and 100 employees working in offices in Copenhagen and San Francisco. This year, the app has undergone dramatic changes. Vivino recently launched a marketplace where you can receive recommendations for what type of wines to buy and with, just a few clicks, have them delivered to your door. “Our algorithm analyses the wines you like in order to give you an individual recommendation for, say, white wine from Burgundy, that suites your taste and price range. Sort of like the way Netflix recommends films for you,” explains Heini Zachariassen. How did you get from idea to reality? “We quickly decided that we wanted
to build it all from scratch. But to get started we needed photographs of wine bottles to add to the database. So we organised a contest where people could submit a photo of a wine label and participate in a draw to win a designer corkscrew. It took off like mad, and we received around 20,000 photos.”
idea, but they didn’t get as far with it. There is an abundance of good ideas out there. The trick is execution and having the guts to stick to it. We struggled for nearly two years before we had a breakthrough, and it was tough going sometimes. But we always believed we would succeed.”
How did you get your big break? “We launched the first app in early 2011. It wasn’t very good and it didn’t ‘know’ very many wines. But the individual user only experienced that the app either worked or didn’t when they tried to scan a wine. After an update in spring 2012, we reached a tipping point where more people experienced that the app worked, than the opposite. From there, we started to grow. Not too fast, just nice and steady. At the time, 20,000 photos seemed like a big database, but today we have 10 million wines and 500 million photos. We have always been very focused on building a good product for the average wine drinker who isn’t an expert. And we hit the bull’s eye.”
Last year, you received an investment of €25 million from, among others, Christophe Navarre, CEO of Moët Hennessy. What has that meant? “One thing the money has done is enable us to develop the app faster. Another thing is that when an industry giant joins the team, it’s a real seal of approval. We may have had street cred in Silicon Valley, but this has given us whole new level of credibility. I was recently introduced at a lecture in France. And when they said that I had come straight from breakfast with Christophe Navarre, I could tell that they were pretty impressed.”
How important is it for an entrepreneur to have a good idea? “The idea isn’t really all that relevant. What we have invented isn’t super original – people have always steamed off wine labels and pasted them into scrapbooks. And I’ve met at least 20 people who said they had the same
Wine can easily take up a lot of time in Heini Zachariassen’s life these days. But as he says: “I took a decision to have two things in life – my company and my family. In our world, you can eat out and meet for drinks all the time, but I try to keep it to a minimum.” Heini Zachariassen lives in California with his wife and three children.
Based in the USA Since 2013, Vivino has been based in San Francisco to be close to both Silicon Valley and the Napa Valley wine district. This has proved a huge advantage. “If you win the American market, there’s a good chance you’ll win the whole world. It means a lot to be close to Facebook, Google and Apple, and we’ve collaborated with all of them.”
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Don’t have time to read the whole magazine? Here’s a cheat sheet with the nine best ideas from this issue of Share. You can find many more on the previous pages.
Text by Karen Gahrn / Illustrations by Elisabeth Moseng
Where rainbows end
Print your own food
A robot that prevents isolation
Take a village in Indonesia and paint the buildings, stairways and benches in all the colours of the rainbow. Then change the name of the village to Kampung Pelangi, which means rainbow village. What do you get? Massive publicity on Instagram – and more tourists.
Chefs are developing tasty recipes that you can download and print on a 3D printer in your kitchen. It will be possible to design food that gives your body everything it needs – the ‘personalised’ meal is coming.
The AV1 helps children who are so sick they can’t go to school. This little robot is their eyes, ears and mouth in the classroom, enabling the children to participate in class – and ‘play’ with their classmates during break.
An edible water bottle
It all started with a heart
Imagine a water bottle that can be eaten or that breaks down in nature like a piece of fruit. Ooho is the company behind the invention. The ‘bottle’ is made entirely from plants and seaweed.
The first emoji were drawn by hand by Japanese IT worker Shigetaka Kurita. From the birth of the idea, until the first set of emoji was ready, took a month. They were launched on February 22, 1999. And the rest is history.
How do you create the best school system?
Meat isn’t just meat
Wines of the world in your pocket
Zlatan and Schmeichel
An American geneticist has set out to break down meat and rebuild it molecule by molecule – from plants. It ‘bleeds’ like meat, tastes like meat (to a lot of people) and reduces our environmental footprint.
It all started in a state of confusion in the wine aisle of a supermarket. That led to an app that can guide users right there in the store, and which can recommend wine from all over the world to suit the user’s personal taste.
Just imagine: It’s the 89th minute of the World Championships at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Kasper Schmeichel kicks the ball to Zlatan, who executes a chest pass to Christian Eriksen. We fantasize about the possibilities of a pan-Nordic football team.
One website, hundreds of ideas for education innovation. Just plug and play. An ambitious Finnish project is working to disseminate ideas from the country with the “world’s best school system” to the rest of the world.