Close to 10,000 delegates descended on Stockholm for the event running February 22-23 – the first of its kind to be staged in the national football stadium, Friends Arena. Organised by Techarenan with backing from the Swedish Innovation Agency, key themes include the energy transition, innovation, economics, sustainability and global megatrends.
CorPower Ocean’s exhibition space – next to the Main Arena stage – is displaying a ¼ scale model of our C4 Wave Energy Converter, which was recently deployed (at full-scale) off the coast of northern Portugal. Read more here https://corpowerocean.com/corpower-oceans-wave-energy-converter-deployed/
With broader activity spread across four stages for keynotes, panel discussions and expert seminars, the major tech event is providing a strong platform to network with partners, stakeholders and potential investors. A star-studded line up of speakers includes former US Vice President, climate activist, and Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir.
On the opening day – in the backdrop of CorPower Ocean’s stand – the world’s most powerful climate activity Al Gore gave an impassioned speech expressing his desire to accelerate the energy transition.
“The climate crisis is still getting worse faster than we are providing solutions to it,” said Gore. “We’ve got to wake up and shift into a higher gear. Today we’re putting another 162million tonnes of man-made heat trapping pollution into the sky. Every night the TV news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation. It’s insane, but we’ve gotten used to it. Here’s the good news, if we get to true Net Zero the temperatures will stop going up almost immediately, with a lag time as little as three to five years. If we stay at true Net zero, half of all the human cause of global warming pollution will have fallen out of the atmosphere in as little as 25 to 30 years. There is hope, we can do this. But we are not yet doing it fast enough.”
Gore served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. In 2007, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change” through his documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth.
“We hear a lot about what we can do in our personal lives,” added Gore. “Those things are important. But the number one most important thing people can do is to be very vigorous and active in public discussion to get politicians at every level of government activated to move faster to reduce emissions. This is a global emergency. We hear that phrase and maybe its drained of the sense of urgency its intended to convey. The people who say we are not equipped to solve this, they point to the lack of sufficient political will. I’ll tell you this – political will is itself a renewable resource. Getting out into the public sphere and renewing the political will that is essential to making this species-wide decision to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible.”
Sweden is currently ranked as the second most innovative country in the world and one of the top producers of unicorns per capita. The country’s role as a leading innovation nation and a role model for an impact-focused industrial and business sector continues to garner global attention.
Techarenan CEO Omid Ekhlasi said: “Sweden has in the last decades cemented itself as an innovation powerhouse of not only Europe but also the world, giving rise to industry-leading companies through Swedish ingenuity. However, until now, there has never been a tech event in Sweden that has matched this incredible output of innovation and world-class entrepreneurship. We are very excited to welcome the global tech community to Sweden.”
