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‘I wanted to show Sweden what India is to me’

Meet the Indian engineer and artist bringing her culture to Sweden.

'I wanted to show Sweden what India is to me'
Ananya Dutta performing. Photo: Private

When Ananya Dutta's husband's job sent him on an assignment to Ikea's headquarters in Sweden, it was the start of a life-changing journey for her too. But at the time she was mainly grappling with the culture shock from moving from India's Bangalore, a city of more than eight million people, to 9,000-strong Älmhult.

“My first thought was 'there are no people on the road, where are all the people?' My husband explained that that's what it's like here. Now when I look back at it I think our first years in Sweden were very calm and quiet,” she laughs, some 12 years down the road.

There's a large community of Indian IT and tech workers in the town of Älmhult, the rural municipality where the Swedish furniture giant was founded and still has its headquarters. But staying home with her three-month-old daughter, Dutta could not help but feel lonely.

“We had some company and there were some gatherings. But I am an engineer by profession and had worked back in India, so it was frustrating for me to stay at home,” she tells The Local.

The Indian company her husband was employed by did not permit his spouse to work for Ikea while he was there, and so there were few jobs left in Älmhult that fit Dutta's resume.

“Sitting at home for three years was not nice. Of course I was spending good time with my child, but I'm career-oriented and I don't like to sit idle,” she says. “When I found my first job, I felt I had achieved something. That really changed the life I was living in Sweden.”

That opportunity came when her husband's project changed and the couple moved to the slightly bigger city of Helsingborg in 2008. Dutta landed a job at Qlik, then known as QlikTech, a software company founded in Lund, Sweden, which now has global reach.

“It was a little bit stressful leaving the child eight to nine hours in daycare. It was harsh in the beginning getting used to that. But the work was good. I really like the Swedish work culture. I was the first Indian in the company and they all looked to me thinking that what I do all Indians do – if I didn't drink coffee they thought no Indians drink coffee,” she laughs.

“I remember someone told me that I was brave to come and work where there was no one from my nationality. But I didn't think of it like that. I just thought that irrespective of the culture or language I had I was supposed to do my work like everyone else.”

But having thrown herself from staying home with her daughter into a full-time career in a high-paced job, she found she was still feeling lonely, despite getting on well with her colleagues.

“In Helsingborg I led a very lonely life. I didn't have a social life. I'm a very social person, and I didn't want my children to grow up in that environment. I noticed that my daughter was getting shy because we didn't have any visitors over to our home,” she says.


Ananya Dutta. Photo: Private

In 2010 the couple relocated to Stockholm, bought an apartment, and decided to live in the Swedish capital permanently. “I was very much willing to move to Stockholm, because I still missed the Indian festivals and wanted to connect with the Indian community here.”

This is the point where all the pieces of the puzzles really fell into place, and for the first time in Sweden Dutta was able to combine her career, life as a mother, and social life.

Today, she works as an IT consultant for Accenture, and has managed to reconnect with her Indian culture, being a regular artist at the Indian Embassy since 2010 and involved in the running of several Indian events and organizations in Stockholm. Some of these are the Stockholm Sarbojonin Puja Committee, which organizes cultural programmes and festivals, and Sanskriti, which promotes Indian culture in Sweden.

“My experience from working in Sweden so far is that many don't have relevant knowledge of India. When you say 'India' they think of poverty, population and pollution. That is not what India is. So I wanted to show some of what India is to me,” explains Dutta.

She explains she is regularly asked questions such as “how come you're the only child of your parents” by people who had seen news reports about over-population in India, without realizing the incredible diversity of a country of more than 1.2 billion people.

“There are ills in every country, of course, but also good things. The Indian diaspora is spreading far and wide, because we're needed, not because we're poor. Just go to an IT company and you'll see that many of the workers are Indian,” she says.

Her crowning glory so far has been organizing the Colours of India dance and music show during the Namaste Stockholm festival in front of an audience of 4,000 people in the Kungsträdgården park for two years running and also leads a team of artists in performances promoting various social causes.

“To me India is a very diverse country with lots of different cultures,” she says. “If you combine the whole of Europe, that's India – there are some similarities, some differences.”


Ananya Dutta and her husband, Subroto Dutta. Photo: Private

Multiculturalism and integration are currently two hotly debated topics in Sweden, which has seen an unprecedented wave of immigration in the past couple of years. Asked if there is something Sweden could learn from India's approach, Dutta notes the language barrier.

“Accept the diversity. There are a lot of people from different countries here, but there are still gaps where we are not integrated. I think integration would come easier if language was not seen as such a barrier in Sweden. People don't get jobs even if they are very qualified because they don't speak the language,” she says.

As for herself, she feels at ease in Sweden today. Her passion for spreading Indian culture is not just a way for her to remembering her background – it is also a way of giving something back to her adopted country.

“I think Sweden is a great place to live. This is true from my heart,” she says.

“There's a lot of gender equality in Sweden and it's comparatively safer than other countries. My daughter has been travelling by herself on the tunnelbana (underground) to school since she was eight years old – I wouldn't have been able to let her do that alone in India.”

And just to prove the point about the benefits of sharing cultures and traditions, she has certainly not been able to live in Sweden for 12 years without adopting some new habits herself.

“Lucia and the kanelbulle. I eat all the Swedish food for the special days! Even if we go to India for Christmas we take the glögg and the pepparkaka and celebrate it in India.”

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WORKING IN SWEDEN

How to switch to a career in Sweden’s booming gaming industry

Sweden's gaming industry is crying out for top international talent, but the skills shortage also creates opportunities for professionals in other fields to switch to a career in gaming. Senior experts share their best tips with The Local.

How to switch to a career in Sweden's booming gaming industry

Home to world-famous gaming studios like Mojang, King and DICE – the creators of Minecraft, Candy Crush and Battlefield, respectively – Swedish games have been downloaded nearly seven billion times. Every fourth person on the planet has played a game made in Sweden.

And the number of new gaming companies and employees is only increasing, despite concerns about the impact of the pandemic, according to a report from Sweden’s gaming industry association

In 2022, Swedish gaming studios increased turnover by 18 percent to 32.6 billion kronor, setting a new record. Combined, the turnover of the 23 listed computer game companies amounted to 61 billion kronor – a threefold increase since 2020 and almost twice as much as in 2021.

However, the talent shortage is an ongoing struggle, and the industry relies heavily on foreigners to plug the gaps.

“There’s a massive skills shortage, especially on the technical side, due to the sheer amount of coding required. I think the industry wants to do more to keep growing the Swedish game phenomena, but the talent shortage hinders us,” says Ludvig Moberg Edenbäck, people experience partner at Mojang Studios.

But if you’re a gaming newbie, how do you make the switch?

Bringing a fresh perspective could be your ultimate ability

Magdalena Björkman, a senior producer at Arrowhead Games, has a background in linguistics and started her career in the manufacturing industry back home in Poland.

“The gaming industry needs people from different backgrounds more than ever. We really need to encourage people who bring different perspectives to the table to come in,” she says.

After studying Japanese, Björkman worked as a translator and coordinator, acting as a conduit between Polish and Japanese engineers. One day she stumbled across a job ad for a Polish games developer looking for an assistant producer who could handle localisation, and eventually started looking for opportunities outside of Poland, landing a role at King in Sweden.

“Swedish and Polish work culture is totally different. I had to get used to not having to be the loudest person in the room to get my opinion across, which I actually really like. It was really, really nice working for King. It was a lot more collaborative. In general, Sweden felt a lot more progressive than Poland.”

Björkman knows other linguists who switched to gaming too and says being able to interpret and translate what people are saying to others is a crucial skill, especially as a producer.

“Whatever you do, you always end up working with people, communication and translation. I’ve always been trying to connect people, and as a games producer, being able to translate different perspectives to help collaboration. Gaming is also a multinational crowd. So if you come from linguistics and you know how to work with different people and cultures, it’s a good fit.”

You don’t need to know how to build games – but you need to be passionate about them

Luis Cascante, currently chief of staff at Rovio and head of the board of education for Futuregames, stresses that this is an industry that values passion. “If you don’t care about games at all, don’t bother,” he says. Gaming isn’t just a business, it’s a creative art form, and you’re unlikely to get hired if the interest and passion aren’t there.

“I’ve worked with studio founders who basically tell everyone they expect passion, whatever their role is, and if they don’t have it, there’s no place for them in their studio,” says Cascante.

Around half of Mojang’s staff have a technical background, and 30 percent are foreigners. Photo: Melker Dahlstrand/imagebank.sweden.se

Mojang’s Moberg Edenbäck, who is an avid gamer, agrees that demonstrating an interest in gaming helps, although it’s not a strict requirement for all roles.

“At Mojang, we’re in a unique spot because we’ve been around for 15 years and a lot of people that reach out to us have grown up with Minecraft. Sometimes Minecraft is even the reason they started coding, and working here is basically their dream job,” he says.

“But if that’s not the case, one thing people can do to demonstrate interest is to have hobby projects. A lot of people create games in their spare time, or designers and artists create characters just for fun. If you do that, it’s definitely a positive.”

Identify your transferable skills to help you level up

Like any other industry, there are plenty of transferable skills that make your application more desirable. Coders have a slight advantage, as games are built using programming languages (specifically C++ and Java), putting experienced coders in high demand.

“If you’re a C++ developer and you have some experience, even if it’s not with games, you will always be on the map. There is absolutely no shortage of roles that you can apply for,” says Luis Cascante.

Many blockbuster games are built using C++, and experience with 3D creation tools like Unreal Engine and Unity provides the easiest entry points if you come from a technical background.

Cascante says data analysis is another sought-after skill: “It’s not necessarily part of hands-on game creation, but data analysts are definitely in demand. At Rovio, none of our data analysts are from Europe, because we simply can’t find them.”

“If you’re good at maths, statistics and SQL, studios are more likely to pick you up, even if you’re slightly more junior because there’s such a demand right now,” he adds.

DICE, headquartered in Stockholm, is one of the major players in the gaming industry. Photo: Melker Dahlstrand/imagebank.sweden.se

But it’s not all about coders.

“Producers, artists, designers, marketers and HR practitioners are all needed to successfully build, launch, and market a successful game,” adds Moberg Edenbäck.

Project management, product management and UX design are also highly transferable skill sets, with many people bringing this kind of expertise into gaming after starting out their careers in other industries.

Network, get a mentor and look for internships

Some practical tips Magdalena Björkman shares for those wanting to switch to gaming are to network, look for mentors, and keep an eye out for internships.

“People are very friendly in the gaming industry, so just talk to them! It’s easy to reach out and approach people as mentors, which can help a lot. Also, look for internships, and go to networking events,” she says.

“There are more opportunities now compared to ten years ago, with boot camps and such. I work with a producer at Arrowhead now who had a background in publishing, but he did a course, and now he’s a full-time game producer.”

However, she urges people not to take the decision to switch careers lightly.

“Gaming can be tough. You need to love what you’re doing, take care of yourself, and have other hobbies outside of gaming. It’s easy to get consumed,” she says.

Get an education in gaming

For those who are truly committed to switching to a career in gaming, studying at one of Stockholm’s specialised gaming schools may be an option (they also offer evening classes).

Unsurprisingly, Futuregames’ Cascante is a big advocate for gaming schools and believes they’re a great pathway into the industry for people with the interest but not the experience.

“I’m chairman of the board of education at Futuregames, and we see people in Stockholm are actually taking courses to break into the industry,” he says.

“They take around two and a half years, which sounds like a lot, but you get a lot of training and professional internships in studios. The schools are really good at matchmaking between companies and students. Often the students stay on after their internships, and if they don’t, they still get at least six months of real experience in the industry.”

Minecraft has sold more than 300 million copies, making it the best selling game ever. Photo: Melker Dahlstrand/imagebank.sweden.se

Other schools include the Sweden Game Area and The Game Assembly, which offer courses in everything from agile project management in gaming to game design and 3D modelling for artists. Most of Sweden’s gaming studios offer internships regularly, including Mojang.

Swedish universities also offer part-time remote modules in for example coding. It’s free to study at university in Sweden for EU citizens and for non-EU residents who are in Sweden on another permit than a student permit, so for example work permits or spouse permits.

Ride the post-boom wave

The gaming industry has a historic reputation for only hiring people with gaming experience, but Björkman believes this mindset is changing.

“In the past, the industry has been a little elitist. It used to be that you needed ten years of experience to get into gaming, but now that’s changing and it’s becoming more open. This is great because we need experience from different industries to bring new know-how and knowledge. We don’t need to do things the same way all the time,” she says.

This is no surprise. After substantial long-term success, it makes sense that a talent-strapped industry has to start casting its net a little wider.

The conclusion? As long as you’re passionate, proactive, and can offer a valuable new perspective, it’s definitely possible to switch to a career path in Sweden’s burgeoning gaming industry.

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