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BY INVEST STOCKHOLM

Eight groundbreaking Stockholm inventions that changed the world

The 2022 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm is soon upon us. This year, locally-born geneticist, Svante Pääbo, will receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in sequencing the Neanderthal genome. Stockholm has a long history of innovation, creativity and ingenuity, and here are a few examples of fellow Stockholm trailblazers responsible for some truly world-changing inventions.

Published: 5 December 2022 09:17 CET
Eight groundbreaking Stockholm inventions that changed the world
Stockholm's City Hall, where the Nobel Prizes are awarded. Photo: Visit Stockholm

GPS for navigation

Håkan Lans’s navigation system, the STDMA (Self-organising Time Division Multiple Access), is used globally, including on our mobile phone GPS systems. This navigation system employs both GPS and radio to help all road, air traffic and maritime traffic avoid collisions and becoming lost. Stockholm-born Lans had nearly four decades worth of scientific research experience at the University of Stockholm, and he spent 15 years and roughly 2.6 billion Swedish kronor (€238m) worth of venture capital to develop, test and demonstrate the STDMA data link before the patent was published in 1997.

Spotify

This list would not be complete without including Spotify, who changed the world of music forever. Launched in Stockholm in 2006, today it’s the most popular music streaming provider in the world and with more than 456 million monthly active users, including 195 million paying subscribers. Spotify is now so globally recognised that it’s inspired its own Netflix TV series, The Playlist, which focuses on its invention by coder and co-founder Daniel Ek, and the growth of Spotify into a tech unicorn.

Stockholm is well known as a centre of creativity and innovation, and you can become part of its story! Click here to find out how.

Daniel Ek, of Spotify. Photo: Supplied.

Dynamite

Alfred Nobel, born in Stockholm in 1833, wanted to make construction sites safer to work by developing a safe nitroglycerin explosive for workmen to use. First he invented the blasting cap and then he discovered that a siliceous earth, kieselguhr, would stabilise nitroglycerin, thus making dynamite, a relatively stable explosive.

However, Nobel was deeply troubled by the way his inventions came to be used in war and became increasingly concerned with advancing the cause of worldwide peace.

He died in 1896, leaving his sizeable estate as an endowment for annual awards in chemistry, physics, medicine or physiology, literature, and peace, all of which represented his lifelong interests.

Want to work in a global tech hub that welcomes your input, wherever you’re from? Find out more about Stockholm

Respirator

While working at the Municipal Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Stockholm, Carl Gunnar Engström invented the Engström Universal Respirator. It was the first mechanical ventilator that could deliver breaths of controllable volume and frequency and also deliver inhalation anaesthetics. Mechanical ventilators soon became a standard feature of all anaesthesia machines, thereby hugely improving patient safety.

Pacemakers

By 1958, 43-year-old former Swedish hockey star, Arne Larsson, was nearing death. His heart stopped beating up to 20 times a day, requiring his wife, Else-Marie, to resuscitate him each time with chest compressions. Larsson was clearly dying. But Else-Marie did not give up on him. She had read that a doctor, Åke Senning, was working with an engineer Rune Elmqvist at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, to develop a cardiac pacemaker that could be implanted into the body. She made sure she spoke to them every day to convince them to let her husband be the first to have the device fitted. They eventually consented and the device, despite problems at first, was a success. Arne lived until 2001, when he died at the ripe old age of 86, even outliving the device’s engineer Rune Elmqvist, who passed away in 1996.

One of Sweden’s greatest innovations, the pacemaker, seen on a chest X-Ray. Photo: Getty Images

European banknotes

Stockholms Banco was the first European bank to print banknotes. It was founded in 1657 by Johan Palmstruch in Stockholm, and began printing banknotes in 1661. It was the immediate predecessor to the central bank of Sweden, founded in 1668 as Riksens Ständers Bank and renamed in 1866 as Sveriges Riksbank, which is the world’s oldest surviving central bank.

Household refrigerator

In 1922, when Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters were civil engineering students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, they were working on an exam project and ended up inventing and developing a cooling cabinet for food: the gas absorption refrigerator. Humans had cooled food and drinks in cellars and ice boxes for generations but these cooling solutions were large, bulky, and very expensive, making them inaccessible to most people. Von Platen and Munters’ solution, however, made household refrigerators cheaper and more accessible to all and the refrigerator became a worldwide success.

Minecraft

In May 2009, Stockholm-born Markus Persson published a game called Minecraft, a virtual sandbox where players could build anything they could imagine. Minecraft became incredibly popular with children (and their parents who saw it as an almost educational game). It has sold more than 238 million copies as of 2022, according to Microsoft, who bought the gaming franchise from Persson in 2014 for $2.5 billion (€2.4billion).

Looking for new opportunities and a better quality of life? Click here to find out more about moving to Stockholm

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READER INSIGHTS

How to find a job in Sweden: Five tips from those who’ve been there, done that

The Swedish job market poses unique challenges for newcomers. The Local's readers share their best tips for cracking the career code.

Published: 10 April 2024 11:32 CEST
Updated: 13 April 2024 15:50 CEST
How to find a job in Sweden: Five tips from those who've been there, done that

Network, network, network!

A statistic that often gets tossed around is that seven out of ten jobs in Sweden are obtained through personal connections, and there’s no doubt that a good network is crucial to your job hunt, making the labour market extra challenging for newcomers to the country.

In fact, networking was the main tip mentioned by The Local’s readers.

“The job market is quite hot in Sweden, and talent is in short supply. People hiring do not have a lot of time to find the right talent, and tips from friends, colleagues and former colleagues are the way to first, find out organisations are hiring, and secondly, get your CV on the short list,” said Kyle, a Canadian reader who works in innovation management in Gothenburg.

“If you are going for a major employer like Volvo, network gets you in the door, as HR does not have much to do with hiring… the hiring managers do all of it and have no time, due to the insane number of consensus meetings. If you are looking for smaller organisations, they have even less time to find people, and networking is their primary way to find talent,” he added.

NETWORKING IN SWEDEN:

Some of the networking tips readers mentioned were going to job fairs, getting an internship to help you establish connections in your preferred field, joining clubs (this could be anything from your local gardening association to meetups for coders, but focus on clubs that may be popular among people working in your chosen field), and drawing on your organic network of friends, neighbours and others.

Don’t neglect the groundwork

The saying “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” is getting worn out (and people may look at you funny if you turn up to interviews in a Batman suit), but there’s truth to the notion of making sure you know what you want – and preparing for it.

In other words, don’t wait for a job ad to appear before you start to customise your CV and figure out what skill set you need. Create your CV now so that you’re ready to tweak it to your dream job – you could even have a general look at job ads in your field to see what requirements are needed. And don’t forget to spruce up your LinkedIn profile so that it fits with your career goals.

“I believe that several factors contribute to successfully landing a desirable job in Sweden. It’s essential to prepare to meet the requirements beyond just having a university degree. Many individuals realise these requirements only after completing their studies when they start searching for a job, which can be too late,” said Adnan Aslam from Pakistan, who works as a food inspector.

“I recommend identifying the job advertisements for positions you aspire to hold in the future and then preparing for those requirements during your studies. For me, acquiring a basic level of proficiency in the Swedish language and obtaining a Swedish driving licence were crucial. I pursued these goals during my studies and was able to secure a desirable job before graduating,” he added.

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Felipe Cabral even has a GPT assistant trained on his own CVs and old cover letters, and said the set-up only takes ten minutes if you already have your documents. “With that in place, you can give instructions like: Read this job description and create a tailored version of my CV and letter for it. (…) Remember to always review and ask it not to create data aside from your documents.”

Be flexible and ready to adapt

Moving to a new place inevitably means having to learn not just the practicalities such as how to write a CV or which websites to use to look for job openings, but also learning how to navigate a new culture with all its unspoken expectations.

Swedish workplaces are generally less hierarchical than many other countries, but that doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want without anyone raising an eyebrow. Swedes are usually direct, but be careful of being too abrasive or boastful: raising your voice, even during a spirited argument, or banging your own drum to show off your skills may not go down well.

“Talk, deliberate, complain like a Swede and you’ll come across like you know what the job entails, so your trustworthiness increases,” said an Indian data analyst who preferred to remain anonymous.

“Office politics are just as strong in Sweden as anywhere else. The flat hierarchy is deceiving as social hierarchy is enforced quite a bit in that lack of formal hierarchy. Take your time in learning these dynamics wherever you work before revealing your talent and capabilities. Expect those internal politics to happen, and they won’t hurt so much when they do,” said Kyle, the Canadian reader in Gothenburg.

This article about Swedish office politics may be useful.

Stay true to yourself

Adapting to your surroundings is one thing. Completely changing who you are is another.

For one thing, your happiness is as important as your career progression, and for another, your foreignness need not be an impediment: it’s also a skill that sets you apart from the rest. It means you have unique experience, and also, in the right setting, provides an opportunity to sometimes violate those social rules we mentioned above, because people assume you will, anyway.

“Trust is key. Build trust in your network, work with integrity. It’s OK to violate jantelagen if you are maintaining integrity. Sometimes your outsider and more honest/open opinion will burn bridges, especially those that may feel threatened by talent. But it will build trust with other colleagues who see it as brave and more trustworthy to work with,” said Kyle from Canada.

Hunker down for the long haul

We don’t want to scare you, because there are plenty of examples of people who quickly find their dream job in Sweden and settle into their new workplace, enjoying perks such as long summer holidays, generous parental leave and the famous work-life balance.

But if you do find it tougher than you expected: know that you’re not alone.

Several readers who responded to the survey said they were still trying to find a job in Sweden.

“I found jobs all over Europe but not here. They say they have a lack of experienced senior engineers but the don’t seem to be doing much to solve this,” said a Brazilian in Gothenburg.

A reader from Bangladesh said she was “at a loss” as to how to make a career change from her current AI role in Stockholm, despite many years of experience as an IT project manager.

“Over the past 18 months, I’ve submitted over 600 applications to various organisations. Unfortunately, despite being overqualified for some positions, I’ve faced rejections at every turn, from both large and small companies. The job market here, especially for foreign-born women, feels overwhelmingly challenging,” she said, adding that the struggle had impacted her mental health.

The Local has on several occasions reported on foreign residents’ struggle to get a foot on the Swedish job ladder, with many facing hurdles such as employers’ unfamiliarity with international degrees, discrimination, or a lack of network that can provide paths into a company.

So during the job hunt, don’t forget to care for yourself. Share your concerns with fellow job-seekers, ask for help and join networking groups – this is good not just for creating new contacts, but also in terms of your social well-being and meeting people who are in a similar situation.

And finally, as one British reader in Stockholm advised, keep looking: “Be open-minded with the opportunities that present themselves. It isn’t an easy market to enter and doesn’t feel inclusive.” But he added, “don’t give up”.

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