FROM STRAWBERRIES TO THE STATES
One of my first memories from when I was about 4-years old is about strawberries. I used to close my eyes and imagined one, then another. This little thought experiment was something I became obsessed with. I wanted to be like Lucky Luke, faster than my own shadow to see, feel, and understand how a strawberry could just pop up like that. From an early age I was determined to become a medical doctor and study the brain. Fast forward, I did. My PhD thesis was about the brain and decision making or put in a buzz word — neuroeconomics.
After my PhD I quit academia in an instant, I wanted to fly and teach the world about the brain. Something unconventional at the time and a decision that was criticized by external circles. Why waste a potentially successful medical and academic career that had just been kicked off by a prestigious interview in the New York Times?
Fifteen years later, AI is hotter than ever and suddenly my move from academia to the entrepreneurial world makes perfect sense. Throughout my career I have always been passionate about data—a cornerstone in research and the fuel for AI. Today, I am the co-founder of the AI-company Edsvärd, a company that transforms data into intelligence. Funnily enough our work is all about imitating the brain’s way to process information so data can become actionable.
Working with AI is an innovative process on its own, as it is iterative and constantly changing. A product is never “finished” in the sense that to keep AI accurate over time, you need to continuously train it. The built-in training is similar to the concept of “a growth mindset” which is about learning new things and adjusting to new incoming information. Requirements from clients change frequently e.g. when we started out, everyone was happy with a European cloud, now more clients wish on prem solutions and/or local clouds. Illustrating that it is not enough to just have a good technical solution that solves a particular problem, on top of that the product itself needs to be very agile to meet high technical demands.
The most important part in this business is to have a great team where everyone dances with the changes. As a leader I have to make sure that everyone dances to the beat—like professional dancers, perfectly aligned and in sync. We have been dancing well, as this is being written we are establishing Edsvärd in the USA. Who would ever have thought that strawberries would bring me to the States?
