10A: Collaborative economy – innovating for a better society?

Lecturer: Åsa Minoz, founder and senior partner of ModigMinoz

Content: The development of the collaborative or the sharing economy has recieved a lot of attention in public debate in recent years. While the development of this field holds promise to empower citizens and potentially contribute to a greener and more socially sustainable future, political and regulatory battles are fought in its wake throughout the world and negative aspects of this development give rise to many controversies. This lecture will explore the development of the collaborative economy and the potential and challenges for new models of value creation contributing to a better society.

About: Åsa Minoz has a backgound in innovation policy and has a long experience of working on policies and initiatives to promote innovation in society at large. Her academic background includes a MSc BA in international business and doctoral studies in France in development economics. Åsa runs the company ModigMinoz together with her colleague Sara Modig. She is passionate about the potential and power of people as citizens, users and employees, whether as individuals or in business, public or third sector organisations to contribute to innovation for a sustainable global society. As an expert in innovation policy, social innovation and social entrepreneurship, the sharing/collaborative economy now occupies a major part of her time in her dual role as an expert and an entrepreneur in the field.

Literature:

- Schor (2014). "Debating the Sharing Economy", essay at the website Great Transition Initiative.

- Balaram (2016) “Fair Share – Reclaiming power in the sharing economy”, report published by the British think tank RSA in collaboration with Innovate UK in Jan 2016

10B: Navigate the rough sustainability-waters as an entrepreneur

Lecturer: Tobias Forngren: co-founder of Freelway

Content: The focus of this lecture will be on entrepreneurship and how to build and implement sustainable values in the business model of the enterprise. Some examples of the exciting and demanding life as an entrepreneur, including challenges and opportunities will be presented. The sustainable and digital transport service Freelway will be demonstrated and discussed.

About: Tobias Forngren has a background as medicinal chemist and has long experience of developing new drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. Although Tobias spent many years as a scientist, project manager and team leader within large organisations of Big Pharma he has stayed an entrepreneur at heart and has been engaged in different startups and companies since his student days at Uppsala University.