Written by: Oscar Werner, Tobii Business Manager
The 2012 George Washington University Residence Consulting Project is underway as the process unfolds. In collaboration with the Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce, 17 MBA students from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. have had the opportunity to team up with Tobii Technology to create an intensive expansion plan to integrate Tobii technology products into the United States market. The weeklong event began Monday, June 25 with introductions and welcoming from the Swedish Institute in Stockholm and preliminary meetings with Tobii. Following on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the George Washington University students were treated to inside tours into the workings of Stockholm and Uppsala’s best Universities, projects and innovative medical and technology companies. Site visits included the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm (KTH), Uppsala University, Stockholm Life, SciLife and the Center for Technology in Medicine and Health in Stockholm. Final presentations held at the United States Embassy in Stockholm conclude the week’s business.
This is the third event of this kind for the Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce and the George Washington University MBA program. Previous collaborators include the clean-tech companies Taurus Energy, Climate Well and i-tech. This is the first occasion that the healthcare industry has been targeted for this event. At the final presentation on Friday, June 29, the MBA class proposed a thorough and well-investigated expansion strategy equipped with a push-pull marketing approach, communication plans and funding overview that will increase exposure and demand for the Tobii PCEye device. Tobii marketing manager remarked that the information provided was extremely ‘actionable’ and helped to ‘validate what [Tobii] has be working on in the past’ and to ‘put the finger on the things that are important.’ The only regret was that this valuable collaboration hadn’t happened sooner.
With Sweden standing as an innovative European and global leader, collaborative efforts between Swedish business and the students of George Washington University stand to bring valuable knowledge and experience to the hands-on educational practice already in place with the Tobii expansion project. Not only has Tobii gained insight from the project, but the MBA students have benefitted from the practical and international experience that such an effort has provided for them.
STOCKHOLM LIFE
Brought to us by Filippa Kull, Business Development Director, and Ylva Williams, Chief Executive Officer, the visiting students were given and inside tour into the planning for Stockholm’s current and exciting life science rebuilding project. The Stockholm Life project is a leader in today’s life science industry. In collaboration with a current 60 billion crown venture to transform the Karolinska- North Station area of Stockholm into a state-of-the-art, ‘24/7’ ‘life science ecosystem.’ Sweden ranks fourth in Europe with nine life science companies among its population of just 9 million and this is the largest infrastructure project to be taken on in this region.
SCILIFE
Following the introduction of Stockholm Life, the burgeoning company, SciLife, came into the picture for the George Washington University group. Katja Leonova, Co-founder of SciLife Clinic provided insight of the currents in Sweden’s private healthcare sector. Researchers estimate that children born today will benefit from an extended 109 and years of life compared to the 80 year average life span in Sweden today. What SciLife does is consider and utilize a holistic approach involving the latest medical technology, genetic analysis and lifestyles to assess promote healthier and longer living to fill in the the gaps in the public healthcare system through preventative analysis.
