AI Changemakers Gothenburg: A Warm-Up Ahead of NVIDIA GTC
2026-01-15 17:00 - 21:00 UTC
On January 15, Swenode.AI brought together founders, investors, and industry leaders at Aixia HQ in Gothenburg for an evening on AI, industry collaboration, and the future of talent attraction in Sweden – framed as a warm-up ahead of NVIDIA GTC in San Jose.
The evening featured a panel with Ödgärd Andersson, CEO of Zenseact, and Per Hillertz, AstraZeneca, on how large industry companies collaborate with startups and attract world-class AI talent to Sweden, followed by an investment panel moderated by Malin Kjällström.
The conversations in the room covered a wide range – from physical AI and deep tech to self-driving cars and AI in mental health. A few themes that stood out: Sweden has strong talent in hardware and hardcore deep tech, but startups risk being pulled into large-company processes before they’ve had the chance to scale globally. Cross-industry pollination – between defence, health, and mobility – was flagged as one of the clearest competitive advantages the Gothenburg ecosystem has. And a notable signal: serial entrepreneurs in the room are starting to reinvest their capital into early-stage startups, which could have a significant effect on the next generation of companies coming out of the region.
Thank you to Aixia AB for hosting.

In collaboration with NVIDIA

Swenode.AI at Techarena
2026-02-11 08:00 - 2026-02-12 17:00 | Stockholm
Techarena is Scandinavia’s largest tech and business event, bringing together founders, investors, executives, and decision makers from across the Nordics and beyond. This year, Swenode.AI was part of the programme with two side events, a panel, and a private industry dinner.

AI Changemakers
An invite-only side event hosted with Automation Region and NVIDIA, featuring a live demo from Charles Maddock, founder of Strawberry Browser, followed by networking with NVIDIA’s technical experts and partners.
Industry Dinner
Wednesday closed with a private dinner spotlighting founders and operators with roots in Y Combinator and the Silicon Valley ecosystem – including for example Fabian Hedin, co-founder of Lovable, and Sara Landfors, founder of Normain.
How Sweden is Becoming an AI First Nation
On Thursday , in collaboration with Dell Technologies and NVIDIA, and opened by Sindre Bornstein, CEO of Nordic Innovation, this session brought together two of Sweden’s most active AI companies – Legora and Tzafon – to present concrete use cases of AI already transforming their respective industries. The session made the case for Sweden’s position as a strategic AI hub in Europe, moving well past the experimentation phase.
The Race to Scale: Why Cities and Nations Must Move at Startup Speed
Thursday afternoon, Minna Sandberg joined a main stage panel exploring what Sweden and Stockholm must do to remain a place where the world’s most ambitious tech companies choose to build and scale – alongside Lukas Saari, CEO and co-founder of Tandem Health, Jacob Lovén, founder of Den Digitala Draken, and Martin Ådahl, economic policy spokesperson for Centerpartiet and member of the Finance Committee, moderated by Andreas Hölne, Chief Digital Officer at Fabege.

Swenode.AI at NVIDIA GTC 2026
2026-03-13 08:00 - 2026-03-19 17:00
Swenode.AI led the Swedish industry delegation program at NVIDIA GTC 2026 – the world’s leading applied AI conference – and co-led the Nordic AI & Quantum Node activations alongside Innovation Norway, Nordic Innovation, Innovation Centre Denmark, Business Finland, and Automation Region. Together, the delegation brought founders, industry leaders, investors, researchers, and government representatives from Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark to Silicon Valley for a week of structured networking and discussions across sovereign AI, industrial AI, healthcare, quantum computing, and startup innovation.
Events were produced in close collaboration with NVIDIA, Dell Technologies, Nordic Innovation House, Nordic AI & Quantum Node, and Lovable.
By numbers

600+ unique attendees across events
400+ Nordic participants
24 activities across the week

Minna Sandberg (CEO, Swenode.AI), Fabian Hedin (co-founder, Lovable), Amalia Berglöf (Growth, Swenode.AI)

Highlights
Love at Scale — AI Hackathon (March 13) A curated, invite-only hackathon for 100 AI-native builders at the pre-seed and seed stages, held at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto. Teams had 10 hours to build on Lovable’s platform using NVIDIA compute. Co-produced by Swenode.AI and Lovable.
Silicon Valhalla: The Nordic AI Momentum (March 16) A flagship showcase of Nordic AI startups, opened by Howard Wright, VP Ecosystems at NVIDIA. Featured a live product demo from Strawberry Browser (Sweden) and a live product launch from Tana (Norway), alongside an ecosystem panel with founders from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
Aixia × evroc × Opper.AI Release Party (March 16) A product launch event at Delfina, Palo Alto, marking the announcement of a joint initiative between Aixia (NVIDIA’s exclusive DGX Elite Partner in the Nordics), evroc (Europe’s sovereign hyperscale cloud), and Opper.AI, focused on building sovereign Nordic AI infrastructure (buildnordics.ai). Love at Scale hackathon winners were announced here.
Nordic Reception (March 17) The official Nordic flagship event at GTC, co-created with NVIDIA and held at the Hilton Santa Clara. Brought together the full Nordic network in Silicon Valley: founders, investors, government representatives, and NVIDIA HQ leadership.
AI for Precision Prevention (March 18) A session on predictive healthcare AI, featuring researchers and clinicians from Region Halland, Stanford University Hospital, and Skåne University Hospital, alongside representatives from AstraZeneca and Mavatar.
The NVIDIA ‘AI 5 Layer Cake’ Ecosystem in EMEA (March 18) A structured ecosystem session on NVIDIA’s five-layer AI Factory model, opened and closed by David Hogan, VP Enterprise EMEA at NVIDIA, and co-moderated by Swenode.AI CEO Minna Sandberg. Panellists included leadership from Zenseact, NCC Sweden, EcoDatacenter, and HyCom Core (Finland).
VIP Startup Tours Two rounds of curated NVIDIA Inception Pavilion tours for Nordic industry delegates, focused on AI agents, healthcare, and physical AI.
Site Visits: NASA Ames & PsiQuantum (March 19) The week concluded with visits to NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View and PsiQuantum in Milpitas, one of the world’s leading photonic quantum computing companies.
Do you want to join us next time?
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About the Nordic AI & Quantum Node
The Nordic AI & Quantum Node is a consortium coordinated by Swenode.AI, Nordic Innovation, Innovation Norway, Innovation Centre Denmark, Business Finland, and Automation Region. Its mandate is to strengthen the Nordic AI and quantum computing ecosystem and build sustained connections between the Nordics and global technology hubs.
More at nordicnode.ai

Y Combinator in Stockholm: The Evening at TAK
2026-04-29 21:00 - 23:30
On April 29, Y Combinator hosted an event at Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre with Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, co-founders of Y Combinator, Gustaf Alströmer, General Partner, Max Junestrand, CEO of Legora, and Christina Gilbert, Visiting Partner at YC.
Over 3,000 people applied to attend. 1,200 got a spot.
The programme covered the Silicon Valley advantage for early-stage founders, AI startup strategy, B2B enterprise sales, and fundraising. Paul Graham’s core argument: spend time in Silicon Valley to learn, then come back and build at home. The evening’s clearest proof of that thesis was on stage – Max Junestrand, co-founder of Legora, YC-backed and building in Stockholm.
Swenode.AI was one of two organisations hosting official afterparties. Bridging the Nordic and Silicon Valley ecosystems is what Swenode.AI was built to do – and an evening like this, where those two worlds are literally in the same room, is exactly the kind of moment we exist to facilitate.
150 hand-picked founders, investors, and engineers moved from Waterfront to TAK – everyone from Anton Osika, co-founder of Lovable, to some of the most promising startups in the Nordic ecosystem right now.
Minna Sandberg, CEO of Swenode.AI, reflected on the evening:
“TAK was packed – 150 handpicked founders and VCs, out of 1,200 who raised their hands to be there. A few hours earlier, Y Combinator had said it plainly: go to Silicon Valley to learn, then come back to Europe and build. Be the big fish. And here I am. Looking at Max and Anton, the two founders that proved that this is possible.”
The YC event summary and Paul Graham’s talk are published on the YC Startup Library.
The event was made in collaboration with Y Combinator, in partnership with Wilson Sonsini, Dell Technologies & Legora, and powered by Inception Fund & Google

Swenode.AI at Almedalen
2026-06-22 08:00 - 2026-06-26 17:00
We’ll be in Almedalen! Going there and interested in AI? Let’s meet!

Swenode.AI at TechBBQ
2026-08-26 08:00 - 2026-08-27 17:00
As a part of our collaborations through Nordic AI & Quantum Node, we’ll be at TechBBQ, listening in to the discussions revolving around AI and Nordic sovereignty.
