Nicklas Bergman – Keynote Speaker

Proud founder, Curious funder and Applied Futurist

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Specialist Subjects

  • The Intelligence Revolution - AI Beyond the Hype
  • The Entrepreneurial Journey - Luck, Timing, and Talent
  • Navigating the Techstorm - Insights Beyond the Hype
  • Geopolitics, Megatrends, and Inevitable Surprises
  • Finding Opportunities in Times of Great Uncertainty

Languages

  • English
  • German

Biography

Straight-talking Swedish entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and thinker. Nicklas Bergman understands and interprets the technological megatrends shaping business, society, and culture. He works with forward-thinking leaders and organizations, established and new, to help them navigate an increasingly uncertain future. He’s the perfect guide to take an audience from neglect and skepticism to curiosity and preparedness for the challenges and opportunities the future might hold. In other words, inviting Nicklas is a fool-proof way to future-proof your organization.

30+ years working as an entrepreneur have given Nicklas an immense understanding of building companies across different regions and economic climates. From being the co-founder and largest investor in an electron microscopy company featuring unique patented nanoscale technologies to developing a Scandinavian ski resort that has attracted investments close to 200 million EUR to setting up a Volvo distribution network in Romania that grew into a 300 million EUR business, Nicklas has been able to capitalize in emerging areas that are often shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty thanks to an unflinching curiosity and desire to understand how trends work.

20+ years working as a technology investor have taught him to stay agile in times of great uncertainty. He has seen companies go up in flames, businesses rise from the ashes, and tiny players conquer the world. At times, he has witnessed returns fifty-two times the size of his investment. Other times, zero. This hands-on, curious, and unyielding approach to exploring what comes next with both a strong business and tech background gives Nicklas a unique perspective. He uses this hard-earned experience as one of six investment committee members at the EIC Fund, an EUR 5 billion deep tech VC fund investing in more than 100 European startups annually.

10+ years working as a futurist has turned him into the most pragmatic futurist in the tech space. As a tech bubble collector, Nicklas lives with technology 24/7 and meets with scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and fellow investors daily. He’s optimistic about the promises emerging from new technologies but is also concerned that society is not ready for the upcoming techstorm. Some years ago, he cleared his schedule and embarked on a journey to understand where technology takes us. The result was Navigating the Techstorm: The Business Impact of Technology Beyond the Hype (Lid Publishing, London). The book was listed in Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the top 10 business books to read in 2018.

Since then, he has divided his time between technology investments, a couple of skunkworks projects, and speaking and advising about how others can best navigate the opportunities and challenges of the near future. Nicklas believes we’re entering an era in which technology will redefine who we are and that it’s no longer just a question of what technology can do for us but what we should allow technology to do. We must discuss the meaning and direction of any technological innovation or scientific breakthrough. Technology is pointless unless it serves to improve people’s lives, and ethical perspectives are getting more and more complicated as new innovations and gadgets enter our lives.

Popular Talks by Nicklas Bergman

The Intelligence Revolution - AI Beyond the Hype

See beyond the hype around AI prompting and understand the real, immediate impact. Pair this with an understanding of trends in AI, and you will be ideally positioned to stay ahead of the competition.Generative AI is two things at the same time. On the one hand, its, at best, a decent intern or junior associate. Its hallucinating, bad at math, biased, energy-consuming, and definitely not scaleable to become sentient. On the other hand, it increases productivity when used correctly, is a great way to jumpstart your creativity, and will be especially useful when trained on proprietary, specific data sets. So, how do you make sense of this AI craze? Well, dont panic, be curious! Find embryos of relevant use cases within your organization and allow people to experiment. Generative AI is a natural continuation of digitization but only one building block in our AI-powered future. To stay ahead, you must find out whats on the technological frontier, assess the implications for your industry and clients, and adapt to this new reality. As a long-term collector of tech bubbles and as someone investing in dozens of AI-related startups every yearNicklas is the perfect guide to debunk AI and show you real impact beyond the hype.

The Entrepreneurial Journey - Luck, Timing, and Talent

Whether it’s co-founding a company in Eastern Europe in 1991 and scaling that to a 300 MEUR business in 15 years, conquering the world of nanotechnology with a ten people team, building a ski resort from scratch (apart from the mountain itself), investing in a North Sea offshore engineering company, or a Central America forestry operation, success always comes down to luck, timing, and talent (in that order). Through the eyes of an entrepreneur, Nicklas shares colorful stories and useful insights from 30 years as an entrepreneur and investor. Not only the successful moments but also the challenges, struggles, and mistakes along the way. In other words, an eclectic mix of epic failures and a couple of home runs, leaving the audience with an appetite for entrepreneurship and venturing into the unknown.

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