Sweden is not waiting for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress next month to devise its strategy for building a strong startup ecosystem. While “number of patents” is only one metric to measure innovation, Sweden thinks it is one of the most important. The 2011 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII)—developed by the INSEAD eLab which takes into account dimensions such as creativity and efficiency—ranks Sweden second of 125 economies. For the Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, Sweden came in third position. And, in Thomson Reuters’ “Global Innovators” list, Sweden is the headquarters location of 6 percent of the list’s companies.
But Sweden is looking for more than a hot spot in those rankings. According to my conversations with staff from the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC, it is aggressively pushing for a new wave of young innovators to keep its economy vibrant and innovation-driven. This Friday, the Embassy, in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, will comb for lessons learned from various initiatives and policies from Sweden and the United States designed to help innovators (ages 18 years and older) develop and market their ideas. Annie Lööf, Sweden’s Minister of Enterprise, will be there along with representatives from U.S. Department of Commerce.
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