Happy Friday!
Today was our last day of company visits for the week and we ended it with 2 very interesting presentations!
The first company we visited was Valea, a law firm in Gothenburg. We heard from Andrew, the CEO, and one of his sidekicks Victor. We learned that Valea has about 75 employees and was founded in 2004. Valea is the market leader in intellectual property consulting, including work with patents, trademarks, and design applications. The company has also been top ranked by many publications in the European business world. We talked a lot about patents like what exactly they are, why companies need them, and how to get them. In short, a patent is a contract between investors and the state that lasts for 20 years. Patents are used to try and get a return on investments and forces competitors to come up with alternative solutions for their products or ideas. As for trademarks, we learned that they are the indication of origin and it lasts forever, but needs a renewal every 10 years.
Before we headed out to our next company visit we had about an hour of free time to hang around the mall we had lunch at. One of the things I found most interesting was that there was both a grocery store and liquor store just chilling in the middle of the mall! I held back and didn’t buy anything, but some other people from our group got great deals on winter jackets and Lululemon look-alikes.
The second company we visited today was Xylem. This is the company Kendall and I researched before coming over here, so it was very interesting to meet them in person! We heard from Christian, a product engineer in wastewater treatment. The first thing Christian told us was that the demand for water will increase 5 times by 2050, but the amount of freshwater will stay the same. He told us that there are 16,000 employees globally, and they have offices all around the world. Christian also spent a lot of the time telling us about the Emmaboda Manufacturing Plant in southern Sweden. This plant, apparently similar to other water plants, allowed clients the opportunity to try the product before buying it. Christian told us the biggest problem they are currently facing as a company, and as an industry as a whole, is getting clean water to developing countries around the world.
After the company visits we headed back to the hostel for some much needed down time. It’s officially been a week of company visits and we are all exhausted. Our typical day starts around 7:30am, followed by breakfast, and then we head out the door to the companies for the day. With the exception of Thursday, we had 2 company visits every day this week, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. After the visits we tend to get back to the hostel around 5:30/6:00. Every other night we have a group dinner, and on the nights we don’t we get to explore new restaurants in smaller groups. Finally after our long day, we head downstairs to the lounge to blog around 10:00 for two hours. All in all, our days are jam packed and to say we are looking forward to some sleep this weekend is an understatement.
Tonight a few of us went out for dinner at O’Learys, a popular sports bar that has food, drinks, and games. After we got dinner we headed back to the “arcade” and played a couple games of bowling. It was a really fun night and it all clicked that we only have a few more days with everyone.
Only 4 more days of blogs left, I know you all are going to be very disappointed when they’re no longer here.
Top Takeaways:
- Still water is very hard to find in Sweden. Everywhere we look we see “angry” water (aka carbonated water).
- Fika (coffee and a sweet of some sort) happens every day at any time of the day. Normally it is around 9:30 and 2:30, but every company visit we have gone to, we’ve had Fika.
- We’re drinking the same water as dinosaurs! We learned at Xylem that the water cycle is a closed cycle, meaning we basically drink the same water that dinosaurs drank.
Lyndsey Learns Swedish 