Johan Jörgensen’s Post

I'm getting nervous. Not for the Big Meet - that program looks ridiculously good - but because I next Monday will hold an introductory class for all first-year students at the Stockholm School of Economics (The Swedish version of Harvard, Nobel Prize institution etc.). It's the beginning of the obligatory course on Innovation Management, so one of the heavier ones for a school that is Europe's second-largest breeding ground for unicorns, just beaten by Oxford University. Since Oxford is way, way, way larger than SSE, this means that I will speak at Europe's top entrepreneurial business school. This year the course on innovation management will be all about food transformation, its challenges and opportunities. The course is led by the dynamic new Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg professor at the House of Innovation, Valentina Tartari (we at Sweden Foodtech have been somewhat involved in the conception). Let this sink in. Europe's top entrepreneurial business school has identified food as a topic to teach and study. Every student that exits the school in a few years time will have been marinated in food. That's never happened before and I know, because this is my Alma Mater. This will change things and perhaps a few new unicorns will be conceived within the school walls? That SSE has decided to embrace the transformation of food speaks volumes. The transformation of our food sector will affect our societies far beyond today's value chain, which means that the social sciences, like economics, will be front and center in understanding what's going on. The last time around we transformed our food system on the scale that currently confronts us we came up with the Green Revolution. That gave the American scientist Norman Borlaug the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. If Valentina will get another Nobel Prize for her efforts I don't know, but serious academic engagement with food system transformation and the ensuing policy and societal transformation does seem a worthy cause for future recognitions. I don't feel it's hyperbole to say I have great hopes for SSE becoming one of the leading international academic voices in the food system transformation, it is a fantastic home for those out there that want to engage with and benefit from some of the smartest brains on the planet. In any case, Valentina will join us at the end of day one of the Big Meet (April 9), to reflect on where we're heading. It will be amazing! https://t.ly/NK8Eg