Previous years

A future gazer is a future shaper, driven by determination, imagination, and the willingness to dream of a better tomorrow.

As we stand on the edge of a new age of opportunity and transformation, we must all strive to understand the challenging times that lie ahead – times that will test our adaptability, ingenuity, and our capacity to embrace the unknown. Times where visionaries, revolutionaries, entrepreneurs, disruptors, and peace makers must rise to that challenge to shape the future for all mankind.

For the second year in a row Brilliant Minds was happy to offer 200 young guests from local communities across Stockholm the chance to experience a taste of Brilliant Minds. Following the great success of A Taste of Brilliant Minds in Stockholm we expanded this initiative together with Chalmers Ventures to bring the program to Gothenburg in July.

This year the Brilliant Innovators competition partnered with EQT Ventures to once again bring new ideas and new voices to centre stage during Brilliant Minds 2023.

The top 6 selected finalists were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present their ideas live on stage in a 5-minute pitch to some of the world’s most inspiring and influential leaders in Stockholm in June.

For some, change means uncertainty, risk, and fear. But for Brilliant Minds, we believe that change presents an important challenge to move into the realms of a new and empowering age. We have the opportunity to increase our empathy and compassion and develop a greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us, and the changes that we personally can make to ensure a safer, healthier, and brighter future.

At Brilliant Minds, we have long seen the positivity and growth that embracing change can bring. Over the years, we have brought together innovative and creative leaders from around the world to share stories and experiences and leverage new ideas.

Hosted by tech leader Binette Seck and entrepreneur Beata Wickbom, speaker sessions at A Taste of Brilliant Minds offered 200 students and young adults from local communities across Stockholm the chance to experience some of the principles and thinking of the larger Brilliant Minds event. The series of panels and interviews held on stage shared powerful stories of bravery and accomplishment, offering challenging conversations on current trends, as well as encourage inspiring and bold plans for the future – echoing Brilliant Minds’ theme of ‘Change; one day or day one, you decide’.

Brilliant Minds partnered with the Norrsken Impact Accelerator in creating a competition to bring new ideas and new voices to center stage during Brilliant Minds 2022. The top 10 selected finalists where given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present their ideas live on stage in a 5-minute pitch to some of the world’s most inspiring and influential leaders in Stockholm in June.

Innovations are not created by science alone, culture prods them into existence.

In 2019, Brilliant Minds convened the modern purveyors of young, fresh culture, who are shaping generations with their raw openness and authentic voices, together with the experienced, established, long-term business leaders in a concert of purposeful thought leadership and impact.

In 2018, we orchestrated a siren call to action for the highest kind of innovator, Fenomen, who doesn’t succumb to fear and resentment, but demonstrates resilience in the face of intolerance, inequality and the challenge posed by those technology has left behind.

Defintion: Swedish for “Phenomenon”, A “Fenomen” is a leader against all odds, a creative solution or person that exists even though it goes against all common logic that it does. Today’s tempestuous times call for more than entrepreneurs, more than disruptors or creators, they call for Fenomen, the highest level of innovators. Our Fenomen speakers in 2018 included newly-minted Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Vice founder Shane Smith, Tom Freston, Duran Duran’s John Taylor, Barbara Bush, Jesse Williams, and Ilwad Elman.

In our third year we took our mission and purpose to a new level by redefining humanity and community in a tech-drenched world.

Speakers like Pharrell, Usher, Jeff Koons, Olafur Eliasson, Evan Williams, Chris Sacca, Christy Turlington Burns, Kimbal Musk and Maye Musk, helped us debate how what it means to be uniquely human will be changed by technology, and how we can imbue humanity into technology to ensure that change is impactful and fair.

We leveraged the concept of Swedish values as universal values and focused on the art of collaboration. ”Collaborate Creativity” was the theme for year 2, cementing a future borderless society where crushing siloes and bureaucracies is the key to innovation. Speakers included Alphabet’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Quincy Jones, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, Skype Founder Niklas Zennström, UK Minister for Internet Safety Baroness Joanna Shields, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and Icona Pop.

In our inaugural year, we established Stockholm as a unique values-based tech ecosystem and the new creative capital of the world, gathering the major Nordic CEO’, music artists and entrepreneurs to unveil the future of innovation the “Arctic” way. Honored Speakers included HRH Prince Daniel of Sweden, Zara Larsson, Wyclef Jean, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, Ericsson former CEO Hans Vestberg, as well as ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus.