Last week, Sweden celebrated its dearly beloved tradition 'Midsommar'. Wheather you are a Swede in the region Dalicarlia and wearing your traditional national gown, or if you are a Swede abroad somewhere: the tradiditon and celebration of Midsommar is a must.
In agrarian times, Midsummer celebrations in Sweden were held to welcome summertime and the season of fertility. It was not until the 1900s, however, that this became the most Swedish of all traditional festivities. Midsummer Eve is usually celebrated in the countryside with friends and your whole family gathering to eat, drink and dance together. A typical Midsummer menu features different kinds of pickled herring, boiled new potatoes with fresh dill, soured cream and chives, and for dessert the first strawberries of summer, with whipped cream. PS. Some of you may have seen the movie "Midsommar" where a group of Americans travel to their Swedish friend Pelle to celebrate Midsommar. The film shows "how Swedes celebrate midsommar" with rituals, sacrifices and other events, we can assure you that the movie is very far from the real tradition. Read about it here ;-) The Spring team of 2020 want to thank the entire SACC- San Diego organization, our brilliant Board, our devoted members and last but NOT least our President Ted and Chairman Hans. We have had an amazing time and even with cancelled events and everything going virtual, we had so much fun and learned an incredible amount through our work with the Chamber.
 Covid-19 has effected us all in some way or another. Not only are people getting ill, but families and individuals with small businesses are facing extreme difficulties as the US economy is seriously damaged by the aftermaths of the pandemic. San Diego Regional EDC, in partnerships with San Diego and Imperial SBDC, have commissioned a broad team to develop detailed guides to help small businesses reopen. There are different guides depending on what line of business you are in.
"Small businesses are the backbone of our region’s economy, and employ the majority of San Diegans. In order to meet our regional goal of creating 50,000 quality jobs in small businesses by 2030, we all need to invest in ensuring small businesses have the tools they need to recover, adapt, and thrive over the coming months. Funding, technical assistance, and childcare for working parents are also important to the long term recovery and resiliency of San Diego’s small businesses." Linked in the button below is the specific web page for small business guides by San Diego Regional EDC. Happy Friday! Time for a new Board-presentation- Alfonso Limon! Alfonso has been on the SACC-SD board since 2018. Alfonso has a BS in Mech Engr, MS in Math and PhD in Comp Sci at SDSU/CGU. He spent a few years teaching at the Claremont Colleges; transitioned into bio-tech, first at Impedance Cardiology Systems and at Intersection Medical as Director of Research. "After opening the Oneirix office in San Diego, my time is spent helping clients develop next generation technologies in the intersection of engineering, data science and medical applications" -What's your favorite thing about living and working in San Diego? The family move to San Diego a century ago; during the Great Depression they moved across the border and founded the first newspaper. My parents moved back to San Diego in 1980, so I feel almost native. My only escapade was about a decade in LA during my graduate work and where I met my wife. Great people, beaches, mountains and desert valleys, what’s not to like. -Best Swedish meal? I always look forward to Rebecca and Hans’ Gravlax that have become a great holiday tradition for the SACC family. Thank you Alfonso, we love having you on the SACC-Board! 
Johan Marcus, President and Executive Director at SACC-USA, was interviewed in Dagens Industri on June 4th. The interview is in Swedish and discusses the current economic status in the US in midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The interview also discusses how this in turn may effect the Swedish-American relations. Johan Marcus- "We can see that it is almost an economy in free fall. The first quarter we did not see so much, but the second quarter we saw much clearer impact. The economy has shrunk by a quarter. The Governor (of Sveriges Riksbank) believes that it can be as much as a third"   This week we want to highlight our Board Member, Anders Brunmark! 👏 Anders has been on the Board of SACC-SD a little over 4 years. He grew up in Skåne and completed his undergraduate in chemistry in Lund and his PhD in Linköping with a thesis work on quinones and oxygen radicals. He moved to San Diego for a postdoc at Scripps in 1990.
“It was supposed to last for two years but those two years quickly became four. And now almost 30. Well, my postdoc ended after four years and then I took a job at J&J just across the street. So after moving nine time zones I felt a move of a few hundred meters was just right.” -What's your favorite thing about living and working in San Diego? Even the first years in town when I returned from trips and we were just about to land on Lindberg field I had that feeling of coming home. There was just something all together pleasant and welcoming about this city. And, ever since then I have never been able to talk myself out of here, there are just too many good things in San Diego. -Best Swedish candy/ or meal/ or sommarställe? Do I have to pick just one? Moose filet with gorgonzola. Warm smoked salmon. Smultrontårta. Homemade vanilla ice-cream with cloudberry jam. Etc. Thank you Anders for your engagement and work on the SACC-San Diego!  Today we want to introduce Hans, our Chairman and solid rock of SACC-San Diego. Hans has been on the Board for four years and has during that time served as President of our organization.
👏 Hans has a Masters in Geological Engineering from Colorado School of Mines. During the years 1981-1985 Hans worked as a geologist including 2 years in the North Sea for Norsk Hydro. From 1985 to 1996 he worked in various marketing manager jobs at Atlas Copco, Mining and Construction including 2 years in Seattle. From 2003 to 2014 Hans was President of Grolls/Björnkläder in Sweden, where he managed to successfully build the company from 9 stores to 49, with stores in four countries and an increase in sales from 300 MSEK to 1000 MSEK in those 12 years. Amazing and inspiring work! -What's your favorite thing about living and working in San Diego? My favorite thing to do in San Diego is golfing and hiking,and some skiing in the winter. San Diego has the best climate in all of the US. Also working with SACC is a great pleasure! -Best Swedish candy/ meal/ sommarställe? My favorite Swedish candy is Turkish peber (really strong salt licorice) My favorite meal is Sechuan beef at PF Changs or anything REAL spicy. My favorite place in Sweden is Bohuslän with the fantastic archipelago Thank you for all your hard work Hans, we really appreciate you!  On June 4th The Swedish American Chamber of Commerce in San Diego will host a Webinar focusing on decision making in the Life Science Industry. For this Webinar, we have invited one of our Life Science Members- Captario. Specialized in helping Drug Development project teams and portfolio leads, the Swedish high-tech company Captario will show their advanced modeling & simulation tool and argue that decision making must shift from guesswork to well-informed data driven decisions. The complexities in the development processes must be structured and uncertainties must be dealt with and used to your advantage. This will save time, enable evaluation of many more options, understand risks and find the right opportunities.
We are also presenting our newest member, Westwood & Wilshire! They deliver premier talent to the world’s most innovative companies; primarily in Life Sciences and Technology industries. W&W partners with companies ranging from VC-backed start-ups to mid-sized commercial entities on assignments ranging from C-Suite to mid-management. The firm has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and Seattle; serving clients on a local, national, and global basis. The Webinar will discuss how to deal with uncertainty – in drug development and in leadership response. We are thrilled to have these two highly skilled companies with us and the webinar will bring great insight and discussion in this thriving industry. WHEN: June 4th. 11 am PDT, 20:00 CEST. WHERE? Closer to the event, a Zoom-link will be sent out to all registered attendees. The event is free of charge for all to attend. #lifescience #pharma #pharmaceutical #decisionmaking #responsevieleadership #drugdevelopment #recuitement #saccsdmember #saccwebinar #lifescienceindustry #socal  Starting today, we will do a weekly series with small presentations of our fenomenal Board of Directors. First out: our President, Ted Stübner! 🥳
"I have been on the Board of SACC-SD since the fall 2018. I moved to San Diego with my wife in 2014 and I have a background in Tourism Marketing, having worked for one of the leading travel agencies in Scandinavia. In San Diego I run my own company where we help Nordic students come to California for professional work experience. In March this year I stepped in as President for SACC-SD." What’s your favorite thing about San Diego? -I love the ocean, so my favorite thing with San Diego is that I can access two beaches in less than 3 minutes and I can commute on the board walk with my bike. What’s your favorite Swedish meal? -My best Swedish meal is my fathers homemade “pannbiff” with potatoes, gravy and lingon berries. Thank you Ted, we appreciate you and the great work you provide the chamber with! Fika is a Swedish word meaning to have a break and drink a cup of coffee and of course, most importantly to have something sweet to eat with it. In these times, it is more important than ever to support your local. So if you're a Swede in Southern California, this can't get anymore local! And the best part is that their Fika tastes just like home.
All of these kanelbullar, kardemummabullar and småkakor are baked by our Corporate Member Swedish Fika! Go and order your Fika to go with your coffee. We promise you won't regret it.  This month, we would like to highlight the work of our corporate member Trice Imaging! The CEO of Trice, Åsa Sjöblom Nordgren, was one of the speakers at our webinar: How is Covid-19 accelerating Digital Healthcare? Trices product is called Tricefy and is a cloudbased medical imaging product. With Tricefy, the patient can collaborate with referring physicians, outside providers, scholars and industry professionals instantly for a second opinion, research, or education - right from home without unnecessary in-person visits.
The coronavirus hit hard with worldwide lockdowns. Along with it comes a huge need for healthcare working remotely as people no longer have the option of visiting a hospital for check-ups or other medical needs. The same way goes for maternal fetal medicine. During these difficult times with the coronavirus, partners or other family are not allowed in with the expecting mother when she is having an ultrasound. This can be quite isolating for the patient as her partner and family can’t be involved. Using Tricefy during this pandemic reduces exposure risks to patients as well as healthcare workers. Trice is now offering their product Tricefy for free during 90 days: ”We want to make sure that we do everything in our power to support the people on the frontline. As such, we have made the only right decision to offer Tricefy, our remote medical imaging solution, free of charge to any health care provider in the world for at least the next 90 days.” - Åsa Sjöblom Nordgren, CEO of Trice Imaging  Every year on April 30th, Swedes celebrate the tradition of Valborg. This is a celebration of the welcoming of spring. This is also a day where all of the graduating high school students get to wear their graduation cap for the first time, which is an important and essential moment for a young Swede. Furthermore, Valborg is one of our Annual Events and we usually celebrate it at Mission Beach with our members and friends. Valborg is often celebrated with choir singing, gathering by a big bonfire and lots of joy and hope. Hope, as spring is arriving with better weather and the days getting longer and lighter. As we all still need to stay at home, we will have to celebrate Valborg virtually this year. But the key aspects of Valborg still remain: hope for lighter and better days. This is something we all need. Things will get better and the world will heal. Happy Valborg from all of us at the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce in San Diego.
 WEBINAR WITH COALA LIFE & TRICE IMAGINGTomorrow Wednesday April 29 we will host our first webinar of the spring!
In order to protect staff and patients, the healthcare systems need to work remotely. Telemedicine and Life Science companies are developing new efficient solutions faster than ever before, in order to streamline healthcare and make it remote. The event will held through Zoom and attendees in the US as well as in Sweden will be able to attend as the time for the event is 11 am PDT and 20:00 CEST. Tickets are free and it is not mandatory to register for the event, however we have set up an Eventbrite to simplify registration and for the attendees to get helpful reminders and notifications. 1 hour before the Webinar starts we will send out the link via email to all the registered attendees on Eventbrite. We will also post the link on our Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. All info can also be found in our Facebook-event. Hope to see you all there! /The SACC-Team |
RSS Feed
THE SWEDISH AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN SAN DIEGOThe Swedish American Chamber of Commerce in San Diego is a thriving network of companies and individuals interested in the commercial and social exchange between Sweden and the Southern California’s San Diego region.
|
COME FIND USSwedish American Chamber of Commerce - San Diego
4475 Mission Boulevard, Suite 225 San Diego CA, 92109 E-mail: marketing@sacc-sandiego.org Phone: +1 (760) 500 9069 |
Copyright © 2020 Swedish American Chamber of Commerce San Diego.