SPARK Nordic visited Silicon Valley at the end of April. In total there where 19 participants from SPARK Norway and SPARK Finland. The purpose of the trip was to introduce the Nordic SPARK projects to the opportunities available in Silicon Valley and give them the opportunity to build their own networks and market understanding.
The Nordic SPARK programmes have successfully collaborated over several years to increase the emergence of new innovative solutions in the health tech and life science field. For the first time, the Nordic SPARK programmes visited together Silicon Valley, known as the center of technology and innovation and where half of the global venture capital in life sciences is found. Located in this area is also Stanford University, where the innovation programme Stanford SPARK, on which the Nordic SPARK programmes are based, was established in 2006.
Back to where it all started
The first stop was the Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium 2023. SPARK Norway and SPARK Finland were invited to support the conference, which has an impressive list of speakers with CEOs and chairmen from the largest global pharmaceutical companies on the stage. And also a panel discussion with four Nobel Prize winners! In addition to inspiring talks, there were unique networking opportunities at the conference.
At Stanford, the projects got to participate in a SPARK mentoring session, visit the Stanford Biodesign programme, the Stanford d.school where design thinking originates, and meet Stanford Office of Technology Licensing.
Nordic Innovation House
Another important purpose of the trip was to showcase the Nordic innovation potential to stakeholders in Silicon Valley, and the next stop was the Nordic Innovation House, which is the gateway for Nordic start-up companies that want to expand or establish their operations in Silicon Valley.
Furthermore, the SPARK projects met UCSF Innovation Ventures at the University of California San Francisco where they were presented with their programmes and all the SPARK projects pitched their own projects. The SPARK projects also had the opportunity to pitch their projects at the Stanford Healthcare Innovation Lab.
Advancing together
The feedback from participating SPARK projects shows that the trip was a success and everyone benefited greatly from the packed programmed and the meetings they attended. We were very welcome everywhere and experience that acting together and creating awareness of the innovation potential in the Nordics has a far greater effect than representing our separate, small countries alone. We want to build on the strong Nordic cooperation in SPARK. Therefore, we plan to have a joint event during the Nordic Innovation Fair, Copenhagen in September and the Nordic Life Science Days, Copenhagen in November.
