In Situ Interview

On October 13, 2014, Björn Östberg CEO at In situ participated on Business Innovation Day that was organized in Sundsvall. He brought ideas and challenges that his company is facing and these he discussed with the researchers at Mid Sweden University. Now six months later, we return to Björn to hear what has happened since last time?

When you decided to participate at Business Innovation Day (BID), what was your goal?
I came to the Business Innovation Day with a challenge, but on place I discovered that it was already set by another company who started collaboration with Mid Sweden University. Therefore, we did not proceed with that particular issue, instead we focused on presenting our respective areas for each other. Then it was revealed that there were several other fields of research at Mid Sweden University that was interesting for my company.

What has happened since then?
A few weeks after our first meeting, I went up to Mid Sweden University to meet with the researchers again. Before the meeting I just had a discussion with a company in the wind power industry. They had a problem with eagles in the area where the wind power is planned and they requested a technique for identifying the presence of eagles and their behaviour. My reflection was then that one could use a camera solution with image analysis. At Mid Sweden University, I met Najeem Lawal who is doing research in just this area and he has developed a system for the surveillance of eagles at the wind turbine. Thanks to the collaboration with Mid Sweden University, ornithologists and wind power industry In Situ now has been able to install Najeems prototype in place for testing and further development. If this work I have both national and international customers who are interested in the technology.

What is your advice to companies who are thinking about participating?
It is important that you consider the entire journey before you start to develop a new product. It's very costly with product development and small companies like mine can’t handle red numbers in the same way as large corporations do. Therefore it is necessary to think about how to take the finished product on the market from the beginning. There is possible to apply for funds at Vinnova and Tillväxtverket but there is also support to get from organizations like Fiber Optic Valley which among other things organizes the contest BOOST Innovation.