The future – a digital dream?

On March 30, the entrepreneur and inspirer Claudia Olsson visited our Wednesday assembly and lectured on the opportunities of digital solutions.

All our students could listen to examples on what is already possible and what the future may look like. Although Claudia focused mostly on the positive aspects of technology development, she also emphasized that digitalisation must be guided by wise decisions.

Claudia Olsson, who graduated from both the Stockholm School of Economics and The Royal Institute of Technology and was the first Swedish student at the future-oriented university Singularity in Silicon Valley, is a person who, not yet 40 years old, already has achieved very much. She received a World Economic Forum award as Young Global Leader in 2017. She has worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the UN, has traveled the world and lectured and made contacts and has started the company Stellar Capacity which works to train leaders for “a future where people become more digital and digital becomes more human”, and is chairman of Swedish for Professionals, a company which focuses on language teaching for newly arrived international talents. In 2021, she was also named the Summer Speaker of the year through the program “Summer on P1” by Radio Sweden.

Claudia was introduced in the assembly by members of the SSHL student organizations Think Tank and Design and Technology group.

In her lecture, which was followed by a question and answer session, Claudia emphasized both that technology can help us with what is dirty, boring and dangerous, but also that human strengths are care and creativity. Her examples showed how technology i.a. can help the disabled and be an asset in elderly care. Drones and robots can help us with transport and construction. Biotechnology and AI provide unimaginable possibilities. Technology must be governed ethically and sustainably. One problem that must be solved is energy consumption in manufacturing and operation.

Claudia emphasized that we need not only knowledgeable technologists, but also people with good language skills, as language is the key to knowledge and contacts and of crucial importance in an increasingly global world. What also applies is that we need to see learning as a lifelong process.

In conclusion, Claudia thanked both SSHL and our guest of honor Anna C Belfrage who together with her husband Erik (SSHL’s former chairman of the board) has been an important friend, role model and mentor for her.

Below: Guest speaker Claudia Olsson, together with Mrs Anna C Belfrage and Mrs Carina Nilsson, Principal.