300+ keynotes in
40+ countries on 5 continents!
Straight-talking Swedish entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and thinker.
Nicklas Bergman understands and interprets the technological megatrends shaping business, society, and culture. He works with forward-thinking leaders and organizations, established and new, to help them navigate an increasingly uncertain future. He’s the perfect guide to take an audience from neglect and skepticism to curiosity and preparedness for the challenges and opportunities the future might hold. In other words, inviting Nicklas is a fool-proof way to future-proof your organization.
30+ years working as an entrepreneur have given Nicklas an immense understanding of building companies across different regions and economic climates. From being the co-founder and largest investor in an electron microscopy company featuring unique patented nanoscale technologies to developing a Scandinavian ski resort that has attracted investments close to 200 million EUR to setting up a Volvo distribution network in Romania that grew into a 300 million EUR business, Nicklas has been able to capitalize in emerging areas that are often shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty thanks to an unflinching curiosity and desire to understand how trends work.
20+ years working as a technology investor have taught him to stay agile in times of great uncertainty. He has seen companies go up in flames, businesses rise from the ashes, and tiny players conquer the world. At times, he has witnessed returns fifty-two times the size of his investment. Other times, zero. This hands on, curious, and unyielding approach to exploring what comes next with both a strong business and tech background gives Nicklas a unique perspective. He also uses this hard-earned experience as one of six investment committee members at the EIC Fund, an EUR 10 billion deep tech VC fund investing in more than 100 European startups annually.
10+ years working as a futurist has turned him into the most pragmatic futurist in the tech space. As a tech bubble collector and rabbit hole explorer, Nicklas lives with technology 24/7 and meets with scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and fellow investors daily. He's optimistic about the promises emerging from new technologies but is also concerned that society is not ready for the upcoming techstorm. Some years ago, he cleared his schedule and embarked on a journey to understand where technology takes us. The result was Navigating the Techstorm: The Business Impact of Technology Beyond the Hype (Lid Publishing, London). The book was listed in Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the top 10 business books to read in 2018.
Nowadays, Nicklas is dividing his time between technology investments, a couple of skunkworks projects, and speaking and advising about how others can best navigate the opportunities and challenges of the near future. Nicklas believes we're entering an era in which technology will redefine who we are and that it's no longer just a question of what technology can do for us but what we should allow technology to do. We must discuss the meaning and direction of any technological innovation or scientific breakthrough. Technology is pointless unless it serves to improve people's lives, and ethical perspectives are getting more and more complicated as new innovations and gadgets enter our lives.
Technological uncertainty is a defining feature of the modern world. Nicklas Bergman draws together an impressive range of insights about where we are coming from and where we are going. He is an astute speaker, asking the big questions about what we must do to shape and benefit from the next wave of technologies.
Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner
for Research, Science, and Innovation
Keynote Themes
Littered with pop-culture references to help bring a bit of humanity to what is ultimately an inhumane subject, Nicklas’ speeches are highly visual and accessible while at the same time being thought provoking. Looking at what is coming next, Nicklas’ presentations are tailored to fit the client, event, and audience and work in both large inspirational settings and smaller C-suite audiences, where the keynote preferably turns into more of an interactive discussion.
Throughout Nicklas' career, three common denominators are entrepreneurship, technology, and uncertainty. Based on his experiences as a company founder, builder, and investor, this translates into five distinct keynote themes in the intersection of society, business, culture, politics, and technology:
The Intelligence Revolution - AI Beyond the Hype
See beyond the hype around AI prompting and understand the real, immediate impact. Pair this with an understanding of trends in AI, and you will be ideally positioned to stay ahead of the competition. Generative AI is two things at the same time. On the one hand, it’s, at best, a decent intern or junior associate. It’s hallucinating, bad at math, biased, energy-consuming, and definitely not scaleable to become sentient. On the other hand, it increases productivity when used correctly, is a great way to jumpstart your creativity, and will be especially useful when trained on proprietary, specific data sets.
So, how do you make sense of this AI craze? Well, don’t panic, be curious! Find embryos of relevant use cases within your organization and allow people to experiment. Generative AI is a natural continuation of digitization but only one building block in our AI-powered future. To stay ahead, you must find out what’s on the technological frontier, assess the implications for your industry and clients, and adapt to this new reality.
As a long-term collector of tech bubbles and as someone investing in dozens of AI-related startups every year, Nicklas is the perfect guide to debunk AI and show you real impact beyond the hype.
Navigating the Techstorm - Insights Beyond the Hype
With serious skin in the game as a long-time technology entrepreneur and investor, Nicklas is uniquely positioned to guide an audience through the challenge of understanding how technology is rapidly changing how we do business. As an advisor to management teams, investors, and policymakers, he knows how to navigate these times of great technological uncertainty.
It's Nicklas' firm belief that digitization, although highly relevant, is only the warm-up. The real disruption will come at the intersection of new digital technologies such as AI, crypto, and augmented reality in combination with exponential progress in nanotechnology, neurotechnology, and genetics. In a few decades, this will create a radically different world from what we live in today...
Whether you’re looking for a tactical quarterly perspective, a strategic perspective over the next several years, or a more visionary (sci-fi) outlook spanning several decades, Nicklas will connect the dots between scientific break-throughs, new emerging technologies, business impact, startup trends, as well as cultural and societal ripples. He will also share valuable tools the audience can take back and immediately put to work.
Geopolitics, Megatrends, and Inevitable Surprises
Because of his global mindset and presence, paired with continuous interactions with innovators, investors, scholars, policymakers, artists, activists, entrepreneurs, and the like, Nicklas is able to draw thought-provoking conclusions about the state of the world today.
Is this as good as it gets? Have we reached the pinnacle of our evolution as a species? Far from it! With human ingenuity driving an ever-increasing rate of innovation, we will see a radically different society in the coming decades. Improved health, slowing global population growth, increasing energy demands, continued strong economic growth in emerging economies, and further advances in new enabling technologies create a complex web of opportunities and challenges.
Nicklas' latest geopolitics forecast
Nicklas is convinced that we're entering an era in which technology will redefine who we are. It's no longer just a question of what it can do for us but what we should allow technology to do. One thing is certain: society is not prepared for what’s to come. For the audience, this keynote will provide a deeper understanding of the state of the world, with an emphasis on global power shifts and the opportunities and challenges that come from an increasing focus on innovation and technological independence.
Opportunities in Times of Great Uncertainty
Nicklas' experiences starting a company in Eastern Europe in 1991, co-founding a nanotechnology company in 2000, building a ski resort from scratch, and investing in dozens of startups have made him immune to uncertainty. He's learned that instead of spending your time trying to gather even more information in a complex environment, you must aim to build a resilient and flexible mindset.
By understanding that there are different kinds of uncertainty and strategies for coping, a leader can often make sense of and develop alternatives in ambiguous situations. With a different perspective on uncertainty, you can make it work for you. It's not about having the most information; it's about being content with the fact that you will never have full information. Also, scanning your surroundings while being curious and a bit skeptical will give you a competitive edge.
In a keynote full of personal anecdotes, Nicklas will share his perspective on uncertainty. His goal is for the audience to leave with a new understanding and respect for ambiguous situations, realizing that uncertainty can also mean opportunity!
The Entrepreneurial Journey - Luck, Timing, and Talent
Whether it's co-founding a company in Eastern Europe in 1991 and scaling that to a 300 MEUR business in 15 years, conquering the world of nanotechnology with a ten people team, building a ski resort from scratch (apart from the mountain itself), investing in a North Sea offshore engineering company, or a Central America forestry operation, success always comes down to luck, timing, and talent (in that order).
Through the eyes of an entrepreneur, Nicklas shares colorful stories and useful insights from 30 years as an entrepreneur and investor. Not only the successful moments but also the challenges, struggles, and mistakes along the way. In other words, an eclectic mix of epic failures and a couple of home runs, leaving the audience with an appetite for entrepreneurship and venturing into the unknown.
Few people understand the impact of new technology like Nicklas Bergman. Nicklas inspires us to understand the potential impact of technology on business and society – and to take responsibility for making sure that technology improves the state of the world.
Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chairman of
Siemens and A.P. Møller Maersk
Nicklas has been a keynote speaker at events such as:
Summit on technology and societal effects, hosted by the Swedish Prime Minister and parts of his cabinet (Stockholm) 🇸🇪
The🇸🇪 global Innovation Summit for the top 250 managers of French energy giant Engie SA (Paris) 🇫🇷
Summit on emerging markets and Industry 4.0 for the World Bank and IFC (Marrakech) 🇲🇦
South By Southwest (SXSW) conference on technology, music, and film with 30 000+ attendants, www.sxsw.com (Austin) 🇺🇸
The World Future Society’s annual conference on the state of the future (San Francisco) 🇺🇸
Summit on the future of technology investing at the Institutional Investor Summit (Bahrain) 🇧🇭
Oracle Open World Asia, keynote in front of a 1,000 people audience (Singapore) 🇸🇬
The World Economic Forum annual innovation meeting (Tianjin) 🇨🇳
A masterclass with the management team of Vestas, the 15 billion EUR global wind turbine manufacturer (Bengaluru) 🇮🇳
Clients
As a keynote speaker, Nicklas has delivered over 300 keynotes in more than 40 countries around the world. Audiences range from one (!) to several thousand, and clients can be found in all industries as well as in major public institutions.