Every year we head to Oslo for Innovation Week, for five days of inspiration, new ideas and forward-thinking. It’s September, so still bright with that ‘back to school’ feeling; of new starts and fresh thinking. And, while we’re there, we meet Norway’s brightest and wisest pioneers – people solving the big issues of our time, whether societal, environmental or just plain smart.
Published:
03.03.2025
Writer:
Fiona Shaw
1. reMarkable
The reMarkable team set out, some nine years ago, to launch a consumer electronics product from Norway. Now, with a team of 500 people in a stunning new space in Oslo, they’ve just begun. Founder Magnus Wanberg found it difficult to focus on a laptop while studying at Harvard, and decided the solution was a tool that merged paper with technology. ‘Why hasn’t anyone managed to make paper digital?’ he asked, as a way of improving thinking and focusing… reMarkable has conducted its own research, which shows that productivity loss from digital distractions can consume up to half of a knowledge worker’s day; a single notification can keep you distracted for over 20 minutes.
Its first paper tablet launched in 2017; 2020’s reMarkable 2 became the world’s thinnest tablet and best digital writing experience. Now, it’s sold 2 million products, totalling €1bn. 2024’s ’Pro’ version brings colour and a front light to the package, while the company continues to improve on the sustainability of its products, making sure they’re recyclable, easily updatable and circular, by giving products longer lives, increased durability and repairability.
2. Over Easy Solar
The Over Easy Solar team has installed the world’s largest bifacial solar installation on a rooftop at Oslo’s Ullevaal stadium, home of the Norwegian national team. We climbed onto the roof stadium’s roof to see, first hand, how the use of vertical solar panels allows more installations on flat rooftops, with 1,242 small panels (there will be 5,000 over 2,000 sq m eventually) stretching towards the city’s mountains. Because they’re small – approximately 20cm in height – they don’t have the uplift forces from wind that mean more traditional panels need heavy ballast to weigh them down. The team’s own research suggests that they also achieve 20-30% higher yield than traditional flat roof solutions – and the Ullevaal pilot will show their performance in winter, where the stadium is hoping that seasonal snow will further increase their efficiency by reflecting more light onto the panels, and generating more electricity at the point in the calendar when it’s most expensive.
3. Saga Robotics
Saga Robotics develops autonomous solutions for agriculture and won Oslo’s most innovative company 2024. Its autonomous robot, Thorvald, uses an innovative UV treatment to replace the farmer’s need for chemical fungicides, in turn tackling labour challenges and reducing carbon emissions. Saga addresses two critical challenges: reducing chemical use and solving labour shortages. Thorvald allows farmers to combat fungal diseases like powdery mildew, which reduces yield in a multitude of crops, without harmful chemical fungicides. The innovative UV-C based treatment is used in US vineyards and on approximately 10% of the UK’s strawberry harvest this season.
Thorvald supports UN SDGs by promoting sustainable farming and decent working conditions. Judges noted that its “ethical business practices, commitment to sustainability, and societal value creation set them apart as leaders in agricultural robotics.”
4. Sensorita
Sensorita (headed by CEO, Ulrikke Lien) is all about getting the right waste to the right place at the right time. The clue is in the name; new sensor technology enables the management of fill levels within open waste containers. A combination of AI-powered tech, using both radar and machine learning algorithms, forms the basis of the containers’ digital twin, which is used to pair with the sensors installed at the construction sites, measuring and providing real-time data, including location, fill levels, missing containers and other relevant information.
Sensorita’s technology helps sales, dispatchers and customer services to provide better solutions and optimise recycling operations and management throughout the industry. The durable sensors can withstand extreme conditions, between temperatures of -25°c to +70°c, and have a ten-year battery life. Its goal is to revolutionise the waste management industry; and the product is shooting on target.
5. Factiverse
In a universe full of fiction, false information and fake news, Factiverse is the gateway to the truth. An AI-based fact checking solution used as a means to verify what presents as fact, Factiverse technology protects organisations, mitigating the risk of misinformation. Intent on “empowering knowledge in a world of noise,” Factiverse uses ethical AI development and patented fact-checking technology to produce results that are tried, tested – and trusted. It encourages active community participation, providing channels for collaborative feedback, and adheres to standards set by leaders in ethical innovation.
Co-founder and CEO, Maria Amelie, a former journalist turned entrepreneur, has dedicated her career to rewriting the rules of the court of misinformation, replacing them with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That’s the endgame of Factiverse: to be the backbone of credibility.
You can hear more from Factiverse in Ethos 22, where we’ll be hearing from Maria in detail.
6. Li-Tech
At dinner I sit alongside Li-Tech, a company which has pioneered a new sensor to sort lithium batteries – which can cause explosions and fires – from the waste stream, which won 500,000 NOK for its pitch as Start-Up Lab’s 2030 GreenTech winner. The Li-Tech presentation started with a photo of a waste processing plant on fire – and how its work would prevent such accidents.
Founded in 2021, its AI-driven sensor technology identifies incorrectly stored Lithium and Lithium Ion batteries in fragmented waste streams in an industry where 80% of waste facility fires come from batteries. Alongside its obvious safety benefits, Li-Tech detection skills stop lithium leaching into the environment, or indeed the general waste of materials.
7. Kok Sauna
Founder and CEO Kristin Lorange is a former airline pilot who flew Boeing 727s and the Dreamliner, before realising she was a founder at heart. It was a team building trip with airline colleagues in the Stockholm Archipelago that converted her to the transformative effects of saunas and cold water swimming – and she’s not the only one. The first sauna boat was launched at Langkaia in Oslo’s harbour in February 2018 and the concept has proved to be wildly popular. (And happily, our Liverpool home is also the venue of the first floating sauna in the UK.)
She now admits that she ‘detested cold water and abhorred saunas’, but the experience transformed her by getting her out of her the comfort zone – not only did the mixture of hot and cold fuel a surge of endorphins, seratonin and adrenalin, but she points to the sense of belonging it created. KOK Oslo had a 23 mill NOK revenue in 2023, doubling both visitors and revenue year-on-year for the past three years. KOK 2.0 is now raising funds and employing the right executive team to take its next plunge, as the trend looks set to grow.
8. Ruden Water
Speaking alongside Kristin at Oslo’s Conduit Club, director and co-founder Helene Ree Ruden talked about Ruden Water’s mission to widen water’s availability and accessibility, making use of data and technology from the oil and gas industry to enable both conventional and unconventional water resources in a time of global drought and water shortages. Somalia is the first country in history to provide its oil data for the purpose of finding water – and hopefully won’t be the last. Ruden AS (the overarching company) is currently assessing the potential for deep groundwater in Somalia on a national scale, funded by the Norwegian ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hydrological and geological data provided enables an estimate of water budgets and is used identify freshwater at depths deeper than 400m. Traditional hydrogeology caps at 300m, but Ruden Water is pushing to explore below and beyond 1,000m. The sky isn’t the limit; the ocean floor is.
In 2023, Ruden Water established the Sustainable Deep Groundwater Foundation to create a collaborative framework to development water projects sustainably. Ruden Water’s work will ultimately enhance climate resilience (think, the sun with a thick skin) and improve food security (think, a carrot with a bodyguard).
