Trainees from Vattenfall, SEB, Siemens and Husqvarna cooperated for the future

On 26 April more than 50 former trainees from Vattenfall, SEB, Siemens and Husqvarna came together to take on three different challenges in smaller groups and together come up with ideas on how these can be solved.

Some 50 former trainees from Vattenfall, SEB, Husqvarna and Siemens collaborated on sustainable energy solutions.

“This day is about creating together, exchanging knowledge and generating ideas. We know that it is not possible to solve the challenges of the future within sustainability on our own or within just one industry. We have to work together, Fanny Lindberg from Vattenfall introduced the day as moderator together with SEB's Christian Bergqvist.

Read more about Vattenfall International Trainee Programme

Johan Magnus: Johan Torgeby CEO of SEB and Vattenfall's CEO Magnus Hall introduced the common trainee day.

During the morning, both Vattenfall's CEO Magnus Hall and SEB's CEO Johan Torgeby came to introduce the companies and tell a little about themselves and their driving forces. Magnus Hall gave insight into Vattenfall's operations where the goal is make fossil-free living possible within one generation. Johan Torgeby shared his belief about the importance of having a passion and a purpose to accelerate and succeed in sustainability.

Challenges in the energy industry

After the introduction, the participants were divided into mixed groups from the different companies and had to choose between three challenges to work with according to a sprint design method.

The groups chose between three different challenges, all of which were linked to sustainability.

One of the challenges was about how collaboration between different industries could enable renewable energy to become economically competitive compared to fossil fuel. The second challenge was to identify what is currently lacking in the energy value chain and what methods and technology that can be used to make it more successful. The third challenge was about the sharing economy trend and how it could be applied in the energy industry.

During the afternoon, the groups presented their solutions to a jury consisting of experts from Siemens, SEB and Vattenfall. The ideas presented covered everything from how consumers could easily produce their own energy to the winning idea that was based on an app aimed at small and medium-sized companies where companies can exchange services such as recycling of products and common transport solutions

Continued cooperation

The network with the four companies has sprung from an HR forum where the idea of better utilizing all knowledge cross-functional between the companies was born. The collaboration will continue, and in this autumn, Siemens and Husqvarna will host the event.

Some reactions from participants:

Märta Kleven Falck, works with development of charging solutions for BU e-mobility Nordic. Trainee 2017-18:

"Working in a project with ambitious and outgoing people with different knowledge, background and positions in working life that gives a wonderful dynamic is really educational and probably made us all a bit extra creative. The results of the workshops clearly show that our total contributions made the whole even better."

Rikard Sehlin, project economist at BA Wind. Trainee 2015-16:

“It is a unique opportunity to discuss a common challenge with the focus on developing an innovative solution together with people from several different industries. It gave me a wider understanding of how many kinds of ideas can be designed with cross-industry collaboration as a basis.”

Johanna Porsö, product developer at BA Heat. Trainee 2008-09:

“I think there are lots of ideas that can be explored together with other companies, where together we can develop interesting solutions for our customers. I work with product development myself so I got really inspired!”

Vattenfall’s trainee program awarded