Big has gotten even bigger, and is getting bigger every year...

Another Almedalen week has come to an end. For my part, the ninth in a row in my role as a representative of the IT and telecom industry. Much has remained the same, but much has also changed during the Almedalen years that have passed. Not least when it comes to the number of events. In 2008, the number of official events listed in the Almedalen calendar amounted to 662, in 2012 1818 and this year, 2016, the number was up to 3794 - 329 more compared to the previous year. 90 percent of all events are held Monday to Thursday, on Tuesday the most number and the distribution has been the same for many years. In addition to the official events, countless unofficial meetings, get-togethers, spontaneous discussions and debates are organized in Visby's small alleys, cafés, gardens, backyards and park benches. As I said, no one knows how many, but it is clear that the pressure is increasing with each passing year. Contrary to what everyone keeps predicting. The question is where it will end...

Health and social care is the subject area with the most events, also during this year's Almedalen Week. We from IT&Telekomföretagen contributed to one of these. On Wednesday, we organized a workshop with 40 or so participants invited in advance; representatives from municipalities and county councils, private care providers, patient associations, venture capitalists, responsible politicians, IT companies and authorities. In other words, all the stakeholders we believe must work together to enable Sweden to move from visions to reality in the field of welfare technology. We had the goal clear in advance: by 2025, Sweden will be the world's leading welfare technology nation that fully utilizes the opportunities of digitization to ensure resource-efficient, personalized and safe health and social care. Yes, the article describing Sweden's health and care sector nine years from now has already been written. You can read it here: The Observant 250706

During the two-hour workshop, led by Kairos Future's experts in the field, we jointly identified the main obstacles, the common needs and the necessary solutions and coordination paths forward. The next step in this work is that we, together with Kairos Future, will summarize and further process the results created by the workshop participants. On October 4, we will then invite you to a new seminar where we will take another concrete step towards our common vision.

In addition to our workshop, we also arranged a full day on the theme of digitization together with IDG, #digitaliseraNU (formerly IT Day). A total of nine seminars were held during the day and many came and visited us. Not least in connection with our popular IT mingle, which this year had over 700 participants.

In addition to our own events, I also had time to meet political representatives from virtually all parties, municipal representatives and county council politicians, I have discussed and interacted with a large number of members, talked about the social benefits of fiber, talked about gender equality, gained many new insights and knowledge and hopefully also contributed to the same in those I met.

You might think that you don't have to go to Gotland to do all this, but the fact is that in Stockholm these meetings would not have happened, at least not during five intense days in early July. So surely Almedalen has its value. And I'm already looking forward to our 10th anniversary next year.