Thursday, October 07, 1999

Guten Tag!

After the intensive informative panel on High-Tech Scandinavia with a consortium of Nordic companies talking about what they're up to, the attendees headed down for the Cocktails With Courtney event on Wednesday, October 6. Moderated by Gitte Pedersen of Proximity, the panelists discussed the business and Internet climate in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Afterwards, they headed down to the Meat Packing District's Gaslight lounge for some cocktails. Among the over 150 guests I met Carolina Pajula of HyperMedia Laboratorio and Berit Tonnessen, Robert Takacs and Svein Oskar Stoknes of the Norwegian Trade Council. Mikko Puhakka of Holtron Ltd. and I spoke for a bit, and Chip Austin of I-hatch.com brought along some of his partners, Derek Reisfield (also EVP, Vice Chairman of Luminant). Other guests included Jussi Rissanen (biz analyst, ventures organization) at Nokia; Heikki Rotko, president of Satama Interactive; Nicolas De Santis of Beenz; Niels Bach, technology attache with the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Eric Hellman of Openly Informatics; Geirr Aakhus, US correspondent "Dagens Naeringsliv" and Manish Aurora, president of Distributed Risk, LLC. Telia was represented with Christina Lundman Lagerstedt, Kajsa Petersson and Maria Johansson; and Cybelius Software had Pekka Parnanen (vp/coo), Vesa Harkonen (product manager) and Jorma Palo (manager, e-commerce) present. Liza Svenson of Enskild Firma and Dorte Toft, US Correspondent of IDG News Service, were also among the guests who enjoyed some Carlstadt beer and Gundlach Bunschu wine.
People like William Leake and Randy Miller of JournyX even traveled as far from Austin, TX for this soiree! And then there were Stockholm-based Birgitta Ekman of Crescendo, Fredrik Larsson of Context Development Group and Mikael Ahlstrom of Icon MediaLab who also traveled down to mix and mingle this cool Fall night. Gunner From of the Royal Danish Consulate General and Brian Lehon and Scott Hall of StreamSearch.com and a whole NRW posse including Blaise Simpson (director of the SF office), Laura Hamilton (managing director of the NY office) and Carla Schlemminger (in NY for a month, but based in SF) led by Chairman Bill Ryan himself descended on the party.