Yes, we might win another prize

In February we reached the finals in SIMagine. Now we know that we are one of three winners, but will it be 1st, 2nd or 3rd place? 

This annual global competition arranged by the SIMalliance will crown the best SIMapplication so let’s hope Bipper wins! This is a BIG deal and they are actually flying Olav, Nils and me at no cost to Rome where the finalists will present to an audience and a jury with some of the most influential people in the Mobile Industry.  

As one of the top three finishers we will be awarded a cash prize, we just don’t know how much yet… Then they are flying us to Nice where we will get a tour of Sophia Antiopolis, - the Silicon Valley of France… No really, Sophia Antiopolis is Europe’s leading mobile telecom cluster and brings together all the required resources for successful project winners such as Bipper. Here we will be given, as part of the prize, free office facilities for 2 years, support and advisory service to name a few. 

I guess I need to learn to speak French soon!!

Me presenting in Barcelona when we knew we 

were one of 10 finalists. Now we know that we

 win 1st, 2nd or 3rd place!

An entrepreneur's gotta do what an entrepreneur'a gotta do

Ok - I’ve just fallen into the group of sale hunters queuing outside a shop early in the morning, even before the doors open. But when you’re an entrepreneur every penny counts...

Last night I programmed my alarm clock for 06:00 this morning. Not because I had to catch a plane (which usually would be the case), but because I needed to go shopping. Elkjøp (a huge electronics chain) had a massive sale starting at 07:00. Luckily the store is located only a short walk from my house!

At quarter to 7 I left my house and was welcomed only a couple of minutes later by a MASSIVE queue! And I thought I was early and felt kind off embarrassed heading for the store that early and be ‘one of those people’...

Now I am, and I was by no means early. And except for having to wait for about half an hour before it was my turn to walk through the doors. Getting out again took much longer than getting in, but a few thousand kroners poorer and lots of computer equipment for Bipper (as well as a BBQ and a couple of DS ganes for my kids) poorer, it was well worth the trip. I kinda enjoyed the craziness of it actually. The queues, the sellers serving all us crazy morning shoppers coffee, water and chocolates and the fight for the best deals. It was fun!

The ambulance was in place and ready to handle

 the results of the fights for the best offers...

Four carts full of laptops and screens! 

We’re getting ready for more people!

Olav was in a great mood early in the morning. Time? 06:58!

Motorola announcing our partnership

A short while ago Motorola announced their partnership with us. A press release was distributed globally (wow!) together with this video. It's finally happening!

Meet my grandmother!

Let my tell you about my grandmother Lilli. This summer she’s turning 100 ( ! ! ! ), but she still wears fashion clothes, hats and leather gloves. These days she only has two big worries...

Her Full name is Lille Eline Petrine Larsen Berntsen (What an amazing name ! ), and she was born July 21st 1910. Yes - you’ve done your math correctly. My Gran is turning 100 this summer!

Grandma Lilli is my mother’s mother, and the mom of three other children. Her husband (my grandfather) passed away before I was born, so unfortunately I never got to meet him, and she has been a widow ever since. For all the years they where together my grandmother was a house wife, while he was out on the sea (he was a captain). Well - she wasn’t always a housewife. She liked to earn her own money and worked as a hat maker for several years. The family stories say that she grew up in a wealthy family, but that the family fortune was lost during the 20’s (when so many others lost their fortunes too). But despite never being rich since her early childhood, my Grandma has always carried herself with grace. I remember her gold rings, her beautiful hats, her tailored furs, her silk gloves, her handbags and fashion dresses.

And still, only a few moths away from 100, she still cares about fashion! Years ago she picked out her funeral dress as she had to make sure that she would never be buried in something un-classy. She has to have it her way - always!

Right now the 99,8 year old lady has two main worries:

1. 
   
   (1)the (ex) love life of Swedish princess Madeleine and Jonas. She has always had a thing for the royals, and the infidelity of Jonas causing them to break off their engagement is quite emotional for her.
2. 
   
   (2)that her hair dresser will be on holiday on her 100th birthday. Who can then do her birthday perm? If you can help me find a great and nice hairdresser in Tromsø who is available on July 21st let me know! 

I just booked flight tickets for my whole family and our au-pair to go to Tromsø for her birthday party this summer. We simply can’t miss the old lady’s 100th day! It will be a great party!

 I hope I have her genes!

Grandma opening her present from us on her 

95th birthday.

How much cash?

A pretty interesting day today... The expert panel at Innovation Norway went pretty well I would say. No final answer yet, but my feelings are good!

Innovation Norway is the government’s support program for promising innovative start-ups, and Bipper has received a lot of support and help from them. The first start-up grant was awarded us in February 2008, and so far we have received about half a million dollars. All pure grants. The best cash you can get ;-).

Today we had our final evaluation for the IRD (Industrial Research and Development) support program from where we have applied for about $1 million in support. I huge amount of money, and a result of us partnering up with two industrial partners. One of them being Motorola. The other one is still a secret yet to be reveled....

Me and Olav arrived in the board room at ten to ten this morning to meet the experts, and almost five hours and a few tough questions later we were done. Mostly though, everyone seemed impressed, and the representatives from Innovation Norway told us that they never previously had experienced an IRD project reaching nearly 15.000 hits on Google for their IRD-partnership - before launch! I really can’t believe it myself either...

The only thing they did express worry about was our ability to grow fast enough to meet the market demand. I agree! This is my worry as well. To grow we need more people, and to hire more people we need more cash. More cash before we have income. The plans for funding are ready and the prospects are good - but you can never be sure...

Let’s just keep our fingers crossed for the $1 million grant! Please....

Me and the experts. They did smile more in the

 meeting than they do on the photo...

I've been ashed!

Really don’t know how I’m feeling about Iceland and the volcanos... Normally I would have been up in the air instead of on the rails through the Norwegian landscape. But I’m kinda liking it!

Eyjafjallajökull . . . A beautiful, yet quite unpronounceable name of a mountain that severely is affecting my life. I should have been in Rome this week, and was stuck in Bergen. I should have gone straight from Rome to Oslo and then to Bergen again by plane, but instead I got up early yesterday morning to take the morning train to Oslo and I’m now back on the train to slowly roll through the landscape back to Bergen again. My plane is supposed to leave about now, but when I saw that all other planes prior to mine had been cancelled I simply didn’t dare to take a chance on the plane. Still don’t know actually if I could have been up in the air now and have landed in Bergen in an hour instead of arriving at the station in 7 hours.

The strange thing though is that I am really enjoying this slower lifestyle. I’m enjoying traveling through the beautiful country I live in (I forget how beautiful it really is). I enjoy sitting down with my laptop enjoying a cup of coffee working my way through Norway in stead of rushing to the airport, through the security control, into the plane, being stuck in my seat for 50 minutes, out of the plane, to the airport express train, 20 minutes on the train, grabbing a taxi to get to a meeting - and then the whole process all over again to get back home. 

Going by train from Bergen to Oslo takes 6,5 to 7,5 hours depending on when you travel) while the whole flight experience takes about 3 hours from door to door. The thing though is that when I’m on the train I can actually work, and the rushing-in-and-out experience of flying leaves no time period where you can actually work. And - I do admit - I love the fact that all the tunnels and mountains makes me mostly unreachable while on the train. I actually get to work uninterrupted for a few hours. It almost feels like a holiday!

I promise you that if there had been express trains between Bergen and Oslo taking no longer than about 4 hours and leaving early enough for me to be able to catch a lunch meeting,  would have travelled by train instead of by plane. Much more environmentally friendly and much more enjoyable. 

Being in the start-up phase, my life is extremely busy and I’m in a constant rush. A certain mountain called Eyjafjallajökull (I still have to copy-paste that name!) suddenly enabled me to live life a bit slower without anyone being able to get frustrated with postponed meetings and changes in travel plans. My kids love the volcano!

On May 11th however, I’m supposed to fly to Iceland on my way to the US. Hoping to make that trip. Will I?

07:58 - On my way to Oslo by train!

Hmmm... Not sure I like secret media tips

For the first time in my life I got a call yesterday morning from a journalist who had received a tip about Bipper with very accurate information that very few people knew. Not sure I like this . . .

OK - I cannot be angry or upset about that I got two great articles about Bipper published in the two largest financial papers in Norway today, but I’m really not sure about whether I like secret tips and sources of information. And to tell you the honest truth I absolutely did not believe that Bipper and I would be that interesting this soon that there would be any value in secret media tips.

Ok - here is the story. I had been working until nearly three in the morning the night before and allowed myself an extra hour in bed before I got up in the morning (ok two extra hours...). I had just finished my breakfast and started working when the phone rang. Unknown number. I picked up, and a man said  “You are raising 10 million kroners now at a price of about 65 millions, can you confirm?”. I was completely taken off guard. Was he a wealthy journalist wanting to invest? Did he have wealthy friends wanting to invest? Or was this really something he wanted to write about? 

And yes - it was the latter. How could it be? That tiny Bipper is raising some capital is a story I really didn’t think was very interesting, but I guess I was wrong. Apparently we are “really hot” right now and a lot of people are following the development. That the other newspaper DN phoned me just a few hours later about the same story, just proves the case.

I really did not know how to react, and asked if I could call him back after I had spoken to my chairman Svein Johnsen. What was I allowed to say? I guess showing a journalist that you are unprofessional in handling the press is not the right thing to do, but this time I was taken off guard and just felt really small and young. I’m not a professional business woman yet. Not at all! I’m an idealist who have started a company to make mobile kids safer. 

I actually used to work as a journalist when I was 16 (a few years as a teenage activist fighting for a community house for the young had proven to me that the only way you will be listen to and taken seriously - even in a small town - is if you get the local newspaper to write about you), and I do love the media. I guess you could even call me attention seeking. I have always loved the spotlight. Since the age of three I have found my way to the stage - singing a song (no - I do not have a good voice), dancing (I’m not good at that either!) or playing the flute (which I was quite good at! Luckily I stopped entering the stage doing things I really wasn’t good at when I was about 11). Since I became interested and involved in community issues (first locally and then internationally), I have found my ways into the spotlight and press by fighting for or against the things I believe in. And I love the fact that I am able to inspire and engage people by just being concerned and involved.

But now the story that was being written was not a result of me contacting the press to tell a story I believed would inspire people, it was a result of someone sharing a piece of secret information with the press. And that took me completely off guard!  

The stories published today are both really good and positive (according to one of the papers I’m apparently really rich, but I have yet to touch the money I’m worth myself. Hopefully one day...), and it’s just really awesome that editors, journalists, investors, and other people find Bipper interesting. 

It’s also a bit frightening though... We haven’t even launched Bipper yet, and already we’re the hot topic at editorial morning meetings. Can’t believe it! But when a lot of people have high expectations, there is also a lot to prove! I will do all I can to prove that we’re not just a nice story, but a great safety solution for parents!

Page 3 in Finansavisen

Page 30 in DN

Me (age 21) in January 2000. I had just published a book 

where children and young people from everywhere, 

as well as well known personalities, wrote about 

their lives. The mission was to create “international understanding”.

Age 20 talking about my role as a student representative in 

panel debates with Hilary Clinton and President Vaclav Havel.

Age 26 fighting against the new regulations for taking exams 

at the University of Bergen. And - yes - we were heard!