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Donnie Lygonis

Stockholm, Sweden

In short, I am passionate about everything that has to do with ideas, concepts and new ways of doing things we never thought could be done differently.

I also love teaching, I love meeting students, the ones that are ready to conquer the world but might not, and the ones that will but have no idea yet, and for every person I meet, I hope I can inspire them to have a better day.

My own journey started in the army, where every day was a creative challenge. My eight years as an Officer in the Royal Engineers taught me to always be prepared to re-evaluate situations at hand, and try figure out the easiest and smartest solution for the day. And a new one each and every day, since it was all about being unpredictable, and almost never having the right or enough resources.

Since then I have started and run a number of companies and projects, many of them together with my sister Deborah, as well as helping large organisations with their business development.

I am a juror in a number of competitions; Venture Cup, Young Enterprise, The Inventors (TV show) and Finn Upp to mention a few, and I have also created and taught a number of courses, amongst them a leadership program for the School of Economics and Business in Göteborg and a course on Business Planning for IHM Business School in Stockholm.

I am also an avid TEDxster, with having organized 15 TEDx conferences so far and spoken 5 times at various TEDx events, as well as being a part of the European TEDx Organizer Organisation (www.tedx.com) I have attended one TED event so far, TED Global in Rio de Janeiro 2014, and also the EG Conference in Carmel in 2016 and 2017.

In 2016 I founded Entrepreneurs WIthout Borders, a non-profit that helps early stage founders of positive impact organisations scale and grow sustainably, in order to create jobs and speed up the worlds journey towards the UN Sustainable Development goals.

Available For: Consulting, Influencing, Speaking
Travels From: Stockholm
Speaking Topics: innovation, startups, entrepreneurship

Speaking Fee $4,000

Donnie Lygonis Points
Academic 0
Author 78
Influencer 6
Speaker 70
Entrepreneur 20
Total 174

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Areas of Expertise

AR/VR 30.22
Business Strategy 30.13
Digital Disruption
Emerging Technology
Entrepreneurship 42.58
Health and Wellness
Innovation 37.67
Leadership 30.62
Lean Startup
Metaverse 32.19
Startups 46.97
Sustainability 31.72
AI 30.17

Industry Experience

Publications

24 Article/Blogs
Daily Post #444 Customer support like…
Medium
June 27, 2022
So today I was on the phone to a well know brand, and I got their automated phone service. You know the kind where the robotic voice says “please state your business and what you are looking for and I will try to help you”.

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Daily Post #443 Adapting the narrative
Medium
June 24, 2022
If I asked you to describe what you are doing to these three separate people, I bet you that the way you told your story would change.

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Daily Post #442 Be the light
Medium.com
June 22, 2022
In the ancient Greek tragedies they used the concept of Deus Ex Machina, “God from the machine” as a way to introduce a divine intervention that fixed or turned things upside down , usually at the end of the play.

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Daily Post #441 Release now, Refine later
Import from medium.com
June 21, 2022
Get it out the door.Ship it.Find your first users and put whatever you are making in their hands for early stage trials, iterations and to create ambassadors for your product.Nothing builds loyalty more than inviting people to be a part of co-creating something.But I get it, you want it to be perf

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #440
Import from medium.com
June 12, 2022
MVP in context.So you read the quote and think “oh how stupid they were”, but do you stop to consider what they were shown? did they have the innovative and mental capability of seeing something beyond the probably very primitive contraption in front of them?This could just as well be a case o

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #439 Need Awareness vs Need Acceptance vs Need Action
Import from medium.com
June 09, 2022
We often make the mistake of assuming that our customer is aware of the need we are trying to address. And even if they are aware of it, doesn’t mean they have conciously accepted it. Which of course makes the road to actually doing something about it so much longer.Do you spend time finding out

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #438 That’s impossible!
Import from medium.com
June 02, 2022
“That will never work here.”“That’s impossible”.“There’s nothing I can do”.Really?Have you truly considered every single possible solution on planet earth (and beyond) and come to the definite conclusion that this totally, physically, eternally impossible?What makes you the definit

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #437 How to sell pizza
Import from medium.com
May 31, 2022
So you see a woman eating pizza.Question is, why did she choose pizza?Your first thought might be “she likes the taste of pizza and was hungry”.Thing is, if you make it too simplistic and try to sell your own product in the same way, you risk missing the contextual reasons for the pizza purch

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #436 How to improvise
Import from medium.com
May 24, 2022
Back when I was in the army (yes, spent 10 years as an officer in the Royal Engineers) we knew that any plan will fall apart as soon as it encounters reality.However, without a plan and overall goal, vision, mission, it is really hard, if not impossible to improvise.Sure, you can wing it at occasion

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #435 The context of an MVP
Import from medium.com
May 19, 2022
MVP, this wonderfully misunderstood startup buzzword.Minimum Viable Product.As in:“what is the least we can build and still be able to test our core functionality”.Thing is, many mix their MVP efforts up with their POC (Proof-of-concept) efforts, or even with their Minimum Viable Experiments (M

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #434 Make it important
Import from medium.com
May 13, 2022
No you won’t succeed with everything, most things you try won’t work out for one reason or the other.But if you are going to spend all of that time, effort and the blood, sweat and tears on it, you might as well spend it on something important.At least then you can say you tried, that you gave

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #433 There are no answers
Import from medium.com
May 12, 2022
A common misunderstanding in the communication between research and business is that the business perspective is looking for answers to their questions while the researchers are looking to learn more and increase their knowledge in a field or on a subject.I hear this a lot from the startups I work

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #432 Do great things
Import from medium.com
May 03, 2022
Whatever you do, try to do it as well as possible.These days we keep trying to influence people to try to “fix” the world.We say “look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals and pick one of them” and we talk about impact and social responsibility.This is all good of course, but it can also

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

Daily Post #431 Explore, dream, discover
Import from medium.com
May 02, 2022
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark TwainDaily Post #431 Explore, dream, discover was

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Tags: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups

My first year of podcasting
LinkedIn
December 29, 2016
Well, 2016 is coming to an end and with that my first humble tries at podcasting. I was in Silicon Valley at the time, working as Senior Advisor at The Nordic Innovation House and I was meeting all of these amazing personalities.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 9 - Danny Lange, Machine Learning Maestro
LinkedIn
December 23, 2016
Episode number 9 of the podcast I started when I was in Silicon Valley. This time with the guy that probably knows the most about Machine Learning of them all, Danny Lange.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 8 - Nir Eyal, King of the Hook!
LinkedIn
October 14, 2016
I managed to get two podcasts recorded during my last month in Palo Alto, but didn't have time time to edit and publish them. But now, finally, here is one of them.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 7 - Ebbe Altberg, Virtual Reality Snowball Champion
LinkedIn
August 10, 2016
So for this week we go all in for VR and virtual worlds. I sat down with Ebbe Altberg, the CEO of Linden Lab, creators of Second Life and coming attraction Project Sansar, and we talked about their ideas of creating a whole new fully immersive social experience.

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Tags: AR/VR, Innovation, Metaverse

Podcast Episode 6 - Markus Jakobsson, The Good Criminal
LinkedIn
June 27, 2016
What's the best quote from Episode 6 you ask? This one I say: "I feel empowered by finding something awful that I can fix", said by Markus Jakobsson, fellow Swede and internet security expert extraordinaire.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 5 - Peter Carlsson, Supply Chain Wizard
LinkedIn
May 29, 2016
For episode five, I had the chance to sit down with Peter Carlsson, a fellow Swede in Palo Alto, for a nice relaxed chat. Unknown to the public eye maybe, Peter has worked behind the scenes and helped build some really big enterprises.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 4 - Bill Reichert
LinkedIn
May 07, 2016
Time for the fourth episode of the Palo Alto podcast, and this time we get to listen to a real Silicon Valley veteran, Bill Reichert.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 3 - Pascal Finette
LinkedIn
March 21, 2016
This week we have the pleasure of listening at Pascal Finette, Singularity University, and we talk about world-changing technology, new generations, the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and a lot more.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast Episode 2 - Amanda Goltz
LinkedIn
March 14, 2016
This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Amanda Goltz, digital champion in the US healthcare system. We had a great chat about how the system works, what doesn’t and what can be done to fix it.

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Tags: Innovation

Podcast episode 1 - Jonathan Knowles
LinkedIn
March 06, 2016
It all started with the frustration over that I was meeting all of these amazing people over here in Silicon Valley, and the only thing that came out of it was a post on twitter, facebook or best case a blog post.

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Tags: Innovation

1 Founder
Entrepreneurs Without Borders
Entrepreneurs Without Borders
December 01, 2016
Entrepreneurs Without Borders (EWB) is a business driven non profit that aims to help local founders start and grow sustainable businesses. We have developed our proprietary framework that we call Entrepreneur2030, which is part of our vision that no startups are started without a clear idea of which global goal(s) they are trying to solve (see the UN 17 SDGs for 2030).

I got the first idea of EWB back in 2011, and started working actively on it in 2016, and 2019 we started our first pilot of our virtual campus for startups, offering workshops, lots of peer-to-peer learning, and a global alumni network with like-minded people

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Leadership, Entrepreneurship

7 Keynotes
Donnie SC Lygonis Keynote at Sustainable Entrepreneurship Day 2021
Entrepreneurs Without Borders
December 15, 2021
The opening keynote for Sustainable Entrepreneurship Day 2021 by EWB founder Donnie SC Lygonis

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Sustainability, Entrepreneurship

Keynote Speaker Donnie S. C. Lygonis convida a todos a participar da Conferência Anpei 2018
ANPEI
May 16, 2018
Keynote Speaker Donnie S. C. Lygonis convida a todos a participar da Conferência Anpei 2018

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Tags: AI, Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Donnie SC Lygonis: How HTH Works and Gains
Rīgas Tehniskā universitāte
February 01, 2018
How HTH Works and Gains

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Donnie Lygonis · KTH Royal Institute of Technology | HÉROES FEST 2017
Innpulsa Colombia
November 29, 2017
HÉROES FEST 2017

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

How Norway became the most innovative country in the world
YouTube
December 02, 2016
Donnie Lygonis is an expert on innovation from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. He helps bright students of KFT to commercialize their ideas and makes startups succeed. He has just returned from 10 months in Silicon Valley working out on the Nordic Innovation House in Palo Alto. Donnie is also an avid TEDxster, with 3 talks under his belt.

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Tags: Innovation

How Norway became the most innovative country in the world | Donnie Lygonis | TEDxBergen
TEDx Talks
November 02, 2016
Donnie Lygonis is an expert on innovation from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. He helps bright students of KFT to commercialize their ideas and makes startups succeed. He has just returned from 10 months in Silicon Valley working out on the Nordic Innovation House in Palo Alto. Donnie is also an avid TEDxster, with 3 talks under his be

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Tags: Innovation, Startups

Creativity and innovation can save the world | Donnie Lygonis | TEDxAUEB
TEDx Talks
October 23, 2014
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. You go to school to learn how to learn. And keep learning. To learn how to think, and rethink. If we can adapt from an
early age the mindset that accepts that the only constant is change, we can feel a lot better about learning, and we can
position us in this change, and even more, instead of being reactive to change, we can be proactive to change, and take
control of change. Donnie explains the connection between equality, curiosity, diversity and trust, in this journey of
constant changes.

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

2 Media Interviews
Entrepreneurship & UN-SDGs | Donnie Lygonis | Conscious Stockholm
Conscious Design Dialogues
October 28, 2021
Donnie Lygonis, a Business Development Coach and Innovation Strategist in conversation with Aishwarya Narayana

Donnie sheds light on the nature of innovation in the Design Industry. The dialogue delves into the nuances of social responsibility and scalable human impact that Entrepreneurs across the world and domains must reflect upon.

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Tags: Innovation, Entrepreneurship

AI in Innovation and Entrepreneurship | Donnie SC Lygonis
KTH AI Society
June 06, 2021
The following is a conversation with Donnie SC Lygonis. Donnie Lygonis is an Innovation Strategist and Businesses Development coach at KTH Innovation.

In this podcast series, you will get to listen to different people from diverse backgrounds. To stay updated, click on the bell icon.

To support us like and share our videos and subscribe to our channel. If you have any feedback, don't hesitate to comment down below.

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Tags: AI, Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

1 Podcast
Innovation Fika Episode 68 Storytelling as a business strategy with Melina Galeadi
Innovation Fika
June 22, 2022
Join me and Melina Galeadi for a conversation about using storytelling as a business strategy.

Melina is Global Head of Strategy & Planning at The Absolute Company and has held numerous executive positions in brand management, product development, international business development and worked with different FMCGs on a global, regional and local level, and has developed and launched numerous brands in over 50 markets around the world.

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Business Strategy

17 Videos
Innovation Fika Episode 67 Making informed decisions, with Kjell Borking
Import from youtube.com
June 17, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika Episode 66 The Art of Storytelling with Henrik Skarstedt
Import from youtube.com
June 01, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E64 Email Marketing with Sam Jahanfar
Import from youtube.com
May 18, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E63 - Knowcean, underwater autonomous vehicles
Import from youtube.com
May 12, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E62 - Ola Alvarsson, Entrepreneur Extraordinaire
Import from youtube.com
May 12, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E61 University rankings and how they work, with Duncan Ross
Import from youtube.com
April 27, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika Episode 60, Conny Karlsson, founder & CEO Bubl.
Import from youtube.com
April 20, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E59 - Leadership for a Sustainable Future w Helena Tronner
Import from youtube.com
April 13, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika Episode 58 with Christiane Dolve H&M Foundation
Import from youtube.com
April 06, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E57 Intellectual Property for Startups with Thorunn Grenmark
Import from youtube.com
April 03, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E56 Designing a sustainable future - Hamza Qadoumi
Import from youtube.com
March 23, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovaton Fika Episode 55 Startup - industry collaboration with Rebecca Connée from Klimato
Import from youtube.com
March 16, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E54 Basics of Blockchain and Crypto with Filip Martinsson
Import from youtube.com
March 15, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E53 Pitching tips for startups
Import from youtube.com
March 03, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika E52 - Recruitment tips with Magnus Oskarsson
Import from youtube.com
February 23, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika Episode 51 Rebecka Wedlund CTO and Cofounder Momentus
Import from youtube.com
February 17, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Innovation Fika Episode 50 Frida & Kim, The Branding Table
Import from youtube.com
February 06, 2022

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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship

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