Jørn Lyseggen is the scrappy Norwegian entrepreneur who founded Meltwater News in 2001 with only $15,000. Meltwater News has since grown into the Meltwater we know today as a global leader in online intelligence with more than 50 offices, 800+ employees, and more than 16,000 global clients. As CEO, Jørn leads the expansion of Meltwater with new ventures in the Software as a Service (SaaS) market. As an entrepreneur and patent holder with four start-ups, Lyseggen has two trade sales and one IPO to his credit.
In 2008, Jørn also founded the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), a non-profit designed to provide training and mentoring to young African entrepreneurs aspiring to launch new, Ghana-based software companies. On why he picked Africa for his non-profit he explains that it was the one continent where people would benefit the most from the program. “The program is a two year program and is fully sponsored. We take only the top graduates from local universities. We train them on everything that they need to know. They are taught programming, software development, entrepreneurship, how to write a business plan and how to pitch to investors. In the last six months of the two-year program, they form startups with their teammates and for six months, they work on the startup from making the technical prototype, to writing the business plan as well as crafting their investor pitch. If the idea is strong enough, we give them up to $200,000 in funding. For instance, Dropifi, the Ghanaian startup gunning for Silicon Valley, got $75,000 in funding before getting funded by 500 Startups.” If you want to read more about Lyseggens work in Africa, read the full interview at CP-Africa.com.
The most rewarding aspect of Lyseggen's career continues to be helping young people develop into confident and capable managers, which makes him proud of Meltwater and gives him continued motivation. “Meltwater is built on nurturing and developing talent so this is something I am very passionate about” he says. Hear more from Lyseggen at beGLOBAL in Palo Alto, September 13.
Lyseggen spoke at beLAUNCH 2013, Korea's biggest startup and technology conference and we are proud to invite him back to beGLOBAL, on his home turf to discuss the topic of global entrepreneurship and paying it forward.
More about beGLOBAL: beGLOBAL is a global tech conference, with a touch of Korean spice. Produced by the organizers of beLAUNCH, the top Startup/Tech Conference in Korea, beGLOBAL aims to bring together the best of Tech from the East and West. We will feature the top giants from Silicon Valley discussing the latest tech trends, with a global perspective. Additionally, ten of the best Korean startups will showcase their services to our audience, offering an opportunity to see a snapshot of the next generation of tech from Asia.
Please click on links below for further details:
Full speaker line-up please click here
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