30 Under 30 Stars in a Hot Seat Session at Nordic Business Forum 2014

Pavel Durov, the number one on the Northern European 30 under 30 ranking, will be one of the debaters of the Hot Seat Session at Nordic Business Forum 2014.

The Hot Seat Session is a panel discussion with four 30 under 30 stars including Pavel Durov, Vladimir Funtikov, Linda Liukas and Anna Nyboe. The theme of the session is Developing the Future. The moderator of the session will be professor Alf Rehn, who aims to challenge these young entrepreneurs on their views on future trends, to get the most out of these brilliant minds.

The Hot Seat Session will take place during the first seminar day on Thursday 9th. You can see the agenda at www.nbforum.com/2014/agenda/.

The debaters

Pavel Durov, 29
Pavel Durov, also known as the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia, was listed number one on the Northern European 30 under 30 ranking. Pavel is the founder of VKontakte.ru, the largest social media network in Russia. In April 2014 Durov was dismissed as VKontakte’s CEO. He claimed that his ousting was the result of his refusal to hand over personal details of users to the Russian Federal Security Service. Durov left Russia and is currently focused on Telegram Messenger, a platform similar to Whatsapp. Already in March 2014 they had 15 million daily active users.

Vladimir Funtikov, 27
Co-founder & CEO of Creative Mobile – a Tallinn-based independent game developer/publisher founded in 2010 – Vladimir Funtikov has led the company to become a top gaming studio, consistently topping Android and iOS game charts. Their best known game, the Drag Racing series which transformed the fortunes of the company back in 2011, has defined a new genre of mobile games and became one of the most downloaded franchises of all time with 200 million lifetime installs.

Anna Nyboe, 23
Anna Nyboe has run her own company, ANNAWAY since 2011. Her main business is to help especially academically educated people find new jobs – and she does it with great enthusiasm. The results have been great, 84 % of the customers have actually been able to create new jobs. Now ANNAWAY focuses on making an online platform for jobseekers. On top of being ranked among the 30 under 30 in Northern Europe, she has received two significant awards: Talent 100 by Berlingske Business Magasin, and The young leader of the year in Copenhagen by JCI in 2013.

Linda Liukas, 27
Linda Liukas is author of “Hello Ruby”, a children’s book that teaches programming fundamentals through stories and kid-friendly activities. The book’s Kickstarter campaign – meant to fund additional work on the project – met its original goal of $10,000 in just three and a half hours, and Liukas has gone on to raise well over $250,000. Linda is also co-founder at Railsgirls.com, a website that helps women understand and become more involved in technology and creating new ideas. She is educated at the Turku School of Economics and Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

The moderator

Alf Rehn is Professor of Management and Organization at Åbo Akademi. He is the author of “Dangerous Ideas”, which has been translated into multiple languages. In 2009 and 2011, Rehn was included on the Guru Radar as one of the up and coming business thinkers by The Thinkers 50. In 2012, Rehn was ranked 3rd on The Finland’s Thinkers list. In addition to his academic credentials, Rehn also holds various board positions in different organizations, including Nordic Business Forum Oy.