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ISSUE 2, 2009

T H E V O I C E O F J I B ST H E V O I C E O F J I B SJÖNKÖPING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOLJÖNKÖPING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

Let’s Celebrate(belated) New Years

Twitter in Business

Spotlight:

¡MÉXICO!

Interview with the MinisterInterview with the Minister

Let’s Celebrate(belated) New Years

Spotlight:

¡MÉXICO!

Spring InspirationPopadelica, and much more

Twitter in Business

Spring InspirationPopadelica, and much more

CONTENTSCONTENTS

Editorial Director: Kyle Lockwood Art Director: Viroj Jienwatcharamongkhol Assistant Art Director: Shadi TayyebiMarketing & Release: Fabiana Leal · Ala Sochirca · Kudratilla Abdukadirov Writers: Niclas Adler · Sheridan TatsunoMesud Altun · Israel Ambe Ayongwa · Laurentiu Borza · Alfredo Hidalgo Arreola · Pimpon Kongpool · Shadi Sadat TayyebiKyle Lockwood · Richard Lam · Gabriella Paulin · The Jsa Board Editors: Kyle Lockwood · Gabriella Paulin · Richard LamHead Photographer: Andreas Jensen Photographers: Shadi Sadat Tayyebi · Alina Todiras · Amir Banuazizi FardZinaida Ratko Cover photo: Shadi Sadat Tayyebi

Zartash

Fabiana

Kudratilla

Zinaida

Ala Viroj

Andreas

Gabriella Richard

IsraelLaurentiu

Kyle

Pimpon

Shadi

1 Editorial2 Message from the Dean3 New Tools for Global Trade4 Message from JSA6 Future of JIBS graduates7 Congratulations, Robert8 5 Questions with Peter Warda

9 Interview with Minister of Immigration 12 Cultural Spotlight 14 Nowruz Iranian New Year 15 Songkran New Year 16 Intl. Women’s Day 17 International Day Spring 18 Human Logistics

20 Global Student Entrepreneur Award21 Twitter: What are you doin’? 22 Crocus, Narcissus, & Ice-cream23 Diaspora Link24 Spring Inspiration 2009

29 Spinning – A Healthy Habit30 Popadelica Music Festival31 The Thirteenth Tale32 Mingles

JIBS INTERNATIONAL LIFESTYLEENTREPRENEURSHIP

THE TEAMTHE TEAM

editorial

ABOUT PUBLICATIONJunited is a student periodic magazine published by Communication Committee of Jönköping International Business School Student Association (Jsa), Jönköping University. Published material does not necessarily reflect opinions of Jsa or Jönköping University.© 2009 Junited. All rights reserved. Any copying, edivvting of material without permission from Junited is prohibited.You can contact the publisher by sending e-mail to junited.jsa@ihh.hj.se or write to Junited, Jönköping University, Box 1026 SE-551 11, Jönköping. Please include your name, address in the letter and also contents may be edited for clarity and space.

Dear Junited reader;

That unmistakable scent of change which only comes once a year is in the air once again!

With spring comes change and we are talking about that kind of change which is almost tangible for you to touch and feel it. It’s in the changing weather, the changing scenery and changing business just to name a few...

Even within the Junited team spring has brought us change. We have experienced, and are still experiencing, massive restructuring and rebuilding this magazine from head to toe.

After being orphaned for a long time, we finally have a new Head of Communications in the Jsa, Israel Ambe Ayongwa, who also couples as the new leader of this magazine.  We equally have many new faces in this issue, like the Editor scribbling here, and many others who you will meet as you peruse through this edition.  

Aside from the team, the magazine is re-focusing on business like never before.  It is our goal to provide a students perspective on life in Jönköping, studying at Jibs, Swedish and international business topics in a manner that you will only find on Junited.

It is for these reasons that Spring and Change provide a good fit for the theme of this issue.

Happy reading!

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JIBS

Word from the Dean

Niclas AdlerJIBS Dean

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On our annual general meeting last week, our owner continued to give their strong support for the direction we have expressed in our statement for strategic and organizational intent one and a half year ago. Our owner also un-derlined the need for continued priority on improving our economic situation as well as the quality and attractivity of our educational activities. The annual general meeting also decided to appoint the following board for 2009:

Lars Anell, chairman, Thomas Anders-son, Niclas Adler, Karin Hallerby, Nico-las Kourim, Isabelle Ducellier, Torger Reve, Leif Melin, Bengt Liljedahl, Mesud Altun, Helgi Valur-Fridriksson, Kerstin Ferroukhi.

The two new external members, Isabelle Ducellier (ceo of Pernod-Ricard, Swe-den that recently aquired Vin&Sprit) and Torger Reve (Professor and former Dean of BI, Oslo) will bring important new experiences and contacts into the contin-ued development of Jibs. Ricco Maggio will leave his position as board member after four years of providing important advice into our development.

The Q1 report shows a continued growth in revenues (8%) as well as continued increase in new research contracts (8%), both in line with our budget. A couple of research contracts as well as an edu cational contract to deliver ict and entrepreneurship training in Uganda and Rwanda was also finalized last few weeks helping to continue our budgetet growth for Q2.

The applications to our programs have improved significantly and the pattern is a clear strengthening of US and Euro-pean applications to our BSc programs as well as a clear strenghtening of Swedish and European applications to our MSc programs. With our planned intake this will mean great improvements in grades among the students to be admitted this autumn.

Some additional happy news is that Caroline Teh at the Accounting and Finance department was given the JU

pedagogic prize for 2008, mmtc had a successful launch of the bransch center at Tsinghua University in Beijing last week and also a productive meeting was held with the international advisory group helping to finalize the design of the Executive mba in Media Leadership to be launched during the autumn. The Babson alliance discussions are progress-ing well and the possible set-up has been presented to the JU foundation board with positive response and a concrete “business case” will be presented at the Jibs board May 19-20. This business case together with a funding plan will then be presented to the foundation board in June.

Unfortunately we have not yet been able to finalize the mbl-negotiations around the savings package. Different concrete solutions and their consequences are now jointly explored.

I hope to see you all on Jibs club May 13 at 1600. The agenda is to briefly present the ongoing work on program portfolio review, the upcoming quality reviews and accreditation processes and what we need to do, the ongoing work on developing our core administrative processes and provide updates on our Babson alliance and our “European Entrepreneurship University” projects in Bahrain and Paki-stan. In the upcoming Jibs Club we have also invited students from 1700 to partici-pate when the winners of the professor Eric Rehnman memorial thesis awards are presented. We have been the Swed-ish business school elected to participate in this “Baltic region” competition. The other schools are State University of St Petersburg; Tallinn University of Tech-nology and Åbo Academy University (Deptartment of Industrial Management). The winning thesis from each school will be invited to participate in a contest at the siar-seminar on “Clinical Research in Business Administration in Scandinavia” to be held in Finland. Professor Bengt Stymne (Co-founder of siar) will present the winners.

Best regards / Niclas

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BUSINESS CREATION

Launching a Mobile Academy In Stockholm, mobile technologies and lifestyles are attracting entrepreneurs seeking new markets and business mod-els. Mobile learning has become one of the hot buzzwords. With mobile sub-scriptions growing rapidly in Africa, Asia and other developing regions, mobile developers are actively exploring new opportunities.

During my part time, I’m launching a Mobile Academy with three Stockholm partners with extensive experience. We have been meeting top mobile vendors, developers and services at the Kista Tower mobile center to find partners and launch a Jibs virtual incubator. We’re partnering with mobile handset mak-ers and operators with 2 billion Asian subscribers and 280 million African sub-scribers, who are all seeking new content, services and business models.

Where are the opportunities for JIBS faculty and students? How can you participate? Mobile learning and commerce are rap-idly emerging fields. Jibs could provide short video lectures, how-to presenta-tions, and useful business tips on a Jibs Channel to build a global brand quickly. Students could launch channels at Jibs for their home countries or cities. For example, we’re launching the Algerian Dream channel as part of a solutions consulting business to provide entrepre-neurial advice and interviews and involve Jibs in providing certificate and execu-tive management courses. With mobile services, the world is getting smaller and tightly integrated.

What is the business model? Mobile carriers generate revenues from sms payments from ringtones and music, and are expanding into learning, com-merce and other services. Handset mak-ers like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, and zte are expanding into sms services. They are seeking top-quality content for subscrib-ers seeking to learn and build their busi-nesses. Our Mobile Academy will enable

Jibs and other content providers to distribute their video lectures and set up their own channels. For royalty models, see www.swedishdream.se.

JIBS Role in Swedish ExportsSweden faces a historic challenge where Jibs can play a major role. Like the rest of the world, Swedish exports are down sharply. Exports account for 55% of Sweden’s gdp, of which the Top 100 corporations account for 70% of exports, or 38.5% of the entire gdp. With exports down 20% to 40% and thousands of manufacturing jobs never coming back, Sweden’s economy could decline 8% to 15% this year. Sweden must offset this setback with sme exports. Unemploy-ment is projected to reach 12% by the end of 2009 and will climb higher so Sweden has no time to waste. Unless it finds new sources of taxes, the government has no choice but to cut social, health and educational funding.

How can JIBS help? The Swedish Trade Council estimates there are over 900,000 Swedish small and medium enterprises (smes), an amazing figure in a country of only 9.1 million people. Jibs can play a major role through class projects and bap. In the future, Jibs plans to charge smes nominal fees for assistance through our first- and second-year class projects. For third-year and masters students, bap is designed to assist smes, municipalities

Sheridan Tatsuno

New Tools for Global Trade: Mobile Learning and Student Projects

and business organizations by improv-ing their marketing, sales, partnering and exporting capabilities. smes need help since they usually lack the staffing, contacts, knowledge and experience over-seas. Jibs will be working closely with the Jönköping region to promote exports and attract foreign investors.

Recently, Professor Tomas Mullern received a grant to develop entrepre-neurship course materials that will be taught in all Swedish universities. Silvina Tejada of the Business Creation team is integrating it with our Business Accelera-tion Projects (bap) consulting program. In the future, all Jibs students will be required to participate in bap in order to graduate. Contact Silvina Tejada at www.jibs.se/bc for more details.

There are many ways for you to apply your knowledge to practical business op-portunities through the Mobile Academy, class projects and bap.

We look forward to working with you!

Sheridan TatsunoAssociate Dean of Business Creation

Mobile learning has become one of the hot

buzzwords.

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As time goes by and months turn into weeks, weeks to days, we feel spring welcoming us with sunny days and bright colors. Off with the jackets and on with the glasses, friends, a nice tan will do you good and I’m sure that you’ve earned it. Everyone has struggled all the way through the long semester with reports, hundreds of pages literature to read, and, let us not forget, our exams. Though studying for exams is a time filled with anxiety and stress, the feeling we get when it’s all over makes it all worthwhile.

Between the lectures and exams, things are happening at Jibs. Your student As-sociation is making it all happen. Projects and effort are being made to improve the quality of your education as well as mak-ing your time at Jibs the best possible. Spring inspiration is taking place this May 16th on the Munksjöbridge this year. I’m so excited, this will most likely be the greatest spring inspiration in the history of Jsa!

Great students make a great student asso-ciation; with this I would like to thank all students that engage and do evaluations on courses or give opinions on our tui-

tion. With your help it’s possible to strive for changes and improvements to benefit all students here at Jibs. Thanks also to everyone engaged in Jsa, all committees, project leaders, and Jibs personal.

Last, I would like to say to all: hang in there, The last exams are coming up and then you can enjoy the sunny days. Catch those sunny days as we all know how few they are in Sweden!

Best regards,

//Mesud Altun

Mesud AltunJSA President

Michael NordströmHead of Marketing

Catch the sunny days

Hello fellow Jsa members, my name is Michael Nordström and I have now officially taken over the position as “Head of the Marketing Committee”. As a member of the Jsa you will notice the changes which will be coming soon. The main tasks my committee and I have in front of us are the website, the channel of communication towards you, and also bringing up the general awareness of the Jsa. It is an honor to be able to already say that we have redesigned, and upload-ed a fully functional website for the Jsa. My plan is to make www.jibsstudents.com more useful to the members of the JSA, as of now you can find the newsletters, rules and regulations, minutes from our board meetings, and study abroad point documentation uploaded. However more functions are under way. The website also has a fully functional gallery, so feel free to send pictures you wish to be uploaded to Info.JSA@ihh.hj.se. 

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Besides the tasks that I am doing on a daily basis such as bookkeeping and handle invoices, I have got great experi-ence from people I met in the working life. I’ve been in contact with Öhrlings and Jönköpings Ekonomihus, I’ve been in the telephone queue to the Swedish Tax Agency for a couple of hours, and I have been in some meetings with other companies who got interested in our

Kim JakobssonHead of Internal Affairs

Kamilya BaibekovaVice President

Emil CarlssonTreasurer

Tobias BrinckHead of Quality Committee

MESSAGE FROM JSA

A little bit more than four months back I stepped into the role as Head of Quality Committee here at Jibs, four months of meetings, representation and loads of experiences later you might wonder has he really done anything that affects me?

As I am newly appointed, I feel that I really want to know what everyone else wants me to do and what they were expecting out of me at my position. With that as a goal I, with the help of my colleagues within the board, arranged a “Complaining day” where you were able to have a free coffee or just mingle with the board and play some Xbox. The outcome from the day was that the students at Jibs were quite satisfied with both their studies and the Jsa board. Of course we received some critique as well, for example a large number did not really know what the Jsa was doing and that the board was a bit anonymous. These are things that we always bear in mind when we arrange or do something; one example of this is the newsletters which comes out once a week, where we in the board try to show what we are working with and which projects that are coming up. Our goal is also to make this newsletter even more available for you, so keep your eyes open you might find the newsletter some place strange….

So what has happened apart from the Complaining day? I would say that not that many concrete things have hap-pened but they are coming. For example

we are working hard to develop and im-prove how the course evaluation system is designed; the main focus in this project is to get more students to evaluate each course after they have finished it. The course evaluations are very important in the work to improve the quality of the education here at Jibs, every evaluation is important.

Another project which we are working with is to make all the written exams anonymous. Some of you have participat-ed in a little survey regarding this matter, the result from that survey shows that a majority of the students wants to start using anonymous exams, as much as 72% were positive to the proposal. This way of writing exams is already in use by the Commercial law program and my hopes are that anonymous exams will be a real-ity at Jibs as soon as possible.

This and a lot of other things have been going on during the spring and now I am looking forward to the best time of the year, Summer, and as all students I am looking forward to some well deserved rest from exams and presentations.

I wish you all a nice and warm summer and I hope to see you again in August, prepared and motivated for another semester here at Jibs.

If you have any issues regarding your own education or maybe something that concerns everyone at Jibs do not hesitate to contact me, Quality.Jsa@ihh.hj.se.

My name is Kim Jakobsson and I am the newly assigned head of internal affairs. I am a first year student, study-ing international management here at Jönköping International Business School. Ever since I started here I have been in-volved in different projects organized by the Jsa, but now I am taking on a much more challenging task. My vision is to change the perception of the projects be more appealing for students. I want them to realize what they can gain from getting involved in the Jsa. Only a few students know about the huge benefits that can be gained. With focus on those who actively participate in organizing the projects, I will also engage students to actually go to the events and be a part of the spirit of Jibs. We are currently looking for project leaders to manage Handelsgolfen, Entre-preneurship/Leadership day, and Next Step 2010. There are also positions avail-able for GoFar!  

Don’t forget to attend Spring Inspiration 16th of May taking place on the Munk-sjöbron, which will be a spectacular day filled with fashion, famous DJs and an awesome after party! Hope to see all of you there joining in on a day you will not soon forget!

New beginnings, new challenges, new achievements… This is how I’m feeling stepping in to this position as the newly elected Vice President of Jsa. Studying my fourth semester I have real-ized that there isn’t a better international environment than the one at Jibs. Jsa, being a bridge between the school and students, will try to do its best to make this environment for you even better and the range of opportunities vaster during the upcoming semester. And if you still believe that there is a space for improve-ment, and you have a desire and passion for changes than you have to be a part of Jsa. I guess the only thing left to say is: Good Luck on your finals and Have a Wonderful Summer Break!

association.

I have also, been together with the rest of the board and worked hard to get Jsa stronger, financially.

My first months as treasurer have been hectic, consisting of things I never have done before. It sometimes takes a lot of time and energy, but I have never regret-ted that I campaigned for this position.

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Jibs is an international business school, especially in the areas of entrepre-neurship and business renewal. Highly qualified professors helped in making Jibs very competitive among business schools in both the Nordic countries and inter-nationally. Each year so many students enter the university with so much desire that they start studying in their favorite program .They come to Jibs to learn busi-ness skills, improve their knowledge in finance, marketing and other business re-lated subjects in an international environ-ment that makes it easy for them to meet other people from all over the world, get information about different countries, people, culture and traditions so studying at Jibs is a great experience for them and when it reaches to the end, they should decide what to do next, continue studying in an upper level or start working? Here I randomly chose 2 graduated students from Jibs. Let’s see what decision they have made.

Rikard Lind

He started his Bachelor in the Business Administration program in 2004 but he altered his studies when he was offered a job at a telecom startup company named “Hulu” in Austria and Sweden. Finally he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2006. While studying at Jibs, he passed a course in organization and leadership by the very competent Mona Ericsson and he found it to be particularly interesting. he continued to read interesting articles and ended up doing his thesis within that very subject. It is completely related to what he is doing right now because he has now works in a marketing depart-ment. For the last twenty months, he has been working as the Marketing Direc-tor in another telecom startup named “TerrraNet”, which makes mobile phones for developing nations. He was recom-mended to the position by Carina Bark who has been his mentor for the past eight years.

His suggestion to students is to find your field of interest, use the library books, read one article each week and use the helpful staffs as your guide. He also recommends having a mentor. He considers it to be a constant help for per-sonal growth and a good way to obtain a balanced perspective in everything.

ALUMNI

Shadi Sadat Tayyebi

Future of JIBS graduates

Carl Sandberg

He graduated with the Bachelor of Busi-ness Administration (bba) at Jibs last semester. Currently he is taking a Master of Swedish magister within marketing at Gothenburg Business School. He had big plans for the future like having a good job but unfortunately the financial crisis ruined those plans, or at least put them on hold for a while.

He thinks studying at Jibs, being on cam-pus and also going abroad gave him a lot of international experiences and has also prepared him with a better than average level of English compared to many of his fellow students in Gothenburg. So many assignment and projects helped him to improve the ability of working in various sets of groups. His participation in kpmg Case Competition was a great experience and he learned tremendously from it and definitely recommends everyone to apply for it.

He believes most courses that he has passed were good but there is just a point about some courses that you never know when you are going to use them.

His suggestion to the other students at Jibs is to take part in as many extracur-ricular activities as they can; it’s always good to put down in your CV.  

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Laurentiu Borza

Congratulations Robert!

STUDENT OF THE YEAR

Robert Ellerson, a Jibs student, from the International Management program, just got awarded the “Economy Student of the Year” in Sweden. Each year Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers presents the Economy Student of the Year award to a student who has performed well in his/her studies and inspired his/her sur-roundings by making an effort beyond the ordinary. I interviewed Robert in order to learn more about who he really is and what drives him as an individual.

Although born in Sweden, he has lived in various places around the world, such as Canada or Northern Ireland, before re-turning to live and study in Sweden. This gave him a very international background and the appeal to start-up projects that go beyond Swedish borders. From the first year he came at Jibs, he started to get involved or establish his own projects: he was involved in the establishment of the Nordnet Trading Room, which was a premiere among universities in Swe-den; later on he started up the ebi-Japan project, about which you could read in the previous issue of Junited; recently he started-up the Debating Society together with Asham Amjad, another Jibs student, which made them go to London School of Economics where they debated with other renowed universities about the im-portance of the bailout program of the US Government for the American Economy. All three projects became very successful.

Robert, please tell us something about you.My name is Robert Ellerson, born in Swe-den but since my father is Canadian and my mother is Finnish, I consider myself very international. I have lived abroad for some time, specifically in Northern Ire-land for 3 years and in Canada for shorter periods in my youth; then I returned to Sweden, Stockholm. 

Why did you choose JIBS?After I graduated from an international high school, I started working as a waiter and bartender. I enjoyed working at restaurants and night clubs but I also wanted to keep myself intellectually chal-lenged, so I started studying International

Relations and English at Stockholm University. However, after starting up my own company, working primarily with restaurants, I wanted to learn more about business and entrepreneurship. It was when I heard about Jibs being a very international business school, with the possibility of studying abroad for one year and a focus on entrepreneurship that I decided to apply as a bachelor at the International Management program.

Why and how did you start all these projects you have been involved in?I have always been very interested in entrepreneurship and challenging myself beyond my limits. I am always curious and anxious to learn new things and gain new experiences from doing busi-ness. Also I am very interested in stock trading and this is one of the reasons for which I got involved in starting up the Nordnet Trading Room in Jibs. I invested a lot of time and energy in the Trading Room because this was some-thing I really enjoyed doing and it also taught me a lot in terms of managing portfolios, events and teams. Also, I en-joyed teaching other students about the stock market and how to trade.

How did you come up with the EBI Japan project?As with entrepreneurship, I’ve always been very interested in Asia, specifically Japan. I thought of a way to combine my

Student of

THE YEAR ’08

interests for entrepreneurship and Japan into one project.  At that time I shared a student dorm at Råslatt with a Japanese exchange student. Through his network I got to know other students with previ-ous experience in Japan. I asked them all about their experiences in Japan and learned a lot about Japanese culture and business from them. This made me even more interested in experiencing all of this first hand therefore, I started ebi-Japan. I was lucky to meet Sheridan Tatsuno, the Dean for Business Creation at Jibs, and it was to him that I presented my initial ideas about encouraging and promot-ing student entrepreneurship in Japan. He helped me put my ideas into reality and proved to be a great mentor to the project. At this point, I involved the other students in the project and set off to Japan The rest you know from the previous is-sue of Junited.

What other projects are you cur-rently working on?Ahsan Amjad, another student at the International Management program and myself have started a Debate association called: “Swedish Society for Debate and Diplomacy” and are going to London on April 20th to debate about the U.S. government bailout with London School of Economics, Glasgow University and School of Oriental and African Studies (soas). We have organized this debate and look forward to attending and pre-senting our opinions whether the govern-ment bailout is unjustified or not in this current economic recession.

Thank you, Robert, for sharing with us your interesting experiences. It feels great to see that there are so many entrepre-neurial students in our school, working on interesting projects which will likely have a great impact on their future. Be-sides, I would like to congratulate you for being awarded the Economy Student of the Year, an award which also brings such a good name to Jönköping University and will definitely help it to become renewed and respected among universities in Swe-den and abroad.

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1. Who are you?

Name: Peter Warda

Position: International Program Stu-dent Coordinator

Job description: • Advises the International Program Students• Responsible for non-academic matters related to International Program Stu-dents (excluding accommodation)• Contact person for student visa ap-plications• Deals with accreditation of study abroad courses for outgoing Exchange Students• Coordinates the Erasmus Scholarship Payments for all of Jönköping University

Work experience: Approximately 7 months at this job (at Jibs in total, 2 years)

2. How do you find your job?

Interesting, colorful and exciting. And a little bit stressful too. Every day is dif-ferent and that is what makes this job wonderful.

3. What do you think of all of JIBS’s current students that you see day in and day out?

The students that I see at my office and around the Business School’s premises are very polite, talented and devoted towards their studies. I love my job! It is wonderful to be able to meet different cultures every day at work. You learn so much of it. We have approximately 75 countries represented at Jibs.

4. What strengths do you see in JIBS? Do you see any area of improvement for JIBS being part of management and working for students?

Strengths:• The international spirit!• Jibs is represented by more than 75 countries worldwide • We have approximately 530 Interna-tional Program Students and 450 (per academic year) Incoming Exchange Students, meaning that more than a third of the total amount of Jibs students are international!• During this academic year, Jibs Interna-tional Office placed around 375 outgoing students at our partner universities • Thus, Jibs has a good international per-spective and we are getting better when it comes to “Internationalisation”.

What can be improved:We need to improve the possibility for our students to do internships within the frame of the program.

5. How do you see JIBS in 5 years from now?

I see Jibs as one of the leading schools in the world when it comes to Internation-alization. That we can offer qualitative education to all students, Swedish and International, at Bachelor, Master and Doctoral level.

INTERVIEW

5 questions with Peter Warda

Peter WardaPhoto: Alina Todiras

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Towards the end of 2008, the Swed-ish Parliament passed legislation on migration which modified the process of obtaining a residence permit in Sweden. How would this new legislation impact the great number of international stu-dents currently studying in the Jonkoping University and Sweden as a whole? This was one of the questions Junited’s Israel Ambe Ayongwa sought to find out in this exclusive chat from his interview with Tobias Billström, Minister of Migration and Asylum Policy.

Junited: I will like to begin first of all, Mr. Minister, by thanking you for taking some time off your schedule to talk to Junited…

Minister: My pleasure, my pleasure, no problem…

Junited: The first issue I will like to raise is with regards to the open door policy of Sweden, so to say, with the rest of the world because hasn’t been for very long that we started hearing of Sweden as a popular destination for foreigners either out for studies, work, or asylum. What can you attribute as reason for this adopted ‘open door policy’?

Minister: The reason behind this is Sweden is a small country with a small language, spoken by only 9 million inhabitants and we have an economy which is very much based upon exports; which means that we need good connec-tions to the rest of the world. Inviting foreign students, international students, to come into the country to get a degree is a very good way of making an advertise-ment for Sweden while at the same time making connections to other parts of the world which in the buildup of economy is very, very important in a globalized society. What we have done now is that we, the government, changed on the 15th of December last year, (2008), the rules and regulations which have had an im-pact on the conditions for international students. That means that from now on, that is from the 15th of December (2008),

it’s possible to hand in an application once you have taken out your degree in Sweden, first credits of your degree, you can then apply for work permits and residence permits without having to leave Sweden first, go back to your home country and then hand in this application. This is a great improvement because we know that when people go back home, well, you feel perhaps home sick; you feel that “Well, now I’m back, now is the future”. We must encourage people to stay back in Sweden and con-tribute to our economy and the lowering of thresholds is one important step.

Junited: And talking about the issue of granting work permits or residence per-mits to graduates, like students after they leave college and university, I will like to find out exactly what are some of those requirements that they might need to fulfill in order to gain this work permit after leaving college.

Minister: The important thing is that you need to show that you have a work which you can sustain yourself and you need to show that you receive the same salary and have the same social insur-ance conditions that already apply to the people here in Sweden so that we don’t get salary dumping or a some sort of social insurance dumping. This is important because we want to avoid social dumping and exploitation. But if you can show -if the employer can show to the authorities- that this student that “I” hired as an employee receives “that” salary, then it’s fine. We have no other requirements. We do not talk about whether you have a bachelor, diploma, Masters; whether graduate or doctoral or whatever. That’s unimportant. The only important thing is that you receive the same salary and the same social insur-ance conditions. The reason for this is that, I believe -and the government believes- we can never design a system where the skills and the knowledge are judged by authority properly. What’s a…I mean…the difference between

Israel Ambe Ayongwa

Interview with Minister of Immigration and Asylum Policy

EXCLUSIVE

Tobias BillströmPhoto: Pawel Flato

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a highly and lowly skilled workers for example. What is a highly skilled per-son? What sort of skills do you need? Do you need a building engineer? Yeah, but I need a building engineer that speaks Japanese. How do you design laws that create such a system? I don’t believe in that. The only important thing is that the Swedish model continues to work, as it always has been working, namely that the employers and the employees associations decide the salary levels. The government doesn’t do that in Sweden, as I’m sure that you are aware of. So leave that to the side. This is the way the system is going to work; if you are accepted on these condi-tions, then you will be able to get a 24 month visa from the beginning and then you can have a renewal of that for another 24 months, as we are now talking about the employees, you have left the student status and have moved on and become employee so I’m talking about chang-ing the length of stay for students this is the terminology. This would be a great improvement. I have been traveling a lot around Sweden, speaking to various col-leges and universities, and, also individual companies have close cooperation with this and especially the telecom sector has been very worried about the situation -that is the former situation- which has led to people that have done their exam

projects as an integrated part of the company who all of a sudden had to quit and leave Sweden right at the moment when they have developed some nice, well working function within telecom then comes the letter from the Migration Board saying, “Sorry, your time’s up. You have received your degree and now your visa is terminated.” But now we have a new system which means that during that time, when you see, as an employer that, “Well, oh! I have this student and his or her time is running out but they are valuable to my company”, then you can bring them in as employees instead. This is not to create the sort of side cure, second cure; we still separate very, very clearly students and employees. We want people to be able to start looking immediately after they have taken up their degree, not go back home to their country of origin. Yeah, this was perhaps a difficult explanation but I think that if you have any further questions regard-ing the finer details we can send you the law text which explains in detail what this means in English. This can also be downloaded from the website.

Junited: Compared to countries like the USA, UK, and Canada, Sweden is reputed for having fairly easy immigra-tion policies -visa processing policy.

Why is this the case because I have a good number of friends who have been to the American and UK embassies but they got turned away because the visa application procedure is really rigorous; but compared to Sweden, it’s a little bit lax. Why does it seem to be the case?

Minister: Well, I shouldn’t say that we have a lax visa policy but there is a big difference (between Sweden and the US) and that difference is exactly on the issue that we are now talking; because the UK especially the US, have already been very open to allowing students who have taken up their degrees to continue to work, but we haven’t. We have actu-ally been stricter, if you want to use that term, than the other countries. ‘Stricter’ perhaps doesn’t judge whether we have an efficient legal set of procedures. I should perhaps rather say we have had a rather strange procedure. If you invest money in education, I should say it’s not very clever and I should say stupid not to have invited the people to stay on after their degree and start working in the society. The US has built a lot of their economy by inviting people to their country as students because they realize that this creates a good impact on their economy. They get the best brains from the rest of the world, they can then mold

11

them, they can then educate them, they can create a well working person in their economy out of the person. The UK oper-ates along the same line. I mean Oxford and Cambridge were created on the no-tion… (Chuckles) Of course not created but founded, in the 19th century on the principle that we invite people from the rest of the world. I should say that Swe-den needs to think along the same lines and aspect. So no, it’s not a question of being lax; it’s about perhaps a question of being strict in the wrong places.

Junited: It’s my understanding that in about a couple of years, legislation might come into force which would warrant international non–EU students to pay tui-tion fees before undergoing their studies here in Sweden. Do you by, I know this is not in your department, but do you by any means have any idea what the impact this could have on the number of students wishing to come to Sweden?

Minister: This is definitely a question for the Ministry of Education which is now preparing bills and proposals and there is a discussion of this. But I will like to point out to you, however, that Sweden has also received criticism for not having a system where you take in tuition fees because out in the world people sometimes also say, “Well, hello, you’re not forcing us to pay anything. You are not taking any tuition then your education is free. Well, then perhaps it’s not so good.” And I think this is a comment that we also have to take seriously that people actually turn away from the Swedish educational system for just the reason that it is free. But, while I have said this, because you asked me about the impact, I think that it’s difficult today to see how this thing will evolve and it also depends on a lot of other things; the quality of education on top of the list and then perhaps extra money can fuel the system. It is always a question of balance and Sweden doesn’t have universities like Oxford, Cambridge, or Princeton, or Harvard. We are a very small country for that matter but this is something to be thought of; how to cre-ate a good educational system. So it’s a question for the Ministry of Education to handle.

Junited: Do you have any last word for those international students, here in Sweden, or those who might be thinking of coming to Sweden to study?

Minister: (Chuckles) I have definitely a very clear message: for those who are

already here, please, if you want to, apply for residence or work permit. Take the opportunity now that this law has come into place, take the opportunity to stay on and try to find work because we need you and we need the skills that you have received in your education. And for those out there (Shared Laughter) here are my words. I will like to say: Please take the opportunity to come to Sweden and try out our educational system. It’s quite good, actually, when you look closer at it, and if you do, then you will also have an opportunity to see what the Swedish labor market is like once you have finished your degree. So please, feel very welcome to Sweden.

Junited: Thank you very much Mr. Minister.

Minister: You’re very welcome. Thanks for a nice and very interesting interview. (Shared Laughter)

12

As if it was not enough to be facing a recent worldwide financial crisis, which devaluated Mexican currency, the peso, by 21% of its value when compared to the US Dollar. With this came the strug-gle to revive the automobile industry, from which Mexico has assembly plants from GM, Chrysler and Ford all over the country. Additionally, cartel wars among drug lords occur in an attempt to obtain absolute power in the north of the nation. Then comes a problem that no one could ever foresee.

It is called the virus a/h1n1, swine flu, etc; call it what you wish. In Mexico it has the name ‘problem’ written all over it. It start-ed as a normal flu in the state of Veracruz. According to the news it was a small five year old child who was first diagnosed. Denominated now as ‘patient zero’, he was taken immediately to the hospital for checking, and when the results came up it was already too late; he had spread the disease among adults who commute and work in Mexico City.

Now, we have to understand the complex-ity of the problem and the consequences it leads to. First, Mexico City is populated

by over 23 million people. Second, flu of any type is highly, strongly contagious, which results in a faster spread amongst the population. After registering sev-eral dozens of cases of ‘atypical flu’ the government did what they thought was the best at the moment: inform and take harsh measures in order to contain the expansion of the problem among national citizens and tourists.

It is hard to get people’s attention nowadays, especially among Mexicans, who do not care much about warnings made by the government and/or news networks. In this sense, the actions taken were to shut down schools, canceling popular events such as theaters and mov-ie functions, football games, concerts, etc. All this for the sake of everyone’s health care.

It has been said that hard times require hard measures. But neither the Mexican government nor the entrepreneurs and investors could have had a clue of the negative repercussions that come with the h1n1 flu. There has been a downturn in the number of tourists coming to the beach resorts and there is an even worse rate of cancelations made in the interior of the country. Flight after flight has been forbidden from Europe and Asia. The US has constant argumentations with its citizens about the issue of closing the border for an undefined period of time.

With tourism being one of the top three income industries of the country, this is a hit in the gut for an already damaged economy which came into a downturn after the October 2008 events in the housing industry in the US and its global repercussions. In times of saving money and financial uncertainty less people are willing to spend a holiday which could be postponed when the ‘bad and hard economic times’ had been long gone.

The economic slowdown forced Ameri-can companies to stop buying raw materials and other products from Mexican producers. This was due to American companies restructuring and/or in danger of not being liquid enough

international

The long way uphill: Mexico and its future panorama

13

to maintain the operational costs of their factories. As companies are less willing to spend money, the Mexican currency had to depreciate 21% in order to stop American companies from switching to other market providers, namely Central America and East Asian countries.

To make things worse, the giant Ameri-can automobile manufacturers are on the verge of disappearing. Chrysler is pledging to chapter 11 of the bankruptcy American system, GM is struggling to get rid of its European subsidiaries (Opel, Saab, etc), with only Ford stabiliz-ing the situation. It may seem that the shutting down of assembly lines and reduced weekly working hours affects only the automobile workers just in the US. However, this is not the case as there are many assembly plants in Mexico, be-cause thanks to outsourcing, it becomes cheaper to produce abroad.

From the 27th of April until the 8th of May, there has been a dramatic slow-down in the local economy. Restaurants are closed, factories are not producing and the exports sector is the one that is suffering the most, as many countries

have the ridiculous idea that the virus a/h1n1 can be transmitted through food, especially pork meat. As most of the companies, shops and entertainment facilities are closed this reduces the move-ment of money and therefore the velocity and liquidity of the economy. This is also putting in risk over 100,000 employees just in the tourism sector, which would mean a disastrous year for the Mexican economy.

The first quarter registered a contraction of Mexicans gdp by 7%; the head of the national economic bureau is forecasting a contraction of 4% for the 2009 year. This represents a lot of money and leaves Mexico in a precarious situation to face in the following years. There is likely to be another devaluation of the currency to entice tourists to return in the summer after the worst of the virus has gone.

The president just presented a stimulus plan in order to put back in movement the economy and developing special promotional packages for tourists. The creation of temporary jobs is another op-tion that will take place, and a strong and constant injection of capital in the mar-keting department can promote the rich-ness there is to be discover in the beach resorts, colonial cities, ancient cultural sites and all the nature to be explored across the nation, from east to west, north all the way to the south.

Mexico is a country known for the warm feeling it gives to anyone who comes to visit it. It does not matter whether people prefers to hike in the volcanoes, ride its rivers, lay on the sand or just relax with any other activity. Virus or no virus, financial crisis or not, even in times when everything seems to be wrong you will always find smiling faces, welcoming you and showing you that what you hear in the news is most often overrated.

For more information about Mexico please log into:

www.visitmexico.com Opposite page from top:Mexico City, Troubled US Stock market, Influenza virusThis page: Mexican dancers

The long way uphill: Mexico and its future panoramaStory: Alfredo Hidalgo Arreola

14

Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in the Ira-nian calendar. It usually occurs on March 21st and has been celebrated for about 2500 years by many countries that were territories of, or influenced by, the Persian Empire: Iran, Kurds, Afghanistan, parts of the Middle East, as well as the republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyr-gyzstan and other countries.

The celebration starts on the last Wednes-day of the year and is called “Chahâr-shanbe Sûrî” that means Wednesday of Fire. It is the celebration of the light winning over the darkness. The tradition includes people going into the streets to make bonfires and jump over them while singing the traditional song that means “My paleness (pain, sickness) for you (the fire), your strength (health) for me.” Most young people are interested in buying firecrackers from salesmen in the streets and the price is always different based on the financial status of each area.

People get ready for the New Year about one month before mostly by paying a worker to do the cleaning of their house. There are some small offices which you can refer to and ask for a worker although they are busy in this month. In the streets and shopping centers you can see a huge crowd of people buying clothes or any other specific items which they should have for the New Year celebration like rice and fish for the New Year’s Day and also gifts for their family and friends. People mostly buy tour packages from the travel agencies although the price is high because of high demand in this period. Many job opportunities in the area of tourism are made like more travel stations in each city, tour guides and the sellers of souvenir shop. Some people have their own job like baking cookies at home and sell it to the shops or relatives. There are also a number of salesmen in the streets, who sell New Year’s stuffs like goldfish or colored eggs. We can say that people spend all their salary plus the money they

get as a gift from the government to buy all they need for the New Year holiday.

On the first day of Nowruz, family mem-bers gather with the Haft Sīn on the table and wait for the exact moment of the arrival of the spring. At that time they hug and kiss each other and exchange gifts. Haft Sīn or the seven ‘S’s is a major tradition of Nowruz. The Haft Sin table includes seven specific items starting with the letter ‘S’ (س) in the Persian alphabet like: Sabzeh/Samanu/Senjed/Sir/Sib/Somaq/Serkeh/Sonbol/Sekkeh and also a mirror/decorated eggs/a bowl of goldfish, a holy book and a poetry book. In the same order they are a symbol of: rebirth/affluence/love/medicine/health/sunrise/patience/grow/wealth/honesty/ family/life and saintly.

The traditional herald of the Nowruz season is a man called Hājī Fīrūz. He symbolizes the rebirth of the Sumerian God of sacrifice, Domuzi, who was killed at the end of each year and reborn at the beginning of the New Year. He uses face paint to make his skin black and wears a red costume. Then he sings and dances through the streets with tambourines and trumpets spreading good cheer and heralds the coming of the New Year.

On the 13th day families leave their homes and picnic outdoors. The Sabzeh grown for the Haft Seen (which has sym-bolically collected all sickness and bad luck) is thrown into running water. It is also customary for young single women to tie the leaves of the Sabzeh and wish to be married before the next year.

Nowruz is the most important celebra-tion in Iran and it has a significant cul-

Shadi Sadat Tayyebi

NOWRUZ... New DayTraditional Iranian New Year

NOWRUZ

Celebration of Nowruz New Year

Photos by Shadi Sadat Tayyebi

Opposite page: Thai New YearPhotos by Tourism Authority of Thai-land (TAT)

tural and economical impact on the so-ciety. It is a serious tradition that people spend a lot of money on during the last month before the New Year’s Day in order to buy clothes, food, gifts and also buy the tour packages from the travel agen-cies that helps the tourism industry. Many job opportunities are created during this month like salesmen in the crossroads who sell everything we need for the New Year celebration and also more and more tour guides and travel stations that all help boost the economy.

15

Once there was a young man who was so prodigious at learning that an envious god of the heavenly realm tested him with three riddles in a bet game in which the loser would lose his head. With true wisdom, the young man’s correct answers forced the god to cut off his own head. As a celestial being with supernatu-ral power, his head would cause catastro-phes if kept on land, in the sky and the ocean. As a solution, his seven daughters placed it in a cave in heaven and once a year; bring it down to the earth for a pro-cession. That was the legend of Songkran, the Thai New Year.

Songkran LadiesAccording to legend, the seven daughters are known collectively as Nang Songkran (Songkran Ladies). Each of them arrives with various vehicles, flowers, accessories, weapons, and postures. These are believed by the Thais to give clues to the overall condition (ex. weather and abundance) of the coming year in relation to the time of the year she comes.

The word SongkranThe word “songkran” (สงกรานต์) in Sanskrit means “move” or “change place,” referring to the sun changing its position in the zodiac. As it becomes clearer, the god’s head represents the sun and his daughters are the seven days of the week.

What we do thenSongkran is the day of renewal. Thai peo-ple wear new clothes and go to the temple to listen to the preaching. The gentle fragrance of nam-ob-thai, a special Thai perfume lingers in the air as the people bathe Buddha statues with water scented with jasmines. People perform good deeds and give offerings to the monks. In the households, the elders sit amongst relatives and give blessings while other family members pour soothing perfumed water on air hands. After the custom-ary practice is over, young people go out and pour the water on each other. Love, warmth, and family connection embrace the atmosphere reflecting the true value of Songkran.

And nowSongkran is becoming something differ-ent. A big part of modern day Sonkran Festival is celebrated by teenagers and tourists. Being on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of April, the hottest month in the Thai calendar, the Songkraners still hold on to the use of water as the medium of expression as in the past but with different methods. Instead of pour, they splash each other with buckets or water pipes which give more violent effects thus more fun, but to some people, unfortunately more assault. Small chil-dren especially love to carry huge water cannons. It is known that everyone who steps outside is targeted!

One common phrase Thai people often bitterly jokes about is ‘Songkran or Song-kram*?’ Many Thais question how has the water festival become the water splashing war? Some even wonder if Songkran has become a commercial holiday where sales are more important than tradition… I guess not.

On the other hand, the water war is indeed the best known part of Songkran celebration internationally. In fact, water is welcomed during this zenith of the summer heat by everyone, even those riding on a motorcycle. The tourism per-centage increase from Songkran festival alone allows the airport in Phuket, a favorite tourist destination, to fix 36 extra flights from 13th-15th of April 2009. Un-deniably, Songkran Festival brings growth to the tourism industries as it boost sales in many various sectors. For 2009, the overall expected percent increase is as high as 30-40%.**

Inevitably, however, Songkran increases the spending on booze and death toll of over 373 people from road accidents alongside. This sets the government in two minds whether alcohol should be prohibited in 2010 after its failed attempt in 2009 posted this catastrophic conse-quence but the government cannot lose the revenue.

I perceive the two extremes of Songkran going on simultaneously. They are so con-troversial that many Thais hardly know how to handle it.

In the midst of a changing society, how-ever, knowing that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks is already enough. What is better than to live up to the new standard and be happy with it? Weather nam-ob-thai or moonshine, someone, somewhere is being satisfied.

*Songkram is a Thai word meaning war.**This figure is estimated without taking the current political unrest in consideration to show the pure impact of Songkran on tourism. With the turmoil, the percentage declines by equivalent numbers!

Pimpon Kongpool

Songkran in the Midst of the Changing Society: a Reflection

SONGKRAN

16

In our world of today which finds many women still doing mundane house-hold chores like sweeping the floor, being the subject of their husband’s scolding and practically carrying out the entire burden typical of housewives; other wom-en have crossed the invisible restricting threshold into the world of business.

This is why the sife-organized and Sci-ence Park-Jönköping, sponsored Interna-tional Women’s Day event emphasizes the new role of nowadays women, entering what was previously a man’s world: busi-ness.

What are women’s new roles under this glass ceiling? What are the challenges of starting up?

Meet Tagrid Mansour, the 2009 Interna-tional Women Day vip guest speaker. She is the ceo of Swebco, a Swedish service provider agent, which seeks to bridge small to medium-size businesses in Swe-den and Middle-Eastern countries.

Why these two markets in particular? Tagrid has a story to tell.

To get to know her in a nutshell, she left Lebanon, her home country, to start a new life in Sweden when she was four-teen, an age, that she reckoned later on, was perfect for contributing to her great understandings of the Scandinavian and Middle East’s different mentalities which are a big plus in helping her achieve her goal. In 1999, she worked with Schenker ab as the ceo’s secretary, a career which she pursued for five years. Having come across many invoices addressing the Middle East, in the course of her job, her entrepreneurial gearwheel began to turn.

“… I said to myself bingo! I’ve got [the idea] now…something that connects the Middle East to Sweden…”

After being laid off from Schenker ab in 2004, she opened a restaurant in the town of Tranås. Where she observed keenly how disabled Swedes could come out of their homes with ease, eat comfortably

at the restaurant and leave just like any other customer. That was where her op-portunity was unveiled.

“Wow, I said to myself, if it was bingo the first time, then it was a double bingo this time.”  

The thought of “how everything was adjusted to fit people with all kinds of disabilities” hit her, and hit her really hard resulting in the final and ultimate bingo; Swebco. Swebco embraces, as its mission statement, the will to present all equipments specialized for the disabled people produced in Sweden to the Mid-dle East. From its humble beginning, Swebco has now diversified into dealing with hospital equipment, rehabilitation equipment, and hotel furnishing.

Asked about her past difficulties to growth, Tagrid testified that one of her greatest barrier is, interestingly, being a woman. She feared that a woman with a different background (Lebanese) is nothing to listen to. Despite this para-digm, Tagrid simply went on her way to

Pimpon Kongpool

International Women’s Day 2009 Spotlight

WOMEN’S DAY

urge the new starters of business to have confidence and not to ignore any strong determination.

She has proved it that “three years down the road, Swebco is a reality!”

Other highlights which characterized this day included a speech from the event organizer, sife, in the person of Yanwei Mao, a presentation of the 2009 Inter-national Women’s Day crew by Project Leader Israel Ambe Ayongwa, award of Competition Prize by Lisa Johnsson (Science Park ceo) to Sarah Tsai and a Business Initiative workshop as well as a mingle and taco buffet treat.

Photo by Alina Todiras

17

April 16th, JIBS

This day was filled with a lot of various nationalities at Jibs representing their countries. It was accomplished with amazing performances, international showrooms, various worldwide foods, lotteries with fabulous prizes, games and other fun stuffs.

It was an opportunity to show people the wonders of each country at the same time and be familiar with different cultures, languages and different aspects of peoples all over the world!

Text: Shadi Sadat TayyebiPhotos: Shadi Sadat Tayyebi & Alina Todiras

18

the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. The thorny issue of trying to extricate transportation from the mesh of logistics was an aspect under the radar. Nowa-days, it’s common place to find people mixing up logistics and transportation. True, all transportation can be logistics (with transportation making up about 15% of it) but not all logistics operations are transportation. The lecturer discussed the topic ‘Transportation elements on the field’. The rest of the day was then dedi-cated to tutoring course participants on how to write their end of course projects.

Saturday was free of lectures as partici-pants, who had once again been split up into groups of 3, worked on randomly chosen topics which were to constitute

Israel Ambe Ayongwa

JIBS Hosts Maiden Nordic Course in

LOGISTICS

HUMLOG

April 19 to 28, 2009, were busy days for some lecturers and students of the International Logistics and Supply Chain Management programme as they played host to their counterparts from Hanken (Finland), BI (Norway) and Cranfield/Cardiff (UK) universities; which brought students from as far afield as Canada.

The winding journey through this ten day intensive(or marathon, if I dare say so on Sunday April 19th at 17.30 with the arrival and assembly of several lecturers and a cross-section of about 15 students (four of whom came from Canada, Norway and Finland) at the The Old Owl Pub, located in Jibs building.

According to Director for Centre of Logistics and Supply Chain Management Professor Susanne Hertz, the reason behind this preliminary gathering, was to create a ‘get to know each other’ atmos-phere between course participants, both lecturers and students, before the event properly kicked off the next day.

Those who attended had a treat of soft drinks and beer which was accompanied with snacks, olives and peanuts.

Monday April 20th was Day one and it began at 08.30 with 23 students assem-bling for a tuition session with Hanken’s lecturer Gyongi Kovacs. After being introduced by Susanne Hertz, Kovacs got the ball rolling with a lecture on ‘The Context of Aid’ as a key component dur-ing humanitarian crisis period and this lecture was closely followed by ‘Funding and Governance’ in Humanitarian Logis-tics. As is typical of a lively and interac-tive session, the students debated issues and raised proposals about the place that aid and governance can serve as an ingre-dient in fostering or impeding logistics in a humanitarian situation.

Day 2 of the course saw lecturers from Jibs gracing the stage. Aspects tackled dwelt on matters of ‘Cooperation and Coordination’ - handled by Prof Hertz-as well as ‘Collaboration and Learning’ -treated by Helgi Valur Fredriksson-which are all the cornerstones of Manage-ment as a social science and also key to

the discipline of Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Although issues raised were quite familiar to students with prior knowledge of Logistics and Supply Chain, the lecturers were keen to point out just how its implementation could be made manifest in the Humani-tarian Logistics field. Upon resumption after the break, Per Skoglund, a PhD Candidate and member to the Centre of Logistics and Supply Chain Management sought to define in his discourse the place of Civil and Military cooperation in a humanitarian relief effort.

Wednesday April 22nd, Day 3, saw practical issues being tutored in the form of cases and real life events on the ground. A point on focus was the Kenya Post-Election crisis of 2007 and the debate during this forum was mediated and coordinated by Prof. Hertz. With students split up between groups of five, each in turn had an opportunity to give a perspective of how they would have tackled the issue as logisticians on the ground. The second part of the day was dedicated to Marianne Jahre, professor from BI/Lund University, who high-lighted the logistics operations of the International Federation of Red Cross (ifrc) through phases of preparedness, response and reconstruction; and just how it works before, during and after a disaster respectively.

With the course participants already made to work on yet a new case on Day 3, Thursday, (Day 4)began with case discussions. Just like the previous case on the Kenya Post-Election crisis, this case in question on the International Federation of Red Cross took the form of an interactive and lively debate with the class split into different groups, each having an opportunity to put across their opinions in the form of a presentation. The latter part of the day was taken up by Tore Listou (from the Swedish Military Academy) who deliberated on the com-ponent of sourcing within the military.

Friday April 24th was Day 5 and the cru-cial topic of ‘Transportation in Logistics’ was dealt with by Bjorn Dahlstrom of

19

JIBS Hosts Maiden Nordic Course in human logistics

HUMLOG

their 10 page end of course project.

Sunday, Day 7 saw students back to school once more for a lecture on ‘Needs Assessment’ (as a preparedness measure for crisis) and also Information Manage-ment. This lecture was given by Peter Tatham from the Cranfield/Cardiff universities in the UK who jetted in to Sweden just for this purpose. Amidst an interactive lecture with course partici-pants which culminated in a photo shoot comprising almost all the participants with Prof. Hertz and Peter Tatham included, the course officially ended at about 15.00.

While giving the students a ‘take home exam’ which constituted 30% of the as-sessment process, course coordinator, Susanne Hertz, passed around a assess-ment questionnaire, thanked all those who made it hinted that the venue for the next Humanitarian Logistics course would be hosted at one of the partner universities; either in Norway or Finland.

Humanitarian Logistics course hosted by Jibs is the brainchild of three partner business schools in the Nordic countries namely Hanken, BI and Jibs. According to one of the course organizers, Susanne Hertz, the growth of this course is greatly associated with the crucial place that logistics plays in humanitarian relief and disaster operations being responsible for about 90% of all costs incurred.

As a young social science, this is a grow-ing area of research which underscores the importance of Logistics and Sup-ply Chain Management. Humanitar-ian Logistics therefore seeks to answer the broader question: how to get relief supplies and aid to those affected and in need’ after funds and donations must have been made.

Worthy of note is the fact that the history of logistics as a social science discipline owes its roots to a very unlikely source; the military, where Generals and Field Commanders had to devise innovative means of moving their entire platoons of soldiers, their amoury and consignment of supplies to the battle front. The need for proper coordination was made and logistics was therefore born to serve this need.

20

Every October, between the 21st and the 23rd, Chicago hosts a peer competition event with the intent to encourage under-graduate students with an entrepreneurial vision. The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards is a worldwide competition between student business owners where the grand prize of 10,000 usd is the goal.

The original idea, founded in 1988 by the University of Saint Louis in Missouri, started out as a small event and restricted to the US. However, since 2002, it has expanded into the international experience it is today. The awards are now or-ganized by EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization) and Mercedes-Benz Financial (since 2006).

The competition is aimed for undergraduate students that own or founded a for-profit business which is at least 6 months old. The students have to present their businesses to the judges and hope to win the regional competitions which then lead to the global challenge in Chicago.

The application period for the Swedish Student Entrepreneur is from May 1st-8th. The applicants are then judged through virtual judging. The judges will contact them through a teleconference in order to decide who will be travelling to Chicago to compete with the international winners. The win-ner of the Swedish regional contest is awarded with a 50,000 sek prize and the trip to Chicago –all expenses paid.

This event is the opportunity for all student entrepreneurs to show the world what they are made of and be recognized for it. It is hosted ever year, so there’s no need to feel put out when the application window closes. Let’s hope the JIBS stu-dents will one day put themselves to the challenge and make the university proud, globally!

We offer students a discount of15% on any treatment

between 8.00-13.00 everyday

valid student ID is required

Booking 036-100 607 Klostergatan 20 Jönköping

www.harsalongenpapee.se

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Monday-Saturday 09.00-19.00

Friday“Salsa” 19.00-23.00

Saturday“Latin Tango” 15.00-17.00

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Address: Kyrkogatan 16, 553 16 JönköpingTel: 0707-493866

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Welcome to the Students’ Caféwhere all bakery are made with Love!

Global Student Entrepreneur Awards 2009

21

What are you doing? It is a simple question to ask but it is the foundation of the social-networking phenomenon called Twitter. Twitter is yet another social-networking website, similar to Facebook and MySpace, which is creat-ing a buzz in modern popular culture. Its function is simple and straight for-ward… What are you doing? Users of the free service offered by Twitter gather a following of people from around the globe and also follow people they have an interest in. These people then con-nect with each other via a Short Message System (sms) and update their followers with what is happening in their lives. The sms updates, called Tweets, are less than 140 characters and can contain informa-tion such as, what someone will have for dinner or the person’s current emotional state.

In business, networking is essential. A business is like a spider spinning a web; in order for a spider to survive it must create a strong and effective web to catch its customers. The strength of the web comes from the connections that are made within the web and the effective-ness involves the quality and location of those connections. It is for this reason that many businesses are turning towards Twitter as a means to create connections.

Ola Rynge is a Swedish businessman who frequently uses Twitter to do business. I asked Ola what he uses Twitter for in his business. “For me I use Twitter to [primarily] stay tuned with recent and interesting posts in two specific areas of interest, Personal Branding and Small Business Marketing. Another part [it is important to] build my [own] personal brand as a Personal Branding expert and promote my own material to my followers and find new potential clients.” Ola has been using Twitter for 18 months but has been actively “tweeting” for two months and has gained almost 1200 followers in that time and has posted nearly 1000 tweets.

The service that Twitter offers is called micro-blogging and it has just recently become popular in Sweden. Last year,

the word mikroblogga (micro-blog) was officially added to the Swedish language which illustrates its rise in popularity. According to Ola, Twitter is a service that allows micro-bloggers to connect with people of similar interests around the world in a fast and convenient way. “I would say that 90-95% of my tweets are about personal branding and the rest about general business and entrepre-neurship. Normally it is in English, but sometimes I send tweets in Swedish as well if it is only interesting for Swedish speaking persons.”

As with Facebook and MySpace, Twit-ter’s purpose and design is for social-net-working, and is not specifically tailored for business use. It is for this reason that Twitter may not be effective for every in-dustry. Ola uses several application add-ons to make the tool more convenient for his personal needs of using Twitter as a business tool. “I use TweetDeck that is an application which makes it easier to stay up to date and post tweets. I would like better filtering for removing more clutter, but that is something that I think will be improved as more people uses the system.”

Kyle Lockwood

What are you doing?

SOCIAL NETWORK

Twitter is not for everyone. There are im-provements that could be made to make it more useful or usable for more people, the aforementioned clutter problem for example. But it has proven to be a useful tool for many business people around the world. It is very easy to get started and very easy to use. There are no costs to using Twitter and it requires only basic technical knowledge to begin. The tool is versatile and the potential of Twitter has only begun to be realized. All you need to do to begin is to answer the question, “what are you doing?”

Ola Rynge is an entrepreneur focused on business development and business strategies in early stages. You can visit his blog at http://blog.rynge.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Rynge

[Twitter] has proven to be a useful tool for many business people

around the world.

22

Spring in Jönköping is doing more than bringing in the gentle flowers, smiles, and big shades on people’s faces. It is filling the outdoor coffee shop’s seats and numbing the cashiers’ arms at retail stores from receiving piles of cash. Even further, it sends the tantalizing odor of grilled sausages into the air, hypnotiz-ing hungry shoppers. Ice cream flavors are displayed behind the glass, a great dessert to finish off a fine spring day. Yes, spring, only spring not yet summer. But truly, this is how much the Swedes anticipate sunlight considering that some part of Sweden has been in darkness for 6 months a year.

A columnist for the Stockholm newspa-per Expressen, Jan Lindström, once said, “(the) Swedes have two lives – the dark one in winter and another…under the sunlight.” This applied as well to interna-tional students like some of you and me, who have experienced the Swedish style of winter, fortunately survived, and been reborn into the light of spring 2009.

Seasonal change in daylight greatly affects the mentalities of people living in the Scandinavian regions. People tend to go out more and enjoy the much longed-for sunlight. Along with the warmer weather and people’s improved mood comes the demand for more consumption in all aspects. Perceivably, shoppers roam the streets of Jonkoping’s downtown, visit retail stores, and exit with handfuls of bags. Although nowadays product offers are redirected towards online stores, the changing climate increases the sale over the counter significantly.

Not surprisingly, the Euromonitor Inter-national’s Alcoholic Drinks in Sweden Market Report supports the data that even alcohol consumption notably shifts

with the changing climate. The bad weather holds back the volume demand-ed. As happened in the rainy summer of 2007, the sale of alcoholic bever-ages, namely beer and Rosé wine, had declined. However, the more favorable weather of the year 2008 improved the amount of alcohol consumed as expect-ed. Cheers to Systembolaget, the famed Swedish Alcohol Retail monopoly.

However, the obvious indicator is noth-ing else but ice-cream. Ice-cream parlors are not just on the pier across the street but they now expanded their terrain to the downtown’s shopping street. Ice-cream parlors sell more in spring and of course skyrocket in the proceeding summer peak. Considering that sum-mer in Sweden lasts approximately five to six weeks, bad weather can drop the ice cream sales by the horrible number of 70%!

Worse yet, the springtime-ice-cream-popularity in Sweden gave an ironic

headline on The Local, an online Swed-ish news website that “Swedish Ice cream trucks’ a form of torture”.

The proposed suggestion came from Bo Sjöberg, a professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg who worried that “selling ice cream and candy with enticing melodies ought to be outlawed because it is connected to child obesity.” A report was sent from the professor to Nyako Sabuni, the consumer minister on this matter in addition.

Now I will take his concern a step for-ward. An average Swede consumes an exciting number of 13 liters of ice-cream per year, 13 times higher than a Mexican according to a 2004 survey. However, the

Pimpon Kongpool

Crocus, Narcissus & Ice-cream

SEASONAL BUSINESS

champions are Americans. They lead the world with 23 liters of ice-cream con-sumption per person per year. Bravo!

Despite Sjöberg’s great concern, the happy ice-cream-consuming population continues to stay in the sun with their high-temperature-day treats.

These heartwarming overtures of the pop-ping up flowers, sausages, and ice-cream parlors are the undeniable vårtecken, the sign of spring. There is always time to seize these seasonal delicacies now while getting ready for the soon coming sum-mer!

Photos by Shadi Tayyebi

23

Diaspora Link is a budding company which is actively leading the way today as a link between migrants in the Diaspora (abroad), having a desire to send money home, and their home countries. This re-mittance in turn has a multiplier effect of acting as an impetus for economic growth and development.

Having its office in the ‘B’ building of Sci-ence Park, Diaspora Link owes its origin to a humble beginning.

It was right after an international work-shop, grouping 25 organizations, on the topic ‘Diaspora as wealth creators’ which took place at the Jönköping University in 2006, that the seed for this idea was sown. Diaspora Link was born in November 2007 through the initiative of Professor Bengt Henoch at Jönköping’s Engineer-ing School; he subsequently co-founded it with Mr. Arne Nilsson, cio of SYSTeam ab.

Well sited at Science Park’s seat, a well reputed establishment known for setting up new companies, Diaspora Link has as mission to offer cheap, secure and con-venient remittance services to migrants abroad wishing to send money back home. This service provider also seeks to transcend its ‘money sending role’ by tak-ing up a dual role of providing informa-tion about the opportunities available in the region where remittances are made as well as actively fostering develop-ment. The money transfer and informa-tion investment services that Diaspora Link offers are part of the result from the remittance research project funded by Vinnova at Jibs.

According to its Marketing Analyst, Quang Vinh Evans Luong, a PhD can-didate at Jibs, Diaspora Link operates through a web based service platform which requires the user to carry out registration and validation of his account; a move that can be affected without seeking assistance from agents. This thus facilitates the usage of this service by the community in Diaspora.

The transfer service is made possible through a wireless visa bankcard-to-card system between the country where the sender is located at, and the place where the recipient of the money resides.

When asked what makes Diaspora Link different from other Money Transfer agencies, Quang confides that upon registration, a sender can manage the transfer service on his own from just any internet terminal and about the cost factor. Diaspora Link, he noted, costs 50% less than traditional operators in ad-dition to providing a rapid service whose outreach even extends to recipients in rural areas.

As a contributor to growth and develop-ment, Diaspora Link seeks to underscore the role that migrants in the Diaspora can actively play back home through microcredit finance contributions, iden-tifying viable investment opportunities in particular regions and undertaking development initiatives.

As an institution, Diaspora Link has a great interest in helping foreigners from African countries towards making remittances and initiating development back in their countries of origin. In this regard, it sponsors pilot projects like the ‘Sweden to Ghana Remittance service’ where the target population are Ghana-ians residing in Sweden.

Today, Diaspora Link’s outlook and scope is not only limited to people from African countries. It is equally out to target people from regions around the world and currently boasts of a capabil-ity to send money from all EU coun-tries where it has established an agent organization.

By implication this emphasizes the net-work’s potentials for growth.

Diaspora Link has the ambition to be more then just another organization in the network of money transfer. It also wants to contribute to the building of stronger Diaspora organizations as part-

ners in a cooperative Diaspora remittance service, and consequently realizing the important role played by remittances and its effect on the global economy.

According to the bbc (Thursday, 18 October 2007), remittances sent home by migrants abroad, tops world aid made to developing nations. According to statis-tics culled from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (ifad), about 150 million migrant workers sent more than $300 billion (£147.3 billion) home in 2006. This is in stark contrast to the $104 billion given in aid by donor na-tions and direct foreign investment made to the tune of $167 billion.

This data provides appropriate fodder to organizations like Diaspora Link, as well as other well established Money Transfer operators, who might not fully grasp just how their activities are the key to forg-ing ahead with the role of providing the much needed finance for development.

Israel Ambe Ayongwa

Diaspora Link: Making Remit-tance a Tool of Development

REMITTANCE

24

SPRING INSPIRATION 2009Alfredo Hidalgo Arreola

Photos by Shadi Sadat Tayyebi

Saturday, May 16, 2009, was a night full of colors, music and fashion on Munksjöbron.

What was a bridge during the day was transformed into a makeshift platform, stretching for about 50 meters, a stage for models-both male and female-ready for the catwalk; meanwhile rows of chairs were arranged diagonally along this stage.

This year’s Spring Inspiration fashion show had success written all over it. Celebrating its 12th anniversary it could not have been another way of partying but in a very unique way. It all began after 21.30 hours; not as delayed as the organizers might have thought. Dawn in the horizon saw the start of a delight-ful evening with the presentation of the models and the music from Lazee who spiced up the beginning of the night with his hip-hop music very much in tone with the atmosphere.

There were more than 12 clothing brands on the catwalk, from daily used jeans and blouses to superb spring/summer dresses. As this is a fashion show there were as well some designs which clearly represent the entrepreneurs of Sweden with the innovative use of materials to shape forms and delight the audiences’ pupils.

As the show kept on flowing the delivery of good music by the DJ and the whole stage set-up, which was put-up in less than 7 hours, with its good illumina-tion and delivery of a nice atmosphere is another thing to remark.

Next star performer on the stage was J-Son, although not with much thrill or energy in his stride as his predecessor, Lazee, who made people sing along and workout the stage as a star, but equally gave a nice show with a couple of songs well known by the audience present on the bridge that night.

In the end, the perfect mix of music with fashion gave the show the perfect syn-chronization and with a warm environ-ment that made the chilling Jönköping night to pass without being noticed. Special congratulations to Hibo Salad Ali and Kajsa Hansson, and of course the rest of the team who worked for a period no shorter than six months to make this all possible. The only thing we could now expect is to see a show as good as this one for next year, come 2010.

25

SPRING INSPIRATION 2009

26

FAST FACTS

Time: 21.30-24.00Attendees: approx. 800+Models: JIBS, Erik Dahlberg, Per Brahe, and professional models, age 16-26Designers: Jönköping-basedOrganisers: JIBS studentsSound & Lighting: Lucas EventMusic: Lazee, J-son, Ali Alan Haghighi (DJ)

Catwalk

Backstage

Music Lazee & J-son

Along Munksjöbron

27

SPRING INSPIRATION

Truly inspiring show

Fresh faces

Celebrate Jönköping spirit

28

Reader SurveyJunited, the Voice of JIBS, is listening.

Because we want to be your voice, so we would like to hear from you.This brief reader survey will be our guideline for the improvement of successive issues,

therefore it is important for us to reflect and present things you, as a reader, want to read.Please e-mail us your answers at junited.jsa@ihh.hj.se.

QUESTIONS

1. Are you a member of Jibs Student Association (Jsa)?

2. Who are you? (so that we can focus our content to suit your interest)

> Swedish programme student: Bachelor or Master, which programme? > International programme student: Bachelor or Master, which programme? > Exchange student: Bachelor or Master, which programme?

3. What are your areas of interests in Junited magazine? (you can answer more than one)

> Jibs > Business highlights > Entrepreneurship > Cultural & international spotlight > Lifestyle, Sports & Fitness > Film & Book reviews > Mingle > Others (please specify)

4. What do you think about the quality of issues covered in the magazine?

> Informative > Entertaining > Enriching / Inspiring > Useful > Others (please specify)

5. In which section(s) you would want to read more? (you can answer more than one or propose new topics)

> Jibs (Business Creation, Jsa, Alumni, etc.) > International (Study Abroad, Cultural Spotlight, etc.) > Entrepreneurship (Events, Company Focus, Start-up, Science Park, etc.) > Lifestyle (Sports, Fitness, Movie, Music, Book, Mingle, etc.)

5. What would you like to see improved in this magazine?

6. Which Jsa event was the best in your opinion, and why?

7. Where is your favourite nightclub in Jönköping?

8. Where is your best place for afterwork?

9. Where is your best place for fika?

As a thank-you, we will draw the selected winners to get a free fika at The Coffe House by Mazen.

29

It’s not everyday in Sweden that we have the privilege of beautiful weather to go cycling. In most big cities all over the globe, it is almost impossible to go anywhere by bike without competing for space in the streets with cars and trucks, in what can be a polluted and danger-ous environment for cyclist. The answer to these problems: indoor cycling, or “spinning”, which has come as an exciting option for the fitness industry to offer an intense and fun indoor activity.

No other group training class is more in demand at the gym than spinning, with classes always religiously filled by participants. Everybody can participate, regardless of their age or fitness level. The market for this activity is constantly growing.

Why has spinning become so popular?

It is possible spinning has become so popular because it does not have the complicated steps associated with most group training classes, or because it burns a lot of calories (an average of 600 to 800 calories per hour). Perhaps the main rea-son why spinning is considered one of the most intense and tonic activities offered by gyms nowadays is due to the excel-lent results. It is ideal for those aiming to improve their cardiovascular and respira-tory strength as well as those looking to lose weight. Constant cycling requires strength from most muscles in the lower part of the body and part of the upper body as well, which is involved indirectly in the work.

The spinning classes are a perfect example of interval training (alternating between intense movements and recovering peri-ods) through different methods of aerobic and anaerobic strength training.

One of the motivating factors of spinning, if not one of the most important, is the exciting soundtrack played during these classes. Apart from stimulating and enter-taining the participants, it determines the rhythm of the movements.

The spinning is pure fun and very easy after the brief adjustment and adaptation period.

It is one of those activities that after 60 minutes of intense workout gives an amazing and rewarding feeling of triumph.

The student life can be really stressful sometimes, so there´s nothing better than doing an activity that will simulta-neously pump up your body and clean up your mind.

Try it out! You are going to love it!

Fabiana Leal

Spinning – A Healthy Habit

lifestyle

TIPS TO ENJOY THE SPINNING CLASSES

» Adjust the bike according to your height and body structure » Use a good pair of shoes, to keep the base of your foot straight while

cycling » Pay attention to the correct position of the spine » Respect the limits of your body, especially in the first classes » And water! Always drink lots of water!

What about you? Share your healthy tips with us to win some cool prizes by sending e-mail to junited.jsa@ihh.hj.se

30

Saturday May 2, 2009 was the fourth annual Popadelica Music Festival, held in Huskvarna Folkets Park. Coordinated and managed entirely by volunteers, the festival showcases local and indie music in a variety of genres. With perfect spring weather, 3 stages, 18 bands, and an outdoor courtyard, the Folkets Park was a perfect venue for nearly 12 hours of con-tinuous music. For those unable to afford the 400kr entrance fee, we provide some highlights from the show:

15:30 – Nearly 40 years old, plainly dressed, and extremely petite, Anna Järvinen initially seems a strange choice to open

the festival. However, the powerful voice that emerges from her small, thin appear-ance gets the audience off to a fantastic start. Complemented by the backing vocals of her all-male band, Anna’s melo-dies and her enthusiastic performance compensate for any language barriers with her Swedish lyrics. With the tiered performance schedule, some left early to see the start of disco crooner John ME’s set; those people missed out on Anna’s exquisite Neil Young-inspired harmonica solos, something she saved for her last two songs.

16:15 – Fika in the courtyard. It may have been expensive to get in, but all sodas, candy, chocolate balls, coffee and tea were only 5 kr.

16:45 – Rootsy maga-zine has stated that Fatboy has made the “Best album ever re-corded in Sweden”. This

nostalgic rockabilly band evokes the classic old-time sounds of Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison. Dressed in black and white suits, the band’s instrumentation include an upright bass, slide guitar, and the occasional mandolin solo. Sung in English, the love-sick, hip-shake lyrics sound like standards written 50 years ago, and sound perfectly suited to the jukeboxes of that era.

17:15 – One of two featured bands from

the US, Au Revoir Sim-one is a simple, unique group: Three women, playing with three electronic keyboards.

They create repetitive, trancelike melodic patterns that weave in and out of each keyboard, while their voices float over the synthesized soundscape. The neon lighting enhanced the atmosphere for the audience, who participated enthusiasti-cally, clapping along to the mid-tempo programmed beats.

18:00 – With a massive head full of curly hair and a raspy voice like Cat Power’s Chan Mar-shall, Hajen (“Shark”

in Swedish), performed a short set of emotionally-charged songs, alone with her piano. Unfortunately, inadequate ventilation made the room unbearably hot, whereupon we walked over to see Adiam Dymott, by far the most pow-erful, hardest rocking woman at the festi-val. There is guaranteed to be something for everyone at Popadelica…

19:00 – Waiting for the band I’m From Barce-lona to start, one could count over 20 micro-phone stands on the

empty stage. Actually from Jonkoping, this mega-group blew the audience away with their pure energy, dancing on stage with their wide range of instruments and chorus vocals. Midway through their full-hour set, balloons and confetti began pouring from above, prompting such ex-citement that a few members of the band felt the need to jump into the audience and join the fun.

20:00 – Often com-pared to The Hives, Babien (translated as Baboon) were the fastest, most energetic band,

playing and sustaining their speedy rock-ers for their entire 45 minute set. In fact, their performance was so fast that by the end, their guitars began spraying streams of sparks out of the ends, much to the

audience’s approval.

20:45 – Movits consists of three blonde men in suits with thick black rimmed glasses. Together they create an impos-

sibly catchy and unique blend of Swedish jazz-rap music one can dance to. They were one-of-a-kind and definitely worth hearing at least once.

21:15 – Time for our second food break, sitting on the outdoor “beach stage” couches, which is also where the festival ki-

osk was. Dinner consisted of a lukewarm kycklingwok that tasted like pure sodium. From where we sat, we could hear the sound of the “epic symphonic metal” US band ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead starting up. Then again, regardless of where you stood in the park, you would be able to hear this band. With two drum sets facing each other, this intense and thunderous band performed ear-shattering songs that lasted upwards of 10 minutes each. Not to this listener’s tastes, but memorable nonetheless.

22:00 – Nordpolen, translated as North Pole, was simply the worst performer at the festival. Wearing an open-chested

fur coat with extended shoulder pads, lead singer Pelle Hellström sounded like some bad 80’s club dance music. Out of date, and in the worst way possible. We left after 15 minutes.

22:15 – Hailing from Ireland, Le Galaxie are a band from Dublin, mix-ing electric synthesizers with a powerful guitar

rock sound. Voices were also heavily filtered through a synthesizer, making the band more of an instrumental act. Their crisp sound was high in energy and had the crowds jumping and spinning in place.

22:45 – One of the bigger bands at the festival, Florence Valentin delivered

Richard Lam

Popadelica Music Festival

MUSIC FESTIVAL

31

competent, catchy guitar-driven rock. At another stage, The Skull Defekts struggled with technical problems for 20 minutes,

before beginning their set. The band has an emphasis on unique percussion, first establishing a monotonous rhythmic pat-tern, followed by a few bars of notes that are repeated over and over. The repeti-tions become more and more hypnotic as the band gets louder and incrementally out of control.

23:45 – Danish band Spleen United offered club-rock, sounding like a mix between the festival’s Nordpolen and Le Galax-

ie. The inclusion of strange, antique-like synthesizers created otherwise unheard of sounds that kept the music interesting.

00:30 - Markus Krunegård, also one of the bigger acts, was the final performer. Nomi-nated for 5 Grammy’s in

2009, Markus sounds like a poppier, more dance-oriented Nine Inch Nails. Unfortu-nately, we had to leave early to catch out bus back into town, thereby ending our musical adventure.

Diane Setterfield’s debut and, cur-rently, only novel, The Thirteenth Tale, published in 2006, tells the story of the fictional author Vida Winter.

Once upon a time there was a haunted house; once upon a time there were twins; once upon a time there were three.

Vida Winter, England’s bestselling author with more than 50 books, never revealed her true biography or even her real name. Her debut novel was origi-nally called “Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation”, except there was only twelve stories and had to be re-printed as “Tales of Change and Desperation”. As she is interviewed by eager journal-ists who try to catch her real story, she weaves a new fictional anecdote each time, making her life as much as a fan-tastic tale as her own books. However, one journalist asked her once for the truth –“Tell me the truth” he said-, catch-ing her off guard, and so she starts to wonder when she will finally expose the truth about her life.

The novel is narrated by the biographer Margaret Lea, and the book is as much about Vida Winter as it is about Marga-ret. Ms. Winter hires Margaret to tell her story –the thirteenth tale-, with a hint that suggests that Margaret’s past knowl-edge on siblings will help her understand Vida Winter’s tragedy. Margaret was a twin who lost her sister when they were born. The book strictly empha-sizes the life of twins from Setterfield’s own philosophical perspective on the phenomenon.

Vida Winter’s story is not only about herself, but about the entire Angelfield family -her family; three generations of it. Ms. Winter explains that in order to tell her story, she had to tell the fam-ily’s story, for she is but a sub-plot; “Our lives are so important to us that we tend to think the story of them begins with our birth. First there was nothing, then I was born…” she said. And so the story begins…

In this captivating novel, Setterfield drives you into a gothic tragedy delicate-

ly sown together with philosophical ideas on life, death, family, and behavior. It is a must read for all fiction enthusiasts, and a keeper for book addicts.

Gabriella Paulin

The Thirteenth Tale

BOOK REVIEW

The Thirteenth Tale covers in English, Chinese, Finnish, and Thai

MINGLES

Don’t see your crew above? Just submit your own get-together mingle photos to us at junited.jsa@ihh.hj.se or log into JSA web at www.jibsstudents.com.

International Day Spring, Talinn Cruise, Study Abroad, Swedish Cooking Class, Creative Marketing Course, and parties!

Trainee är ett engelskt ord som betyder början på en osannolikt

framgångsrik karriär

Advisory Traniee 2010

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