IT university in Sweden

[Bryce Johnson <brycej@SINNFREE.SINNFREE.ORG>]

The following article was from Vestkusten-October 15, 1999-I thought some
of the members might enjoy reading it:

SWEDEN TO BUILD EU's BIGGEST IT UNIVERSITY:  Kista Science Park outside
Stockholm is turning into a center for high tech R&D, business and
eduction

"In five years, the Stockholm suburb of Kista is counting on having a
campus for 6,000 students, many who will live within the communityh as
well.  The university, an annex to KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology
in Stockholm, is SEK 1 billion investment that will result in the largest
learning institution for Information Technology with the 15-nation
European Union.

Contrary to Silicon Valley, where the universities spawned a vertiable
explosion of new ventures, KTH is moving into an area that already is an
established cneter for high tech businesses.  Kista has today about 27,000
people working in some 650 businesses, of which more than half are high
tech.  Sweden's largest publicly held company, the telecomm giant
Ericsson, which moved some its R & D to Kista already 20 years ago, has
6,000 of its people working in Kista, for example--about half of all its R
& D people working in Swqeden.

Kista already has the largest science park in Europe--the fifth largest in
the world.  In a longer perspective, it is expected that the new
university will spawn a flurry of new small businesses and supply existing
tech businesses with much needed qualified people.

The mixture of students and industry will in all likelihood lead to more
contacts between the two; students will eat in the same restaurants as the
indsutry people and will be able to use their research facilities.  The
idea is that the close contact will foster an environment from which new
ideas and new businesses will be created in the future.

If this sounds like th brave new world, the idea does not lack for
critics.  With the bulk of students living as well as studying in the
already very high tech world that Kista represents, many fear an
environment sorely lacking in contact with manifestations of more cultural
and humanistic creativity.

Kista is al home to lare population of immigrants living "on the other
side of the track", a segreated community with high unemployment and low
levels of education.

The initial idea years ago that Kista would be a community where people
both worked and lived has never panned out.  People actually living in
Kista have few expectations that the new university or a booming science
park will change the situation for those already marginalized.  If
anything, a large population of students "on the right track" may increase
confrontations between the haves and the have nots.

Sweden is well ahdead of most countries when comes to Information
Technology, IT, much thanks to excellent education at the tech
universities in Stockholm, Goteborg, Lund, Lulea and Linkoping.  Kista may
be a place where the KTH sutdents are surrounded by Ericsson people, but
it is not the only pace favored by the telecomm company.

The Linkoping University's Tech Institute recently signed an agreement
with Ericsson regarding cooperation in areas of mciro electronics and
software engineering.  The institute is already considered one of the best
in
the world in these areas according to people at Ericsson, which is
promising to share it know-how in the data and telecomm world with the
institute and participate in the eavluation and devlopment of engineering
courses geared towards IT.

Swedenis, in fact, working seriously towards becoming the IT center of the
European Union.  In compeition with particulary Finland, Sweden is
fighting for EU's new IT Institute; talks are reportedly uinderway between
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson and new EU Commission Chairman,
Romano Prodi.

For Sweden, the IT Institute would be way to attract and retain scientists
in the county.  Persson estimates that a European institute placed in
Sweden would attract at least 250 international scientists to do research
in Sweden, which would benefit the whole Swedish IT industry."

Bryce Johnson, Librarian
Guilford High School
5620 Spring Creek Road
Rockford, IL  61114

Telephone:  815/654-4870 x 1550
Fax:  815/654-4901

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