February will be a busy month…

I am two weeks away to head for Sweden. It looks like the "ex-pat wife" will be busy the first two weeks in February. Just days away from the announcement that our family run business is in the “semifinal”/"final race" to be presented at an investor gathering at London Stock Exchange the 14^th. First we will, as one out of 25 that ended up in the final race (there was 80 in total) of the Nordic Cleantech Open participate the 5 and the 6^th February at Trolleholms Castle close to Lund in Sweden.

The castle is 450 years old and open exclusively to members. The Nordic Cleantech Open have the entire castle for this weekend, with facilities such as meeting rooms, sauna, massage, jakuzzi at our full disposal. The top 25 contestants are invited to this workshop where they will get the opportunity to meet qualified mentors and jury members, have individual meetings with them to work on and develop their businesses. The invited individuals have been targeted based on the profiles of the finalists.

For me it will be interesting to meet Lassi Naponen, partner of Cleantech Invest. Lassi was chairman of the board of Winwind where he managed the founders and investors exit and 120m€ equity fund raising from Abu Dhabi (MASDAR). In 2009 this was the largest clean tech deal in Scandinavia. In 2009 Lassi was inducted to the Cleantech Scandinavia Hall of Fame.

Heading back to Houston with the early flight 7th February to catch up for the late afternoon reception with the Royal Norwegian Consulate General Dr. Jostein Mykletun at his residence on the occasion of Norway’s Participation at Arctic Technology Conference, the Visit of the Mayor of the City of Stavanger The Honorable Leif Johan Sevland, and two related Norway-US Seminars on Oil Spill and Space & Energy.

Next day visits to the NASA Johnson Space Centre (NASA - JSC) and Oceaneering

in the evening Stavanger Reception: Westin Galleria Hotel with Mayor of Stavanger, Leif Johan Sevland

9^th February the Conference and Workshops, the conference part will focus on overall opportunities and challenges, and lay the framework for the workshops. Several of the talks will discuss the exciting opportunities and challenges that arise when one has to deal with four different cultures at the same time: Space, Energy, the US, and Norway. We are challenging material used in space technology also to be used in our product related to the harsh environment in Gulf of Mexico, East coast of US and the North Sea.

If I also need to go to London 14. February it will be me crossing the Atlantic more hours than I get to see Houston and prepare for visitors coming across…sorry about that, but it needs to be so.