A brand-new meeting place located in the heart of Kista's business area has taken shape: Kista Innovation Park. With a mix of innovations, food, drink, and attractions it has everything to make Kista a more fun and attractive place while the major urban transformation is underway, and the future Kista is emerging.
Behind the Kista Innovation Park is Ericsson together with The Kloud. Kista Innovation Park consists of several attractions: Ericsson Innovation Lab with demo containers and the big blue mat, the box park Plåtparken and the food hub Myllra. The place is for everyone who works, studies, lives and visits Kista and here all are welcome to visit and join activities for free.
Ericsson Innovation Lab: tech, innovation and motion
Ericsson’s heavy investment includes demo containers where the visitor can experience and test tech innovations such as Connected Greenhouse – a connected greenhouse that, with the help of sensors, contributes to being able to grow and harvest more efficiently and sustainably. There are also connected beehives that can provide beekeepers with the health status and if something needs to be done for each bee colony. If you have an idea, want to further develop a demo or start a project, you can just come by and talk. The idea being that innovations, employees, students and locals can meet in fun ways.
There is also a container set up with games and a racing seat where the driver sits at a screen and controls a 5G racing car out on the big blue mat through 5G connectivity, and a container where you can test AX(VR). Anyone can play basketball, football or take part in training sessions on the big blue mat – everything from Qigong, workouts and yoga to dance classes are organized here.
After work and hanging out in Plåtparken
Part of Kista Innovation Park is the box park Plåtparken Kista. Plåtparken will be filled with creative events, games and music from Wednesday to Friday afternoon until late at night. This is the place to grab a pizza, a drink and hang out under the sun to good vibes from the DJ booth. Another part of the park is the food hub Myllra. Here, Bram’s Burgers were the first ones to move in and offer delicious burgers every day of the week from lunchtime until late.
A Grand Opening on 4 May
On the fourth of May, it was finally time to inaugurate Kista Innovation Park. During an opening ceremony people could connect, explore tech, eat, drink, and listen to the opening speeches to soft music. On site to inaugurate the park were, among others, Johan Thomsson and Sarah Paskota from The Kloud, Rowan Högman from Ericsson and Anders Österberg from the City of Stockholm.
Johan Thomsson began by talking about how, during a time of major urban transformation, this is an example of creating a place where innovations and people can meet in fun ways.
- Urban transformation takes time. So, we need to activate Kista here and now. This place connects innovations with food, drink, fun, and the opportunity for the development of more activities, said Johan Thomsson, CEO of Kista Limitless.
Rowan Högman from Ericsson emphasized how important Kista is for innovation, research and development.
- Kista is an incredibly important innovation hub. Not only in Sweden but throughout Europe. It is the place where most patent applications come from in all of Europe. Kista must be an attractive place to work and live, that's why we think this park is a great step in that direction - to make Kista even more attractive. We look forward to many exciting activities here, said Rowan Högman, Research Leader 5G industry collaborations at Ericsson.
Anders Österberg from the City of Stockholm concluded with how Kista Innovation Park can make Kista more fun:
- It wasn't long ago that we had a pile of gravel here and now we have Kista Innovation Park! We all want a more fun Kista, and now we also get a more fun Kista with this park which is fantastic. Within a couple of years, everyone will say that the future is in Järva – exactly where we stand now.
Come out & play!
Now that everything is in place, we would like to encourage everyone to visit, explore and take part in everything that is happening in Kista Innovation Park. Who knows what will be the next activity or innovation at this playground of the future? Don’t miss this new vibrant meeting place where you can hang out, have lunch, visit the boxpark, workout, and meet or pitch creative ideas for innovations.
Ericsson Innovation Lab is open on Tuesdays to Thursdays from 11am to 1pm (closed in July).
Myllra food hub is open Mondays to Thursdays 11am to 10pm and Fridays to Sundays 1pm to 10pm.
Plåtparken Kista is open Wednesdays to Fridays from 3pm to late.
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