Libera’s guest of the week, consumer Internet entrepreneur William Wolfram founded his first company at the age of 13. Today, Wolfram runs DealDash, an e-commerce company he founded in 2009. DealDash is a gamified shopping experience that serves millions of consumers with deals on electronics and household products. Wolfram has studied at Columbia University and is currently enrolled at Harvard Business School. He is Finalnd’s EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2013, and was recognized by the Finnish government as the Young Entrepreneur of The Year in 2011. Wolfram has spoken at a number of tech conferences and spends his free time helping other young entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
What is Finland’s biggest challenge?
– Our aging demographics.
What is Finland’s biggest opportunity?
– We have what it takes to become Europe’s Silicon Valley, but this will not happen automatically. We need to understand the importance of teaching kids programming at a young age and to create an environment that attracts direct foreign investments in Finland. We’ve come a long way – today Finland is one of the best places to start up a tech company, but much remains to be done.
What would you yourself change at once?
– I would introduce programming in schools and invest at least as much time and money as we are currently investing in other subjects. I’m confident that at a societal level we would see the effects within 20 years.
Guest of the week
