A Word From the President

Gudrun Giddings

Swedish Royal Wedding

H.R.H. Prince Carl Philip together with Miss Sofia Hellqvist. Photo credits: www.kungahuset.se

This Saturday, June 13th is a big day for Sweden when Prince Carl Philip marries Miss Sofia Hellqvist in the Royal Chapel in Stockholm after six years as a couple. After the wedding the married couple will be taken by horse and carriage through the center of Stockholm and then end the evening with dinner and dance at The Royal Palace. Swedish TV channel SVT will report directly from the wedding the whole day.
 
The secretiveness around the wedding is big but it has been confirmed that the Swedish world famous DJ Avicii will play during the wedding. It is known that The Royal Family is a huge fan of Avicii’s music and they have attended several of his shows around the world.  
 
SACC-LA sends our greetings to Prince Carl Philip and Sofia!
 
Read more about the wedding and send your greetings to Prince Carl Philip and Sofia here!

Midsummer in Los Angeles

Preparing for Swedish Midsummer

Photo credits: Conny Fridh/imagebank.sweden.se

What should you expect? Many of you have probably been to a Midsummer Eve celebration before, either in Sweden or perhaps visit our own annual party, as you can read about above. But for some of you this might be a completely new, and confusing experience so therefore we are glad to give you some guidelines via The Local's article which serves as sort of a crash-course of the what, why and hows of Midsummer. Please read more below.

"The Local's Guide to Midsummer Madness"
Written by James Savage
The Local

Special Olympics and the history of the World Games

Photo credits: espn.go.com

The Special Olympics World Games have been going on for decades and continue to grow all around the world. They are one of the most powerful vehicles for communicating to the world the abilities and gifts of people with intellectual disabilities. Wherever they are held, the World Games act as a catalyst for growth in Special Olympics sports programs in communities around the world and promote awareness among all segments of society. As we are getting closer and closer towards the events, be sure to read about the history to get a better understanding of the purpose and story it tells.

Read more about the World Games history here!

The Laureates for the 24^th Annual Polar Prize 2015 Announced

The beginning of June saw the honorees Emmylou Harris and Dame Evelyn Glennie receive their awards for the distinguished Polar Music Prize. The venue for the event was Stockholm Concert Hall and his Majesty King Carl XVI of Sweden brought a royal touch to the occasion by personally handing out the awards.

American country icon Emmylou Harris and Scottish virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie together on stage in the Stockholm Concert Hall. Photo credits: Anders Wiklund

The award was founded in 1989 by Abbas manager and co-writer Stig “Stikkan” Anderson. Being pivotal to Abbas success, Anderson co-wrote many of Abbas early hits. The commencement of the awards took place in 1992 and since Anderson’s passing in 1997 his family has carried his legacy forward. The award is highly respected in international music and constitutes a great honor for the lucky few who are nominated.

Last year’s Polar Price laureate Peter Sellers was in Stockholm to present the citation for the solo percussionist Glennie, who told the audience:

“I never imagined I’d receive an award as important and symbolic as the Polar Music Prize. It’s an institution that brings together people of all kinds, whatever their culture, age or beliefs, in a celebration of music’s power and diversity. I want to thank tonight’s superb organizers, the Swedish people for their hospitality and of course the prize committee for awarding me this prize.”

The Swedish indie duo First Aid Kit read the citation for Harris. The two sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg saw the honoree bringing an emotional acceptance speech to the audience;
“I have only one regret on this magical evening, that my beloved parents, Walter and Eugenia, did not live to share this with me. It didn’t matter to them if I was successful or not, they only cared for my happiness. Their unconditional love carried me through good times and bad and will abide with me whatever the future holds, ’til my journey ends.” 

In honor of the laureates, the afternoon included performances of Harris and Glennie´s music by different Swedish artists.

Top 10 Clean-Tech Start-ups in the Nordics

Photo credits: www.swedishwire.com

As environmental issues are always in the news and reported on, the Clean-Tech companies become more and more valuable. Sweden, and the other Nordic countries, try hard to be in the frontier of advanced technology and especially that of sustainability focus. Recently over 100 Nordic companies participated in the Nordic Cleantech Open, a competition for start-ups, and 10 superior businesses were declared winners. To read more about them, check out SwedishWire.com's article about it here below.

"Top 10 Clean-Tech start-ups in the Nordics"
Written by: Nordic Cleantech Open
www.swedishwire.com

Next week the video game industry’s top talent will showcase hot new games and technologies at the world’s premier trade show E3 in Los Angeles Convention Center. With 21.5 billion dollar in annual sales in the U.S. alone and 59 % of the Americans playing video games, it’s one of the most popular entertainment forms. And on the forefront is Sweden as a leading creative nation in shaping global hits such as the Battlefield series, Minecraft and Candy Crush Saga. This year game development studio DICE will headline the show with two major titles: Star Wars Battlefront and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. Both of these games are created in Stockholm, but the studio also got a major presence in the U.S. with the DICE LA studio in Playa Vista. Founded in 2013 with a mission to create world class entertainment and doing so in a manner that is different from the rest of the industry and that attract the top talent in the area.

“We bring the core DICE values here with quality in everything we do and dare to be innovative. The creative hierarchy is flat and every opinion is valued. We also firmly believe that in order to achieve peak performance one must have a balance between work and life,” says Fredrik Löving, GM of DICE LA.

Fredrik Löving

Video games play a big part of people’s lives, and they invest a lot of time into them. It goes without saying that it’s a lifestyle.

“They feel attached to the worlds we create and want to affect the development of their favorite game franchise. We innovate by inviting our players closer to the game creation in the Community Test Environment where a group of dedicated Battlefield 4 players can test new additions and features to the game in order to feedback on them before these changes are integrated into the main game,” explains Löving.


Illustration of upcoming game Mirror's Edge Catalyst.
 

The importance of games as a creative industry is underlined by Kristina Persson, Swedish Minister for Strategy, Future Issues and Nordic cooperation, who will visit E3 and DICE LA. The purpose of the visit at E3 is to promote Swedish companies and to discuss how the Government can cooperate with the industry to jointly strengthen Sweden's competitiveness.
“The skills and creativity in Sweden are among the reasons behind the success,” says Kristina Persson.

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