About us

Trondheim is a power centre for technology and research. More than 750 technology businesses with 13 000 employees are housed in the Trondheim region, and the number is growing.

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The Trondheim region has 37,000 students, 5000 researchers/university employees and a Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to brain researchers May-Britt and Edvard Moser. Knowledge communities in Trondheim are working on cures for cancer and dementia, fighting climate change with new technology and inventing smart devices that make daily life easier for people all over the world. Here, we will tell some of the stories from this Capital of Technology with the aid of short videos.

A place for bright minds
Brain power at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and SINTEF creates growth, prosperity and attractive workplaces. Nearly 200 existing companies in the Trondheim region originated in our research communities. We are at the forefront, in the fields of brain research, ultrasound technology and green energy.

Nowhere in Norway is there a community that invests more in research and new knowledge per capita. There are 765 technology companies in the Trondheim region, with 13,000 employees (2019).

The Trondheim region has 57 researchers per 1000 residents. For comparison: Norway as a whole has 12 per 1000, while Europe has nine per 1000.

The place with exciting jobs
Trondheim is like a miniature Silicon Valley. Companies such as Microchip (formerly Atmel), ARM, Nordic Semiconductor, NORBIT and Q-Free deliver high technology to the whole world. The most refined components for leading mobile phones on the market are "Made in Trondheim". ARM ensures high-quality graphics on mobile displays and other touchscreens. Nordic has, quite simply, made the world wireless.

Sportradar, based in the city, is a world-leading supplier of sports data, and collaborates with major sports organisations and leagues around the globe, such as FIFA. Zedge, with its headquarters in Trondheim and listing on the New York stock exchange, supplies personal content to mobile users all over the world. The Zedge app has around 100 million active users monthly.

The worldwide Siemens group invests heavily in Trondheim, despite the small size of the city on a global scale. This is due to the existing levels of expertise. Siemens has chosen Trondheim as the place to make shipping electric and emission free. We are also about to become a battery city.

The creative founders
Have you heard of Borgar Ljosland? Borgar, and a few fellow students, created a recipe for the world's best graphics processor for mobile phones – partly while they were enjoying themselves in a Trondheim bar. Now, Borgar is working on new ideas. Watch the video where he talks about the joy of innovation, and how people with initiative can draw creativity from established knowledge communities around NTNU and SINTEF.

Watch and listen as Reza Hezari tells how he fled Iranian clericalism, and about his journey to a life as a serial entrepreneur in Trondheim. This former refugee now delivers clean water to millions, with the aid of new technology.

Even a company like Orkel, a supplier of something as basic as agricultural machinery, has been able to utilise existing research-based knowledge in Trondheim. This is why Chinese farmers come to Orkdal to trade.

Our researchers
Take a look at the video about Nuria Espellargas at NTNU, who won the scientific challenge against one of the world's hardest materials. Not far from Nuria's office is the Nanolab, where bright minds research the smallest of materials.

Nanoparticles give us everything from groundbreaking medicines to technology that provides the world population with renewable energy, in the race against dangerous climate change. If – or when – Trondheim wins another Nobel Prize, it is not unlikely that it will be awarded for nano research results.

And what about the sea? This is our last, unknown continent. Only a fraction of the sea has been explored, and researchers in Trondheim are also leading the way into its depths. The sea offers enough food and clean energy for everyone, as long as we learn how to obtain these resources while still preserving them for our descendants. Watch the video "The Deepest Secret".

It is happening now
As you are reading this text, researchers, founders and inventors in Trondheim have made even more discoveries. Knowledge has increased a little more. Most progress is barely discernible, but sooner or later it leads to cutting-edge progress. GSM technology revolutionised the use of mobile phones. Two researchers in Trondheim beat major international corporations, finding the solution that eventually ended landlines. And you can be sure that the prize-winning brain researchers at the Kavli Institute will announce new breakthroughs. Come along!

Today, people in this city are making smart phones smarter for users all over the world. Bright minds and researchers make society wireless, develop environmentally friendly energy and search for solutions to the cancer-conundrum.

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