From Hotspot to an app

“It all started when I went to Hotspot and got a good feeling about Evry. After that I attended all Snits activities and established a relationship with the company,” says Raymond Berglind.

Raymond thinks that networking outside the university, for example through the activities arranged by Snits (network for industry and IT students) [Samverkan näringsliv IT-studenter], has been an important part of his studies. When he later joined the mentorship programme arranged by Karlstad University, he chose to contact Snits partner Evry. Sara Olsson, then manager for the Mobile Applications department at Evry (now working at MSB, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency), became his mentor.

“The mentorship programme gives students a good opportunity to see what the job entails and to exchange ideas. As mentor, I found listening to Raymond’s ideas and reasoning extremely rewarding, and I could contribute with a bit of life experience,” says Sara Olsson.

Developing summer course
During the summer, Raymond took a course in applied programming at Karlstad University, which included project work. He told Sara Olsson about the upcoming project and told her that he wanted to work in the area of business intelligence for the summer course.

“At Evry we have been working on getting a better overview of how future allocation could be forecast,” says Sara Olsson. “Raymond’s ideas for his summer project fit in very well with our needs, so we quickly agreed that Raymond could translate our ideas into an iPad app.”

To develop the app, Evry enabled Raymond to attend an IBM course about their IBM Bluemix platform, a cloud-based development platform. The project has taken time and became much larger than needed for the summer course, but the work has been rewarding and led to many contacts in the industry.

“The feeling of working with something that will really be used was just so enjoyable. It meant a lot to me that Evry was willing to spend time and money on me,” says Raymond.

Challenging studies
As a final-year student, he looks back at a difficult, yet enjoyable and developing programme.

“These years have been very tough, but I’ve learnt so much and when I was working for companies I realised how important knowledge about these complex aspects is.”

Raymond advises other students to study hard and not get behind with their studies.
“Make the most of the opportunity to gain knowledge while you are here at university. Attend all the activities arranged by Snits to learn more and to get in touch with the industry.”

Now his degree project is waiting, and then he gets his degree. Time will tell what lies in the future, but one thing is certain – contacts create opportunities.
 
Before this article was published, Raymond Berglind got in touch to tell us that he now is now employed by Evry in Stockholm. Congratulations!