Hi, I'm a Norwegian entrepreneur who occasionally found startups to scratch my own itches, regularly help students, startup founders, corporations, and organisations reach go farther faster, and I've been living in the greater Dusseldorf / Cologne area of Germany since 2005.
Got Startup? Get Smart, Get Funded!
I probably missed my shot at becoming sitcom-famous when I was chased off the set of "Sex & the City" in NYC back in 1999, I since wrote & recorded a Billboard Hot 100, and created stuff used by billions, though. (OK, so at least two out of the three are true - so far. Can you guess which?).
My work has been featured and recognised around the world by the likes of The New York Times, CNN, TechCrunch, Business Insider, BBC, Wirtschafts Woche, and Die Welt, and my work has been seen and used by Billions with a B.
Much to my own surprise, I've often found myself as a keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator (MC), with invitations to events and conferences like SxSW, WebSummit, LeWeb, PASSWORD, RTL's Digital Shapers, TedX Hamburg, World Business Dialogue, etc. Universities like Cambridge, Stanford, KIT, and Cologne University as a speaker and moderator (MC) - as well as to keynote corporate events from well-known brands like Bertelsmann, Henkel, and Amadeus Leisure Group, or GOs like IHK, AHK, Business France, USAID, NRW INVEST, the city of Dusseldorf and the city of Cologne, and more.
The press and peers have named me a central figure in the German startup world, instrumental in the formation of the Cologne and Rhineland startup scene. My main "hobby" is supporting early-stage startups and spreading education on how to build startups to students and founders as a modest occasional investor in very-early-stage tech startups, as an educator teaching at universities and colleges, by providing free Open Office Hours weekly since 2007, by training over 3.000 startups (and counting) how to pitch investors with his Pitching Masterclass, because I wish that someone would have been there for me to help avoid all the beginner mistakes when I started out.
As an educator, I've been invited to teach and speak about startup entrepreneurship at Standford, Cambridge, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), BITS Iserlohn, WHU, Maastricht University, Cologne University, Cologne Polytechnical, NW University of Switzerland, Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey (DEU), University of Dusseldorf HHU, University of Applied Sciences Dusseldorf HSD, Qazvin Islamic Azad University (QIAU) in Iran, and more. The slides from my educational lectures, keynotes, and talks have been featured as LinkedIn SlideShare "Slide of the Day" multiple times.
And because corporations and organisations don't stop asking me, I've also been helping the likes of Deutsche Telekom, ABInBev, AXA, Philip Morris International, Bertelsmann, ottobock, Zentis, Reifenhaeuser, BARCO, Henkel, Yello Strom, Telefonica, the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), USAID, Business France, and many more with education, innovation, and digitalisation through my company +ANDERSEN & ASSOCIATES since 2013.
In the 15 years preceding more or less all of the above, I was an on-and-off employee in various leading digital development companies helping large international companies and organizations like Statoil, TeeKay Shipping, Shell, Esso, Exxon, T-Mobile International, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa, The Royal Norwegian Government, The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and more with innovation and digitalisation - in between founding my own things. The last position I ever held before I in 2010 decided to never be an employee again was "Head of Digital" and member of the board at the lead agency responsible for all things digital for T-Mobile International. There's more information about my past on LinkedIn if you came here looking for that sort of thing.
"Vidar Andersen, you rock." - Robert @Scobleizer Scoble
As a keynote speaker, pictured I'm speaking about what marketers can learn from startups at Estonia's largest marketing conference "Password".
I'm a certified Lean Launchpad (LLP) Educator invited to be trained at Stanford by Steve Blank himself, here pictured teaching the LLP curriculum to students at the largest private tech university in Iran in 2015 - it was a different time back then.
Andersen teaching his Pitching Masterclass, pictured here teaching in Budapest, Hungary.
Pictured, teaching his Innovator Masterclass for corporates at Telefonica Germany, Munich
Andersen's keynote (view on RTL) "Why Corporate Innovation Fails" at RTL's Digital Shapers conference in Zagreb.
As a speaker, keynote topics include Digitalisation, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Startups, Data-Driven Innovation, Corporate Innovation, Technology, NFTs, Blockchain, Innovation Management, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship Education.
"Crazy magnetic viking guy. [...] OK. You should come and do the talk instead of me. Stand up!"[...] - Yossi Vardi
As an MC, here Moderating the closing panel discussion at the World Business Dialogue, Cologne.
" [...] Vidar is what some would call "a hustler". He runs several local meetups in Cologne and works tirelessly. Easily someone I'd count among the people I'd start a company with, given the opportunity."
- Named one of the five "must know" people in the German startup scene by Liam Boogar, Editor The Rude Baguette
Here with the EPIC "OG" team responsible for bringing the "Startup Weekend" format to Cologne, DE (and making it an EPIC success) in 2012, including EPIC special surprise guest - the founder of Startup Weekend himself, Andrew Hyde!
As a jury member for the Gruenderstipendium NRW in Cologne and Duesselforf since its inception, here on a panel discussion about the program so far with the (then) State Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dr. Pinkwart.
*Please note as of February 24th 2022, bookings are not available to Russian owned or controlled companies, subsidiaries, GOs, etc long as the illegal invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine is ongoing, Russian troops are still in Ukraine, and Putin remains in power. Thank you for understanding.