In the fall of 2015, I was working as a political advisor at the Prime Minister’s office. Among my areas of responsibilities were the supply of interpreters to the public sector. As the immigration volumes peaked in 2015, an acute shortage of interpreters arose. I realised that the solution would not come from political reforms, but from digital disruption.

Together with Daniel Schain (my cousin, who is a doctor), I founded Tolkvox AB in 2016. In 2017, after securing seed funding and public funding from ALMI and Vinnova, we launched the Tolkvox app. The app connects public sector officials to a global network of on live demand interpreters.

Pilots immediately showed that the app created significant value, especially within the health care system. Doctors and nurses were previously relying on pre-booked interpretation, which created fixed time slots that obstructed an efficient health care flow. Switching to on demand interpretation, at each user’s fingertips, resulted in vastly increased efficiency.

During 2018, we signed up a number of key customers, e.g. Capio S:t Göran’s Emergency Hospital, Södertälje municipality and the Red Cross. In January 2019, Tolkvox AB was acquired by Semantix, the Nordic’s largest language technology provider.