My dream is to revolutionize education. Two of the problems that I want to solve are that it usually takes a decade or more for teachers to adopt new effective learning methodologies and that every day millions of students are wasting time in classrooms because of operational inefficiencies. To prepare myself to address these issues, I am pursuing a joint MBA/MA degree at the Graduate School of Business and the School of Education at Stanford University.

In 1994, I enlisted in the anti-aircraft division of the Swedish armed forces to complete 8 months of training as a soldier. In 1995, I enrolled in the Engineering Physics undergraduate/masters program at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. After a year and a half I dropped out because I felt that I was missing something important in my life. I launched a street wear clothing brand called Mythic based on my idea that there was an opportunity to supply stylish design clothes that were branded with rough street image.

While running this company, I realized the importance of the PC and internet revolution. I was able to manage my operations with small resources because of my ability to keep electronic records, design advertising, and communicate with suppliers and customers using my computer and network connection. I read volumes about the technological revolution and most arrows pointed to Stanford and Silicon Valley.

In 2000, I had the fortune to get accepted as an international transfer student at Stanford University. At Stanford, I realized what had been missing in my life—a vibrant entrepreneurial environment where ideas and risk-taking are at the core of the culture. I completed my B.S. Computer Science in two and a half years.

I was fascinated by Bill Gates' mythical business savvy and the meritocratic culture he had built at Microsoft. After my recruiting process at Microsoft had stalled, I moved in with a friend who had bought a house just across the street from Microsoft’s HQ in Redmond, and told my recruiters that I could show up for interviews whenever they wanted. Luckily, I found a job in the SQL Server division to work on a project to integrate database and file system storage.

While at Microsoft, I realized that my life’s passion is education. This became evident to me after I got involved in trying to revamp the new employee education process at Microsoft. I realized that all companies could benefit tremendously from being able to provide better education to their employees and that the development of computer and networking technologies would enable people to build scalable educational systems and services. I also realized that the increasing speed of technological improvements will lead to increasing demand for education in general. After 2 years at Microsoft, I applied to the Stanford MBA/MA Education joint degree to shore up my business administration skills and learn about the latest research in Education.