Viking Magazine - February 2019 - 27

stand on; we need more sources of income than oil
and gas. "
The oil shock isn't the whole story behind
Norway's tech startups. There are at least a few
other factors that explain their emergence. First,
technology has been transforming most industries
and drawing investors globally. Second, the
Nordic countries have been active, early adopters
of high-tech for a long time, and the region has
become one of the world's technology hubs. Third,
Norway's historically important industries-
shipping and navigation, and the production and
distribution of energy-are technology intensive,
and Norway has a wealth of technically skilled
people.
* OPPORTUNITY IS A LOCKED DOOR *
At 29, Riise identifies himself as a high-school
dropout who learned a lot about technology just
by surfing the Internet and noticing how platforms
like Google and YouTube work. He's quick to
say that he's had failures and learned from them.
Unloc, the Oslo-based company where he is
founder and CEO, is his fifth or sixth attempt to
commercialize one of his ideas.
Unloc is an app that works with digital locks. It
enables users to unlock doors with a swipe of their
mobile phones. It also lets them share their " key "
digitally from anywhere in the world with anyone
they want to let into their home. That might be
a family member who forgot a key, a cleaning
service, a repair person or someone else. The
digital key is good only for the length of time the
lender specifies.
For individual users, the Unloc app is a
convenience-no one has to experience " house
arrest " anymore while waiting for a service
provider to arrive, Riise says. But for companies
that become Unloc customers, the app is a tool that
can make their own business more efficient.
For example, last September and October, two
of Norway's largest delivery companies-Schibsted
Helthjem and Easy2You-signed agreements with
Unloc so they could equip their fleets of drivers
with Unloc's shareable-digital-key technology. It
means that drivers can deliver packages inside
" We see the United
Nations' Sustainable
Development Goals as
the biggest business
potential in the world.
It's not just about
making money for
the company, a lot of
our companies are
trying to solve a
global problem. "
-Pål T. Næss, director of entrepreneurs
and startups, Innovation Norway
people's homes when they're not at home. That
prevents wasted trips for delivery vans and
packages left outside that get wet or stolen. Unloc's
other corporate customers include real estate
developers and cleaning services.
Halden, a city in southeastern Norway, is not a
corporate customer, it's a municipal one. The city
signed up with Unloc last May. Halden equipped
visiting nurses and other care providers with
the Unloc app so they could more easily enter
apartments in the city's assisted-living facilities.
Before Unloc, if a resident at those facilities pressed
an alert button to ask for help, the response was
slow and cumbersome. Nurses had to drive to a
central location and get a physical key for that
resident's apartment before responding to the call.
Unloc is a helpful shortcut. A nurse who's already
in the neighborhood can stay close at hand and
receive a key with just a few taps on a phone.
sonsofnorway.com VIKING FEBRUARY 2019 27
http://www.sonsofnorway.com
Viking Magazine - February 2019

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