Anders Waage Nilsen

Who they are

Anders Waage Nilsen is a Business Developer / Design Strategist at Bergen kommune — a serial co-founder who built six ventures including WasteIQ (waste management / circular economy) and Fri Flyt, and spoke at SITE Energy Talk 2026 on critical minerals geopolitics.

Person

Anders studied at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) in Bergen before spending the bulk of his career not in one organisation but across a string of ventures he co-founded himself. Those ventures span a striking range: Netlife Bergen (digital agency), Fri Flyt (outdoor/adventure media), Stormkast, Myldring, NEW, and WasteIQ — the last of which sits at the intersection of waste management, Industry 4.0, and circular economy thinking. He now holds a Business Developer / Design Strategist role at Bergen kommune, Norway's second-largest city administration — an unusual landing spot that suggests his entrepreneurial energy is being applied to urban challenges from the inside. His Medium (waagenilsen.medium.com) covers entrepreneurial activism, technology, urban sustainability, and opportunity development. In 2026 he spoke at SITE Energy Talk on critical minerals and the geopolitics of the green transition — a signal that his lens has widened from local urban problems to global resource politics. The through-line is applied idealism: build the company, then the platform, then the policy argument.

How they likely show up

  • Six co-founded ventures across very different sectors (media, digital, waste, urban tech) → comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward starting things rather than waiting for permission.
  • Possibly — mixed tenure shape across roles → may get restless inside large bureaucracies and look for ways to create pockets of entrepreneurial momentum within them.
  • Role at Bergen kommune as Business Developer / Design Strategist after a founder track → likely bridges between institutional constraints and faster-moving outside collaborators.
  • Public writing themes span circular economy, critical minerals, urban delivery emissions, and entrepreneurial activism → thinks in systems, not isolated products.
  • 2026 speaking engagement on green transition geopolitics → comfortable in public-facing, expert-advocacy mode, not just operator mode.
  • NHH economics background combined with a design strategist title → probably fuses financial logic with user-centred framing, a combination that makes him useful in cross-disciplinary rooms.

Conversation tips

  • → Reference WasteIQ specifically — it's the venture that most directly connects his founder history to his current municipal role, and he'll have thought through the circular economy angle deeply.
  • → Ask about the SITE Energy Talk 2026 topic — moving from urban sustainability into critical minerals geopolitics is a meaningful intellectual shift, and he'll have a story about how he got there.
  • → His Medium handle is waagenilsen.medium.com — if you've read a specific post, say so; he writes occasionally and will notice.
  • → He's inside city government now — frame any conversation around implementation and institutional change, not just ideas; he's living the gap between vision and bureaucratic reality.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on WasteIQ — he co-founded a company at the intersection of waste management and Industry 4.0 / circular economy, and now works inside Bergen kommune; that tension between startup and municipality is a natural entry point.
  • Reference the SITE Energy Talk 2026 — he spoke on critical minerals and the new geopolitics of the green transition, a topic that places him at the intersection of climate tech and international resource competition.
  • Mention his Medium writing on entrepreneurial activism — it's a specific framing (not just 'entrepreneurship') that signals he thinks founding companies is a form of civic action, worth pulling on.

Discovery questions

  1. WasteIQ sits in circular economy and Industry 4.0 — how far did that venture get before you moved into the municipality role, and what did you learn that you're now applying from the inside?
  2. Your SITE Energy Talk 2026 topic was critical minerals and green transition geopolitics — what's the gap you see between how cities like Bergen plan for the energy transition and how those mineral supply chains actually work?
  3. You've co-founded six ventures and now hold a design strategist role inside a city administration — what does 'business development' actually look like inside Bergen kommune, and where does the entrepreneurial toolkit translate?

Avoid

Don't treat his municipality role as the 'safe' post-founder landing — he is applying a design strategist and business development frame to city government, and framing it as a step back from real work will land badly.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on July 16, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →