Scholarship awarded to entrepreneur making charity donations easier

The Anders Wall Foundation is awarding a scholarship to a student at the Stockholm School of Economics who founded a startup aiming to significantly increase donations to charity.

Erik Enger Karlson, a business administration student, is the first recipient of the newly established scholarship of SEK 200,000. The scholarships’ goal is to support young talents who have excelled in entrepreneurship and creative thinking.

Enger Karlson founded the company Team Together, an application which helps consumers donate to non-profit organizations when shopping online. The customer is able to choose which group the store should support; right now, the popular choice is Team Together’s partner, SOS Children’s Villages, which is an emergency relief fund for Ukraine.

“Through social media, charities get more publicity than ever, but if contributing for real should have the same viral potential as ‘likes’, it has to neither cost anything nor take time,” Enger Karlson said. “Thanks to new technology that is integrated directly into the browser, the Team Together app ensures that the store makes a contribution to the organization you have chosen, without you having to lift a finger or pay extra.”

Team Together says they collaborate with 200 companies, including Adlibris, Cervera, Lindex, and Dagens Industri. These partnerships help companies attract customers and increase their community involvement, simultaneously.

One of the youngest Business Lab founders

Enger Karlson, born in 2000, is one of the youngest business founders ever within the Stockholm School of Economics’ venture incubator SSE Business Lab.

“Several of Sweden’s foremost entrepreneurs’ journeys began at the Stockholm School of Economics,” Program Manager Andreas Johansson said. “This scholarship for the first time draws attention to the potential unicorn founders of the future, while they still are students.”

The SSE Business Lab is celebrating its 20th year of existence. Its three programs have admitted 223 startup teams since 2001.

In junior high school, Enger Karlson says he started out buying broken iPhones, and using YouTube videos to repair them, before selling them on Blocket. He also learned to program apps, and founded two companies as early as in high school.

“Solidarity and cooperation are the key to us all being able to live a good life — not only through the happiness we receive, but also through the meaningfulness that is in giving,” Enger Karlson said. “The spread of the apps all over Europe made me realize that entrepreneurship can change not only my life, but also others.”

Enger Karlson will receive the scholarship at a digital ceremony on March 10.