1 Examples of Icelandic Expertise
Box 13.1 Examples of Icelandic Expertise
DeCode Genetics has gained worldwide renown since its creation in 1996, employs a workforce of over 200 people, and works, among others, for Hoff man-LaRoche in the biotechnologies fi eld.
OZ Interactive Inc., a Reykjavik-based fi rm set up in 1990, specializes in 3-D interactive graphics software. Its fl agship product, the OZ Virtual browser, provides users with three-dimensional surfi ng capacity and counts Microsoft, Soft Image (USA), and Mental Image (Germany) among its major clients. It employs several dozen people and has expanded operations to Tokyo and California.
Iceland’s national electronic fi sh auctions system was developed by a Reykjavik-based fi rm and is now exported throughout the world.
Urban Networks – Network Urbanism
More generally, a seedbed of new businesses has paved the way for activities in the fi elds of computer- assisted education, research and development consultancy, and so on. Some, capitalizing on Iceland’s location midway between Europe and America, also take advantage of time zone diff erences to supply remote computer maintenance services: when it is 8 A.M. in Reykjavik, the offi ces in Chicago are not yet open; and at 5 P.M. in Iceland, they are already closed in Berlin or Stockholm. The development of these new activities defi nitely has had an impact. The population of Greater Reykjavik has grown 15 percent from 1990 to 2000, and economic growth stands at around 5 percent per year.
It should also be said that Reykjavik’s outstanding international airport – together with the runways of Kefl avik military base, which are also used for civilian traffi c – has done much to boost the growth of tourism (now Iceland’s second biggest industry after fi shing). Reykjavik, therefore, has enormous potential in this fi eld and plays host to a good many international conferences, and so on. It is also beginning to develop a name as a media and cultural centre thanks to the international success of the singer Björk, the American fi lm 101 Reykjavik, the Vestmann Islands rock festival, and so on. Harsh weather conditions may hamper road and even air links, but such communication diffi culties have been off set in Iceland by the fact that the country’s activities revolve around the capital, despite its location in the far southwest of the island.
Meanwhile, Iceland has modernized its retail trade to a remarkable extent. Icelanders make more than
90 percent of their purchases via electronic means (smart cards, e-banking, and so on); Iceland holds the world record for per capita points of sale terminals, and some 25 percent of Icelanders are regular e-commerce users, another record (CFCE, 1998).
Iceland has, therefore, grown into an integrated, mini- metropolis centering on the capital, Reykjavik. And the success of its Internet also stems from its success as a metropolis. Indeed, 70 years after the arrival of Condroyer, the Icelandic writer, Einar Màr Gudmundsson, wrote: “You think you are arriving in
a small town [Reykjavik] only to fi nd yourself in a city that is, in its own way, an active participant of the global economy” (Gudmundsson, 2002: 45).