Our passion
LightSwitch is dedicated to building capacity in people and organizations to radically transform our societies to become truly sustainable and resilient.
Every day.
Our mission is to bring about a cultural shift in how we as a society utilize existing knowledge, create new knowledge and scale knowledge into new domains and contexts.
We know from experience that it takes considerable effort, structure and leadership to truly capitalise on the valuable knowledge resources that reside in people and organisations.
Our focus
Our contribution to the sustainability revolution is to enable actionable knowledge sharing, innovation and capacity building partnerships between people and organizations that are devoted to making a positive difference.
We have the sustainability expertise, the methods and the networks to do this and through our work, we support people to become effective change agents in their respective contexts and spheres of influence.
In everything we do we take a system approach and strive to bridge the silos and connect the dots between academia, the public sector, business and civil society – to deepen our common understanding of the challenges we face and to enable us to create fit-for-purpose solutions.
LightSwitch’s mission is to be change agents for the Global Goals.
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Goal 17, particularly target 17.6 “Knowledge sharing and cooperation for access to science, technology and innovation” lies at the very heart of LightSwitch’s mission.
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Our work focuses mainly on accelerating the transition to a renewable energy system and other key areas of climate and environmental action, therefore our efforts also impact the development of Goal 7 and 13 - especially goal 7.A “Promote access to research, technology in clean energy” and 13.3 “Build knowledge and capacity to meet climate change” on a local level. We work extensively with local and regional government actors on various sustainability-related themes and our work therefore also links to Goal 11 “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.
Our team
Helena Lindquist
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Founder and Company Director of LightSwitch since 2012. Deeply committed to be a force for planet-positive change by leveraging sustainability knowledge and scaling solutions through action-oriented knowledge sharing and innovation partnerships.
Helena is a creative cosmopolitan with long experience of working with the public sector, the research community, industry and NGOs, particularly on matters related to the transition to a renewable energy system. She is particularly active in intergovernmental organisations for policy development in the clean energy transition and as change leadership trainer and advisor for regional and local governments to accelerate concrete action on sustainability. She has published several peer-reviewed articles and has contributed to an internationally acclaimed book on renewable energy integration. Helena is a system thinker who believes that building capacity in other people and facilitating new connections between change agents in different contexts are among the most impactful things you can do.
Helena Lindquist
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Founder and Company Director of LightSwitch since 2012. Deeply committed to be a force for planet-positive change by leveraging sustainability knowledge and scaling solutions through action-oriented knowledge sharing and innovation partnerships.
Helena is a creative cosmopolitan with extensive experience of working with the public sector, the research community, industry and NGOs, particularly on matters related to the transition to a renewable energy system. She is particularly active in intergovernmental organisations for policy development for the clean energy transition and as change leadership trainer and advisor for regional and local governments to accelerate concrete action on sustainability. She has published several peer-reviewed articles and has contributed to an internationally acclaimed book on renewable energy integration. Helena is a system thinker who believes that building capacity in other people and facilitating new connections between change agents in different contexts are among the most impactful things you can do.
Max Berggren
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Facilitator and advisor at LightSwitch. Dedicated to accelerating sustainable development through promoting value-driven leadership, facilitating meaningful multi-stakeholder collaborations and knowledge sharing partnerships.
Max's experiences of advising a wide array of clients, including multinational corporations and NGOs, has led him to strongly believe that we need to share knowledge more efficiently in order to achieve sustainable transformation. With a deep drive to help others reach successful results, Max thrives when he supports groups of change agents in realising their full capacity. Key experiences include advising, facilitating and leading groups in project execution and training programs, all within the field of sustainable development and with the UN Global Goals as the overarching framework. In 2018, Max was nominated by Aktuell Hållbarhet as one of Sweden’s top sustainability talents in recognition for his efforts as advisor, trainer and lecturer.
Martin Mickelsson
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PhD and expert advisor at LightSwitch. Works at the intersection between research and practice, on border-crossing sustainability and health issues.
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Martin draws on experiences from research and practice in Sweden, Southern Africa, and Latin America to approach challenges to people and planet in systematic and creative ways. Committed to participatory approaches, whether working with communities, policymakers or municipal representatives, Martin has specific expertise in planning and conducting workshops that enable those involved to develop both competences and knowledge. As one of the creators of the Re-Solve reflective workshop tool for scaling sustainability innovations, Martin has experience working with learning processes among diverse groups of participants, nationally and globally. Through extensive collaborations with sustainability researchers and practitioners, Martin is especially interested in how sustainability challenges affect human, animal and environmental health. From 2021, Martin is leading a three-year international research project in health education and sustainability funded by the Swedish Research Council.
Thao Do
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Researcher and advisor at LightSwitch. Thao has extensive experience from working in transdisciplinary and development projects in the sustainability domain, with an emphasis on collaborative approaches and knowledge co-creation.
Thao's focus lies on design and facilitation of co-learning processes with diverse stakeholders, development and application of innovative methods for knowledge co-creation as a vehicle to address complex and interconnected sustainability challenges. She is also part of the development team behind Re-Solve, a process tool for scaling innovations, which is grounded on learning, participation and shared ownership. Thao is currently a research assistant at SWEDESD (Sustainability Learning and Research Centre) of Uppsala University.
