Life at Geniess
Meet our summer interns 2022
This summer we had the pleasure of having 2 summer interns at our offices here at Aker Brygge.
The interns have spent the summer working on accelerating our development. It has been invaluable having them on the team and we will miss them as they head back to university!
Anne-Marie Botterud
What field are you studying and why?
I am studying economics and business administration at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). I am entering my second year of my bachelors after summer is over. I will also be pursuing a degree in law starting this fall. I have been interested in innovation, politics and the community for a long time, so economics seemed like the right choice.
How did your interest for entrepreneurial enterprises emerge?
My interest for entrepreneurship started early on, when I in middle school had my own student company, producing aprons made of old shirts. Probably not the best business case, but we managed to win best green entrepreneurs at Ungt Entrepenurship’s Grunderexpo. Since then I have been a part of Innovation Norway’s Emax challenge and joined Start NHH.
Why did you want to be an intern in Geniess?
I applied for an internship at Geniess because of my curiosity for technology and the energy transformation. I knew the market for batteries was in rapid growth, and I wanted to learn more about it and how it can enable the green transition.
What initially impressed me about Geniess was the degree of expertise per head from a team of only three employees. Also, I realized already from my first contact with the team, that these people were curious and ambiguous, exactly the types of people I would love to work with.
Can you describe your time as an intern in Geniess so far?
The work environment is great, enhanced by fun social activities and gatherings. The team made me feel very welcome, and I was given the opportunity to work on real projects from day one, which made me feel like I was contributing to something valuable and that my efforts were both useful and appreciated. I have been fortunate to be able to work on various tasks, attend investor meeting, and had the most amazing technical learning sessions. I learned that working in the energy industry can be fun, exciting and have real impact.
What have been your work tasks?
One of the greatest benefits of working in a startup is the ability to work with different types of tasks and projects. I have worked on various tasks ranging from market research, mapping out competitors and potential customers to updating and expanding the company’s webpage.
Lavrans Grjotheim
What do you study and why?
This autumn I am studying at the University of Lisbon as a part of my final year at the Norwegian School of Economics, where I pursue an MSc in Financial Economics. I have been interested in finance, international affairs and societal topics from early on, and I wanted to pursue studies in one of those fields. I ended up choosing the economic path, and it has in my view turned out to be a good choice.
How did your interest for entrepreneurial enterprises emerge?
I have for as long as I remember been fascinated by the idea of entrepreneurship. This has resulted in some strange results, for example I used to sell mascara and facial masks online during high school. This was probably not the best idea or the best execution, but a testament to my early entrepreneurial spirit. Later, the community surrounding Start NHH and the SEB Scalecenter has been a driving force for my interest in entrepreneurial affairs. It is also exciting to see how good the Norwegian startup scene has become, with companies such as Remarkable and Oda showcasing what is possible.
Why did you apply to join Geniess?
Geniess is operating in an incredible interesting space, trying to increase the efficiency in behind the meter energy storage investments. Energy storage is the renewable enabler, and therefore a key component in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. A renewable Europe would also mean a more independent and democratic Europe, a renewable Europe would for example have the means to respond stronger to the violence committed by Russia in Ukraine. For me personally it feels good to have learnt more about these topics and perhaps be a small part in making the energy transition accelerate.
Regarding the people, my first impression was that we had a group of nice, ambitious and competent people. My initial notion has over the summer turned out to be true, I have had an exciting time. I think how the Geniess team were able to close their pre-seed round in a tough financial environment is a strong testament to their team.
What have you learned and why should you apply to join Geniess?
The good thing with being part of a startup is the wide variety of tasks available. People that work in a startup will with high likelihood be exposed to every side of running a business. Personally, I have learned a lot about how the different parts of the energy storage market works and how it could work in the future. There are many interesting business models that can be built in this space, ideally I would love to see Geniess provide a storage investments enabler as good as PPA´s have been for solar investments.
My understanding of software and software development has also gotten a lot better. For example, I had a cool project where I created the first version of the web-app our customers will use.
In the end I have understood that success as an entrepreneur is defined by you and your team’s ability to execute every day.
I think you should join Geniess if you are passionate about energy markets, curious, have a dynamic and flexible mindset and care about being part of an impact startup. Such a person would fit perfectly.
