Tomas Björkman is an entrepreneur, investment banker and property developer with great interest in science and philosophy. He has founded several companies and organizations, including Investment Banking Partners AB. He has also served as chairman of EFG Investment Bank. Ten years ago, he founded the Ekskäret Foundation, supporting development for individuals, organizations with the aim of creating a more conscious society.
Tomas is also the co-founder of the research institute Perspectiva in London, of the Co-creation Foundation and the media platform Emerge in Berlin and 29k.com personal development platform. He is the author of three books: The Market Myth (2016), The Nordic Secret (together with Lene Rachel Andersen, 2017) and The World We Create (2019). He divides his time between London, Stockholm and Berlin.
Organizations
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Derived from the website:
Individual growth could be one of the most important tools for impacting our personal and shared future, and a scalable solution is within reach. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, 29k is a non-profit initiated by the Norrsken Foundation and the Ekskäret Foundation, working with leading researchers and scientists from Harvard University and the Karolinska Institute.
29k makes tools and processes for psychological development accessible to everyone. Similar to what Wikipedia does for knowledge. It mainly has two kinds of contributors: Psychology professionals and users. Both equally important. Psychology professionals contribute with proven processes and exercises that populate the platform. Based on the user’s specific needs, a combination of these exercises is turned into a tailor-made program.
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Extracted from the “Mission Statement” on their website:
Cocreation is fundamentally diverse and multi-faceted, it allows for and encourages diverse logics, standpoints and solutions. It is an integral and pluralistic practice. The new quality of solutions will reveal itself in being manifold, adoptive, evolutionary and generative. These solutions will be developed, owned and cared for by diverse human and morethan-human communities. The Cocreation Foundation believes that our survival and that of the earth in positive coexistence is a question of learning and developing this cultural technique of deep cocreation. And with deep cocreation we mean not just humans being creative together. It means being creative in the context of the world we are living in, it means being informed and inspired by the world around us, it means immersing into a dynamic process of all that is, to find solutions that do not only work for some of us, but for all of us and our non-human kin alike.
It is the Cocreation Foundation’s goal to develop the theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of this cultural technique of cocreation. To reach this goal our mission is to empower as many people, communities and their diverse interrelating networks in the shortest possible time to grow their potential to positively cocreate solutions of peaceful and abundant coexistence in open, transparent processes that are alive.
This short video provides a helpful short explanation of what is meant by cocreation.
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From the About page on the Emerge website:
Emerge is an independent, non-profit media platform highlighting the initiatives, individuals and ways of thinking that are sowing the seeds of a new civilisation.
We are exploring how to act wisely in a world that seems out of control. We aim to explore the emerging cultural narratives of our time by collecting useful content from across the web, profiling change-makers and thinkers, publishing thought-provoking commentary and producing original videos and podcasts.
Emerge is a hub for people and initiatives searching for solutions to pressing global challenges, asking the question: What new patterns of living, working and existing together are currently emerging?
We are a network and a movement that celebrates people and projects. Our purpose is constantly emerging and taking shape. We offer an invitation to each of us to discover our role in this new story.
Emerge began as a three-day Gathering in Berlin in November 2018 initiated by three non-profit organisations: Perspectiva, London; co-creation.loft, Berlin and Ekskäret Foundation, Stockholm. The gathering brought together pioneers in complexity science, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, sustainability, creativity, and wisdom to explore dynamic solutions to our planet’s greatest challenges and discover new pathways of working, living and creating together.
In 2019, we held the second Emerge Gathering in Kyiv, Ukraine.
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We are a research platform that seeks to build the intellectual foundations for a more conscious society – a diverse and plural society awake to itself, united by an awareness of ecological constraints, systemic influences and the development of human empathy and consciousness throughout the lifespan.
We believe the world’s major challenges stem from a crisis of perception and imagination, and the failure of political culture to honour the fullness of reality. We are fascinated by the myriad ways in which our tacitly held worldviews shape our judgement, and how spiritual needs for security, meaning and purpose indirectly create political and economic outcomes.
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From their website:
The mission of the Ekskäret Foundation is to both to make sense of the world we create and allow brave spaces for people to explore and work on their inner growth. Studies show that having a “safe place” in connection to nature, where we dare to challenge ourselves, can act as important catalysts for the process of personal development. We support and contributes to these brave places by creating contexts and locations for transformative learning, where skills can be developed to better handle the rapid change and the constantly increasing complexity of our world. Skills that increase our capacity for deeper understanding and wisdom, which then engages individuals to become active co-creators in the world we create.
Web Properties
Recent Content
Last 50 posts on own channels (YouTube, Podcast, Medium or Website/Blog):
EKSKÄRET Fireside Talk Fredag 25e september 2020
Published on: 15 Sep 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
Livsutvecklingens psykologi – fireside talk sep 2020
Published on: 15 Sep 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
15 Exploring New Metanarratives
Published on: 20 Mar 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
14 Towards a More Conscious Society
Published on: 23 Feb 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
13 The Metamodern Thought Perspective
Published on: 2 Feb 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
12 Our Evolving Mind
Published on: 23 Jan 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
11 An Increasingly Complex World
Published on: 9 Jan 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
10 Reconstructing the Market
Published on: 4 Jan 21 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
09 Culture and our Collective Imaginary
Published on: 15 Nov 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
Ellie Hain on the Social Imaginary/Collective Imaginary
Published on: 3 Oct 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
08 Our Highest Authority – The Market
Published on: 13 Sep 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
07 The Postmodern Thought Perspective
Published on: 21 Jul 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
06 The Market Takes Over
Published on: 26 Jun 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
05 The Age of Science and Free Trade
Published on: 7 Jun 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
04 Humans Create God
Published on: 23 May 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
03 The Great Change
Published on: 10 May 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
02 Humans Create Culture
Published on: 27 Apr 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
01 From Big Bang to Homo Sapiens
Published on: 14 Apr 20 in Tomas Bjorkman – YouTube
by The World We Create
There’s a very good video version of the book here.
The world is entering a new technological, social and global age and it is our ability to create meaning which will decide whether we face a bright future or a tragic decline.
We are living in an unsustainable state of cultural tension. Stress and depression are becoming more common, we are destroying our environment and while the rich become richer, inequality has spread both domestically and globally. The world’s entire democratic system is strained and the only ‘meaningful’ story left is our role as consumers. We flee to and are trapped by the gilded illusion of happiness that is dictated to us by consumerism.
In The World We Create, Tomas Björkman takes readers on a journey through history, economics, sociology, developmental psychology and philosophy, to illuminate where we have come from and how we have reached this breaking point. He offers new perspectives on the world we have created and suggests how we can achieve a more meaningful, sustainable world in the future.
How do societies go through major technological, economic and structural changes peacefully? The Nordic Secret explores how Denmark, Norway and Sweden went from poor feudal agricultural societies to rich industrialized democracies thanks to the German educational concept of Bildung. The book also investigates the close relationship between Bildung and contemporary developmental psychology, i.e. the concepts of “ego-development” and “transformative learning”. The Nordic Secret concludes with a discussion about what we can learn from this positive transformation and how to apply it in the current global crises.
Recent Videos and Podcasts where Tomas Björkman has been interviewed
The remarkable social entrepreneur, thinker, and catalyst Tomas Björkman joins Terry to explore how a culture of consciousness development can drive societal change. Formerly a serial entrepreneur in banking, real
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For more content, see Jonathan Rowson.