July 16, 2017

About Us

 

 

Juteborg AB is an entrepreneurial R&D and innovation partner, and a provider of JuTech™ solutions – Based on the high tech natural fiber of Jute products and deep industry knowledge. The company was founded in 2013 by  Else-Marie Malmek and Christina Östergren – with the aim of transforming their respective branches; construction and automotive, to a more sustainable future.

We believe that the combination of the industry sectors of Automotive, Construction, Textile and Packaging, will give a synergetic effect gaining all three to meet the market’s need for more sustainable materials to replace old bulk-fibers, such as oil-based plastics, wood, metals and other environmentally hazardous materials. In close cooperation with industrial partners, organizations, academy and research institutions, we provide the knowledge and the experience needed to transform to more sustainable businesses in the entire ECO system.

Else-Marie Malmek, B.SC Information Analysis, has more than 35+ years experiences from the Automotive industry, of which 15 years employed at Volvo Cars and another 20+ years as a Management Consultant. In the year 1996 she was employed as “IS/IT Idéspruta” (Innovation Manager) at the IT Staff department at Volvo Cars and buildt a connected concept car with the business case; Car Sharing and Remote Diagnostics. This became the embryo to Sunfleet, Volvo Cars Sharing.

As a spinn-off from Sunfleet, she founded Malmeken AB in 2006, with the business idea; Sustainable Business Development & IT. During several years Else-Marie Malmek had an assignment at SAFER as project manager for the SEVS-Project, which is a “triple helix” strategic research project about sustainable transport and mobility solutions by 2030+. The first SEVS project was initiated by SAFER and Swedish Electromobility Center in 2009, with the main research question; “Is it possible to develop both safe and lightweight vehicles?” This was a societal challenge that required a “system of system perspective” and cross-organisation co-operation in multi-disciplinary teams. The answer was yes!

During the SEVS project Else-Marie learned a lot about electromobility and lightweight constructions. When she in 2012 came across the natural fiber of jute “The Golden fiber”, she realised that high thech jute must be part of the solution, to transform the entire automotive industry to be much more sustainable.

In 2015 Else-Marie Malmek initiated the first R&D project together with Volvo Cars, Högskolan Borås and Swerea Sicomp, partly financed by Vinnova. The project resulted in three main high tech jute composites; Unidirected jute fabric for reinforcement, jute non-woven for panel compression and finally jute granules for mold injection. This became the start of a hard journey on bumpy roads (physically and mentally) toward an industrialization of JuTech™ solutions.

Since autumn 2023, Malmeken AB owns 100% of the shares in Juteborg Sweden AB.

Else-Marie Malmek, CEO Juteborg AB and Malmeken AB

Advisory Board (under re-construction)

Juteborg has a large business network, both nationally and internationally. During our journey we have received a lot of support and good advice from different people with their specific expertise and experience. Below we mention just a few of them.

Culture Meets Industry

Magnus Rosén, X World AB, and former bass player in the world famous hard rock band Hammerfall. Magnus is also Juteborgs “Jute Ambassador” and have been onboard our journey since 2015. Magnus has made many trips with Juteborg to Bangladesh and has played for thousands of workers and their children at the jute factories. Incredibly appreciated gigs! Jute Rocks! This is one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOpaPwNJrRo

Solaiman Shukhon, Director Innovation & Insights, Nagad. He is a Bangladeshi public speaker, powerful orator, Communication Strategist, Digital & IoT Professional, Corporate manager, renowned speaker, vlogger & youtuber.

Solaiman is also Juteborgs “Social Media Ambassador“. Thanks to Solaiman, Juteborg has reached out to a lot of organisations in Bangladesh and managed to inspire many young people to entrepreneurship and high tech jute; JuTech™.

Andreas Krona, M.Sc Automation Engineer, Executive MBA and a Serial Entrepreneur. Andreas is a Business Advisor and part of Juteborgs Advisory Board.

Magnus Kinell, former CIO at Volvo Cars is part of Juteborgs Advisory Board.

Juteborg has since 2015 collaborated with Högskolan Borås, (HB) in several R&D projects. E.g Prof Mikael, Skrifvars, Associate Professor Pooria Khalili and Senior Lecturer Sunil Kumar Lindström Ramamoorthy, have been very supportive to Juteborg and contributed with their great expertise regarding natural fibers and composites.

Juteborg is member of LIGHTer, an industry-spanning, research and innovation initiative aimed at stimulating the development of lightweight technologies, processes, and materials. Since 2015 we have collaborated in several R&D projects.

Ljungby Komposit is a very flexible and innovative composite manufacturing company. Juteborg and Ljungby Komposit have co-operated in several R&D projects during the years, e.g. the JuteBee™ and the Jute-Battery-box™.

Juteborg is based in Göteborg, in the West Coast of Sweden, a city founded 400 years ago. At the same time in history the Jute fiber started to become industrialized in Bangladesh; the other part of our Globe. Who could ever have imagined by then that these two parallels would merge into a future solution! Perhaps the correct name of the city should have been Juteborg!

Christina Östergren, Engineering Architect, founder of the architect Bureau Archidea and co-founder of Juteborg AB. Christina resigned from Juteborg AB in 2021 and is no longer shareholder.