The Östen Mäkitalo Scholarship Awards were presented to SMSlivräddare and Icomera

The Östen Mäkitalo Sholarship Award was today presented to the Swedish project SMSlivräddare in Stockholm and the company Icomera for ground-breaking innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives in telecommunications. The award winners will receive SEK 100 000 each.

The scholarship in the memory of Östen Mäkitalo was today presented for the first time. With the Östen Mäkitalo Award, TeliaSonera and TeliaSonera Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga wishes to recognize and encourage ground-breaking innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives in mobile telecommunications.

Östen Mäkitalo was a true innovator and entrepreneur. He had a vital role in pioneering the development of mobile telecommunication and the world’s first fully automated mobile phone system, NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony).

” We have taken this initiative to encourage and support the further dynamic development in the area, said Lars Nyberg, President and CEO at TeliaSonera, at the award ceremony in Stockholm. There is no end to the power of innovation, it builds on previous research and takes it a step further. Innovation searches through creativity to find new products and services that can enrich our lives and our communities. "

The Östen Mäkitalo scholarship for entrepreneurial initiatives was presented to Icomera a company based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 1999, the company has developed mobile communication solutions for all form of transportation. To create connections for high speed trains has been a big challenge. Today the technology is used in more than 20 countries and by the largest train operators like SJ in Sweden, the British East Coast and the Irish Irish Rail.

The Östen Mäkitalo scholarship for ground-breaking innovative projects was also presented to the project SMSlivräddare, a cooperation between Karolinska institutet, Stockholm South General Hospital and LEKAB Communication Systems. Today over 5000 volunteer life savers with CPR skills in Stockholm are connected to a positioning system and are prepared to preform cardiac and pulmonary resuscitation when they receive an sms alarm with a suspected cardiac arrest.

The award winners who each received SEK 100 000, was awarded by a special committee with Jens Zander, Professor in radio communication at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology as Chairman. The other delegates are distinguished representatives in research and applications in mobile communication in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries.

For more information, please call the TeliaSonera press office 46-771 77 58 30, press@teliasonera.com or visit our Newsroom.

TeliaSonera provides network access and telecommunication services in the Nordic and Baltic countries, the emerging markets of Eurasia, including Russia and Turkey, and in Spain. TeliaSonera helps people and companies communicate in an easy, efficient and environmentally friendly way. Our ambition is to be number one or two in all our markets, providing the best customer experience, high quality networks and cost efficient operations. TeliaSonera is also the leading European wholesale provider with a wholly-owned international carrier network. In 2011, net sales amounted to SEK 104 billion, EBITDA to SEK 36,9 billion and earnings per share to SEK 4,20. The TeliaSonera share is listed on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm and NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. Read more at www.teliasonera.com.