By Gorkem Sifael
Vilhelm Hedberg is the founder of ‘ekar’, theMiddle East's first and largest personal mobility company, headquartered in Dubai.
ADVERTISEMENTThe business now operates in four different countries, and in addition to car-share, Vilhelm and his team say they are currently enrolling new services aimed at tranforming the self-mobility sector.
Drive for a better future
Vilhelm says he got the idea for the company from a friend and fellow entrepreneur, Ravi Bhusari, who told him about his experience of car-sharing in Canada.
“Every car that is shared means ten cars off the road; it reduces traffic, the need for parking and of course carbon dioxide emissions."
Explaining his own path to becoming an entreprenuer, Vilhelm says the influence of his father, a professor at MIT and later an entrepreneur, was hugely important.
"I was constantly listening to my father on the phone, [he was] speaking to people from all around the world doing different deals, and I was fascinated by it," Vilhelm says.
ADVERTISEMENTBefore launching ekar, Vilhelm says he had several different business ideas but first chose to learn how to run a business by taking a job in a Norwegian shipping company. After a few years, he started his own company, QMS Global, which he later sold to start ‘ekar’.
“I wanted to make a bigger social impact”, he told Euronews.
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