I am delighted to announce the second speaker, Þórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörð Gylfadóttir the Minister of Tourism, Industry and Innovation at Startup Iceland 2018. We have always had great support for Startup Community activities from the Government of Iceland. We had the former Prime Minister of Iceland open Startup Iceland 2017. What is even more interesting in Iceland is the continued effort to support all startup activities through a number of initiatives by all agencies of the Government. I believe these are important initiatives and will pave deep dividends in the long run.

The Minister is probably the youngest minister in this current Government or the one before as she kept the same portfolio after the elections. The most note-able legislation that has been implemented under the leadership of the Minister are the Innovation Bill that was passed in 2016, for a more detailed description of the benefits from that Bill read a good summary @NorthStack, The Minister has been deeply involved in the discussions around the developments in the Startup Community. I am looking forward to hearing her talk about what other things the Government could do to help make Iceland a vibrant and anti-fragile startup ecosystem. I believe strongly that policies matter and they can change the landscape quite rapidly.

There is more research and evidence that supports that there is a strong positive correlation between favorable policy and angel/venture capital investments. For a more detailed look at this in China read the following paper: Policies of promoting entrepreneurship and Angel Investment: Evidence from China. Iceland is the right country to try some of the forward thinking policies that can positively impact the community through entrepreneurship and startups.

Get your early bird tickets soon, they will run out. We have other exciting speaker announcements on the way.