All outcomes: Which influential Icelander are you?

Til hamingju með það on discovering your inner Icelander! Take a look below to find out which other Icelanders you might have been.

Published: Tue 27 Nov 2018 07:03 CEST
All outcomes: Which influential Icelander are you?
Photo: martinm303/Depositphotos"

Björk

Photo: deep_schismic/ Creative Commons 

Björk Guðmundsdóttir is an Icelandic music phenomenon. With a career spanning four decades, she is famous for her unique and eclectic musical style that is influenced by a range of different genres. Born in Reykjavik, no fewer than 31 of Björk's singles have reached the top 40 on pop charts around the world. Her most famous hits include "It's Oh So Quiet", "Army of Me", and "Hyperballad".

Hjalmar Gislason

A self-professed 'tech nerd', Hjalmar Gislason is the founder of no less than four software companies. His first foray into the startup world came in 1996 when he co-founded casual gaming company Lon&Don which merged with multimedia firm Gagarin in 1999. He is presently the CEO (and founder) of GRID, a tool which enables people to transform their spreadsheets into web reports and interactive applications.

Hjalmar was previously the VP of Data at Business Intelligence company Qlik which he joined through the acquisition of DataMarket, a company he founded in 2008. He is an angel investor and advisor to several Icelandic startup companies.

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Össur Kristinsson

Photo: Rax / Ragnar Axelsson/ mbl.is

Össur Kristinsson is a pioneer of silicone technology. Himself a prosthetist and a prosthetic user, he is the founder of Össur, a company that develops, manufactures and sells non-invasive orthopaedics equipment, including bracing and support products, compression therapy, and prosthetics. His passion for boats led to his invention of the ÖK Hull, a revolutionary hull-and-keel technology predicted to ultimately disrupt marine industries globally.

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir

Photo: noregsmallag/ flickr

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir served as the fourth President of Iceland from 1980 to 1996. She was the world's first democratically directly elected female president. With a presidency of exactly sixteen years, she also remains the longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date.

Hilmar Veigar

Photo: eVRydayVR/ flickr

Hilmar has been CEO of Icelandic video game developer CCP Games since 2004. Under his management, the critically-acclaimed spacefaring game EVE Online has celebrated ten consecutive years of subscriber growth. In September 2018, Hilmar announced he had agreed to sell CCP to Black Desert Online creator Pearl Abyss of South Korea for $425 million. Hilmar is also active on a number of boards and committees involved with Icelandic information technology and innovation.

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Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

Photo: Johannes Jansson/ Creative Commons

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is a politician and previously served as the first female Prime Minister of Iceland as well as the world's first openly lesbian head of government. Until her retirement from elective office in 2012, Jóhanna was Iceland's longest-serving member of Parliament. In 1994, when she lost a bid to head the Social Democratic Party, she raised her fist and declared "Minn tími mun koma!" ("My time will come!"), a phrase that became a popular Icelandic expression.

This content was produced by The Local Creative Studio and sponsored by Invest Iceland.

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