Hyper Island: Cultivating future-ready leaders and innovators

Hyper Island, founded in 1996 in Sweden, is a digital creative business school and consultancy at the forefront of industry training and digital transformation. With a global presence spanning Sweden, Brazil, the UK, the US, and Singapore, Hyper Island specializes in equipping individuals and organizations with the skills, mindset, and strategies needed to thrive in an increasingly digital world through its adaptive learning environments, hands-on workshops, and team-based projects that mirror real industry demands.

Dara Melnyk:

1. Hyper Island is now an evolving institution, a network of hubs. It began with three innovators who wanted to teach people how to combine competencies to solve problems and how to work with emerging technologies. The classes were held in a former prison on the island of Karlskrona (not yet redesigned then), because you don't need big halls and modular classrooms to begin. In the beginning, all you need is a timely idea.
2. There is a phrase in The Matrix that I feel really captures the gap between universities that live and breathe a specific methodology, like Hyper Island with its Hyper Island Way™, and those who barely scratch the surface: "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking it are two different things".
3. Reflection is everything. Hyper Island's learning designers and facilitators meet every month to discuss what they have learnt and how they can do better. Reflection is also unnatural. It takes the space of activities that feel more urgent, and I wish more institutions believed it was worthwhile.
4. I always wonder how to build resilience in people. Do you have to make the process difficult? Heidi's answer confirmed that: yes, you do. Students have to go through multiple failures in a controlled and safe environment to learn how to work through them. They emerge more resilient on the other side.
5. Hyper Island is for-profit on the surface, but way more complex inside. It is organizationally heterogeneous, running both tuition-funded and government-funded programs. The lesson? A formal status ('for-profit', 'not-for-profit', 'private', 'public') does not mean as much as we think it does.

Isak Frumin:

1. One of the most remarkable aspects of Hyper Island is its ability to mobilize the vast intellectual capacity of modern industry. By collaborating with industry experts rather than relying on permanent faculty, they ensure that students gain insights from current practices and trends. They realized that today industry experts carry very advanced subject knowledge, both explicit and tacit.
2. To mobilize such experts, Hyper Island employs innovative formats in its teaching approach, ensuring that learning is not only theoretical but also practical and applicable in real-world scenarios. By utilizing hands-on projects, collaborative learning, and digital tools, they prepare students to thrive in an ever-evolving landscape.