🇫🇴 Young North Atlantic ventures take centre stage in NORA’s annual report, with a Kirkenes-led network at the core

KIRKENES, Norway – The Nordic Atlantic Cooperation (NORA) has given prominent space in its recently published 2025 annual report to a three-year youth-entrepreneurship initiative led from Kirkenes – and to the young companies now emerging from it across the North Atlantic.

The initiative – the ICE Arctic Youth Community (ICEAYC), run by the municipal development company Sør-Varanger Utvikling under its ICE Kirkenes brand – has drawn more than 80 applicants from across the NORA region, which spans Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and coastal Norway. NORA, an intergovernmental body under the Nordic Council of Ministers, describes the project as one of the year’s clearest results in the region – the second consecutive year it has featured prominently in the report.

What began as an idea for a network of young founders is increasingly turning into real companies.

Among the ventures highlighted in the report:

• Pajussi – a food-delivery company that has operated for few years in Greenland. Through ICEAYC, Birk Andreas Malinen from Kirkenes connected with Nicklas Pedersen, the company owner in Greenland, and has brought the concept home, establishing Pajussi Norge AS in the town.

• Swaply – a Faroese startup already attracting investors and competing in pitch competitions.

• WatchYourEye – a northern Norwegian clothing brand that has expanded into Greenland and Finland.

• Hringvarmi – an Icelandic member company that recently won the High North Young Entrepreneur Award at the High North Dialogue in Bodø.

NORA also notes that ICEAYC received support in 2025 from the Norwegian Barents Secretariat and has been written into the Faroe Islands’ 2026 finance act – a sign that the model developed in Kirkenes is drawing interest well beyond its home municipality.

The report’s feature on ICEAYC and the Arctic Circular Economy Summit (ACES) is illustrated with a film from the 2025 summit in Kirkenes, where NORA was the main partner. That second ACES edition drew 220 participants from 10 countries, with delegations from Greenland and Finland among others. The film was produced by Snappy Media, a Kirkenes-based company.

– Next: ACES 2026 and the inaugural Arctic AI Summit

From 20 to 22 October 2026, Kirkenes will again host ACES – this time co-located with the inaugural Arctic AI Summit. The Arctic AI Summit is part of the Interreg Aurora project Createch North: AI Leap, while ACES this year has secured its primary funding from the Barents Euro-Arctic Council. Together, the two events are expected to draw participants from across the Nordics and the North Atlantic.

For the host region, organisers say, such gatherings are about more than conferences: they strengthen cross-border cooperation, raise the region’s international profile and can draw concrete opportunities northward. One example is the plan for a Nordic Whale Reserve; interest in placing such a reserve in Sør-Varanger can be attributed in large part to the contacts and visibility that ACES 2025 generated.

“Kirkenes may sit on the edge of the map, but it is at the heart of North Atlantic cooperation. This recognition hasn’t come by chance – it is the result of years of focused work to make Kirkenes a hub for entrepreneurship in the Arctic. Now we are taking it further with ACES 2026 and the first-ever Arctic AI Summit in October.” Ondrej Spala · event director and project manager, Sør-Varanger Utvikling

ICEAYC is now approaching the end of its run under NORA, and attention is turning to how the initiative – and the cross-border community of young entrepreneurs it has built – can continue beyond 2026.

ABOUT SØR-VARANGER UTVIKLING AND ICE KIRKENES
Sør-Varanger Utvikling (SVU) is the development company owned by the Municipality of Sør-Varanger and one of the leading actors in business and community development in East Finnmark. Under its ICE Kirkenes brand, the company works to strengthen and diversify the local economy, promote entrepreneurship and innovation, and make Sør-Varanger an even more attractive place to live, work and start a business. As a border municipality, much of this work naturally takes place in cooperation with partners across the Nordics and the North Atlantic.

ABOUT NORA

NORA (Nordic Atlantic Cooperation) is a body under the Nordic Council of Ministers that supports regional development in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and coastal Norway.

Originally published on July 8, 2026 by ICE Kirkenes.