Håvar Bauck, 1977 -
After finishing my Master of Business and Economics degree at the Norwegian School of Management in 2002, I moved to Nairobi, Kenya, where I stayed for almost 3 years before relocating back to Norway. I have since been working with sales in the Voice-over-IP (VoIP) business, and am currently VP Sales Africa in Vyke Communications - one of the most successful VoIP providers globally, and a tremendous success on the London Stock Exchange.
A brief story of my life I was born in Washington D.C., USA on May 30th 1977. After a couple of months, I had already had enough of the place (not really - I was too young to know - but my parents decided to move back to Norway). Back in my ancestral country at the age of 2 months, I moved to a place called Orkanger - a small countryside place with about 30 000 inhabitants. At the time when I was 9 - in 1986 - my parents decided to move again, and off we went, this time to a place called Nesodden, nearby Oslo.
So, in Brussels I started at the Scandinavian School of Brussels. As I picked up French pretty quickly, I decided to look for a greater challenge, and went over to Lycée Français de Belgique Jean Monet in 1990. Among other activities at that school, I was part of the Théâtre de l'Astrolabe team, acting in Le Timide au Palais in 1993. In 1993, I once again headed back to Norway. Since the quality of the French international system ranks in the European top level (by far beating Norwegian schools), I decided to continue at the Lycée Français d'Oslo René Cassin, where I got my baccalauréat in 1996. Clearing high school in Norway is not a sober affair (even for a Norwegian attending an international school in Norway). Despite the French language and curriculum of the Lycée Français d'Oslo, most of my classmates were Norwegians or half-Norwegians, with some sort of affiliation to France. Thus, we fully embraced the tradition called Russ, or russefeiring. To sum it up, one starts drinking at the beginning of the last year in high school, and one continues until exams are over, while attending some major gatherings for russ from the entire region. Some casualties occur each year.
Besides these activities, I also ran my own one-man venture in IT consulting - something I actually started during my days in high school. Of course, my main reason for being a student at BI was my education. Eventually, I graduated with a Master of Business and Economics degree (referred to as "siviløkonom" in Norwegian). Taking part in student activities is always a good idea. Anyone who has been through college and never taken part in those activities has missed an important point. Also, there are some rewards: AIESEC, an amazing organization for students all over the world, arranges not only conferences and cool events, but also job exchange programs. Although I was never a member during my days in college (one of the few things I regret), I still knew a lot of people there, and jumped at the opportunity during my last days in college when there was a traineeship in Kenya available. Now, that's how I ended up in Nairobi!
Of course, the woman in my life - Beatrice - is one very important reason why I chose to stay there for so long. Since we got together on a dinner date on January 17th 2003, my life was never really the same again. Computerworld, a Norwegian IT weekly, wrote about my traineeship before I left (the article is no longer online).
My traineeship was a cooperation project between AIESEC and the Norwegian Peace Corps (Fredskorpset). It mainly took place at the Kenya Investment Authority (then called the Investment Promotion Centre) where I was, among other things, in charge of developing and implementing the IT strategy, as well as participating on the board of the e-Kenya Initiative. After my traineeship contract was finished, I really wanted to stay on for a while still. Since most jobs in Nairobi are poorly paid, I decided to start up a business of my own instead. Initially, I was part of the team which founded the Nairobi office of Global Entrepreneurs. However, some business consulting ventures of my own were far more lucrative, and gradually took most of my attention. Most people in Nairobi know me as "Howard" a.k.a. the "crazy mzungu". My first name is rather difficult to pronounce for non-Norwegians, so Howard is a good approximation. More on spellings and misspellings of my name. For the sake of my own career
development, however, I decided to move back to Norway in August 2005.
Upon returning, I started working in sales for Ventelo - a telecom
operator targeting the corporate market. I only worked there for a few months though, before I was headhunted to
IPdrum.
|
I'm 30 and currently living in Oslo,
Norway. I live in the Grønland area, which is the multicultural heart of Oslo!
So in the summer of 86, I once again
found myself in a new house at a new place. I started at the local
Steiner school, which I attended for 2.5 years, until end 1988. At
that time, my dad got a nice job in Brussels, with diplomatic status,
tax exemptions and all sorts of niceties.
Now, after being through with that part
of my life, I went on to something that is mandatory for all Norwegian
males (supposedly mandatory, although only 40% actually complete it):
The military service. Having a dual citizenship, I could easily
have escaped, but chose not to - out of pure curiosity. I have never
regretted that decision. Although stars and stripes in the cases
of many officers appear to be a substitute for both brains and
self-esteem, the military service was an interesting experience. I did my 2-month boot camp in the autumn of 1996 at Værnes Military Airport - co-located with the civilian airport just outside Trondheim. I then served the remaining months at 
Having completed my year of marching and
gun-toting, I went on to become a student. The wonderful years at the 
As I returned briefly from my first year, it was mainly my media appearnces
in Kenya that gained the media's attention in Norway: Since I
really enjoy acting, I was delighted to join the Silver Stage crew at
the Kenya National Theatre in the South African musical 
IPdrum was a young, innovative mobile VoIP
company with a very interesting technology for using Skype on mobile phones. We received
considerable coverage for each product we launched.
I myself appeared in a couple of interviews on behalf of IPdrum in Norwegian magazines (
