Alumni of the Year 2023: Mattias Perjos and Nike Sellmar

On Tuesday, November 7, the winners of the Alumni of the Year at Luleå University of Technology were celebrated. It was a festive and fine-tuned ceremony when the winners, Mattias Perjos, President and CEO of Getinge, and Nike Sellmar, artist and winner of Idol 2022 on TV4, received diplomas and prizes as well as congratulations at Vetenskapens hus.

Mattias Perjos has, after graduating from Luleå University of Technology, had a long and successful career and now works with innovative products that improve people's quality of life - and save lives. Nike Sellmar won the television program Idol 2022 and has since then been a successful ambassador for the School of Music in Piteå. Now the two former students have been named Alumni of the Year at Luleå University of Technology.

Mattias Perjos, civil engineer and business manager

- I feel very happy and honoured by the appointment! LTU is very close to my heart, I had a fantastic time as a student. And it is fun to be remembered by your old university! I generally think that alumni and universities can be better at keeping in touch after graduation, as there is good potential for continued learning in both directions.

Mattias currently works as President and CEO of Getinge. He was born in 1972 in Hudiksvall and grew up with two younger brothers, a mother who was an elementary school teacher and a father who was a sea captain and pilot. Growing up was very much characterized by sports and outdoor activities. You could probably call it a fairly normal Swedish small town upbringing," he says.

- "As far back as I can remember, I have always been curious about and interested in scientific subjects and technology. It has also guided my choices both to high school and to education at LTU.

The education became the entry ticket to professional life
During the military service and reserve officer training, he began to take an interest in economics and when it came time to choose the focus of later education, he found the program Industrial Economics that offered the perfect subject combination. And with Luleå's geographical location with solid winters, the choice was easy to study at Luleå University of Technology.

The education at Luleå University of Technology has been the foundation and entry ticket to the professional life and he has had great practical benefit from the courses. But the most important thing, he emphasizes, has been that university education develops one's ability to solve problems and work together.

Mattias has always been driven by curiosity and learning new things, and that still applies. He also enjoys working in teams and feels a strong drive to see other people grow. It also feels great to be in an industry and a company that is about saving lives, he says about his work at Getinge. "It is an indescribable feeling to meet a patient or the parents of a little baby who is alive thanks to our life-saving products.

Nike Sellmar, artist

- But so much fun! It feels very honorable and fun to receive such an award, I am both happy and surprised! I really could not have imagined it, especially since I studied music, which may not be the first subject you associate with Luleå University of Technology.

Nike Sellmar, born in 1995, works today as a full-time artist - she gigs, records music, writes music, tours and has several new albums in the pipeline. She grew up in Stockholm under, as she puts it, tumultuous circumstances and has had to fend for herself quite a bit. Her mother moved to Spain when she was fourteen and her father was perhaps not the best at grocery shopping or cleaning, although he has been a great support in music. She learned to stand on her own two feet early on and left home when she was seventeen.

Nike's father was a musician and he encouraged her to sing by writing musicals and songs for his children. For Nike, music is a pure emotional joy that drives her forward, a sense of purpose and mission. "It's so important to feel like you're good at something and to have that confidence.

- "My dad is a free spirit, he's a musician but he's also written musicals and songs for his children and he's always encouraged me and said 'Sing Nike, sing! I've always been good at it and from there the joy has grown gradually.

The education at the Academy of Music became a solid foundation
When the time came to decide on higher studies, the choice was very simple - the Academy of Music in Piteå, which has the only education of its kind with a focus on Studio Musician in Sweden. There was no doubt that this was the program she wanted to attend. For Nike, there was a big difference between the quiet, personal and more intimate environment at the School of Music at the Piteå campus and Luleå University of Technology's much larger campus in Luleå. A quiet environment with accessible teachers suited her perfectly and provided good conditions to be creative, she says. She also took the chance and took a supplementary pedagogical education.

- I've just had incredible fun throughout my studies, it doesn't really feel like I've been studying. If I hadn't taken the course, I wouldn't have wanted to be an artist, it means everything! I actually had no artistic ambitions at all before I started at the Academy of Music.

Even though she studied music, she felt early on that she didn't want to be a freelance musician. She was more attracted to writing her own music and producing through the opportunities offered during the program in the form of collaboration with sound engineers, contact with producers and the many courses we were offered in, for example, songwriting. The broad education means that today she can take a greater role as an artist in her creation. It is unusual for an Idol winner to have the opportunity to decide so much in her creation, she is happy about that and will make sure to take advantage of it.

For now, she tries to rely on the process and see where life takes her. Her goal for the next few years is mainly to write more songs, release her album, go on tour and make sure she collaborates with good people. But she has previously also taught at Framnäs Folkhögskola, which gave her more taste and she thinks that in the long run it could be fun to perhaps also develop her dream of becoming a teacher.