Lars Gunnar Fledsberg: Giving a new form to outdoor learning games with Wittario AS
Wittario AS was founded by Lars Gunnar Fledsberg, a serial entrepreneur with 23 years of management experience in the ICT business. Fledsberg is using digital technology to create innovative outdoor learning games. Wittario is an online community for playing educational games in the great outdoors.
He said, “Our gaming platform is used by schools and companies to boost student engagement and learning results. By combining physical activity in the great outdoors with innovative technology, we aim to provide memorable and useful experiences for our customers. Wittario, which takes its inspiration from PokemonGo, gets people out of their cubicles and into a fun and productive search for information. The nicest thing is that everyone can make educational games for anybody.
Making strides toward a new era in educational playtime in the great outdoors
Until he was 42 years old, Lars worked in “safe” corporate managerial roles. His first position was as a product manager at Telenor, a Nordic and Asian telecom giant with 187 million subscribers and $14 billion in yearly revenue.
The independence to grow and develop, though, had always made him dream of one day becoming a business owner. He took a chance and started his first business with Tor Ove Henriksen’s help (they called it Skooler). Skooler is a global education technology firm serving clients in over 100 countries. Lars has gone on to co-found five more businesses since his time at Skooler. There are four winners. Wittario is the most successful business, and it has consumed his whole attention for the last two years.
Lars has been continually motivated throughout his life by seeing the level of student engagement that is achieved when classroom instruction is supplemented with outdoor activities. Wittario, a provider of an educational technology solution for outdoor game-based learning, was founded in his honor to give full color to this idea.
According to him, a firm has achieved success if its aims have been met and its customers, workers, and shareholders are happy. He steers Wittario AS in the proper path by continuing to work on the same idea.
Gaining wisdom along the way
According to Lars: “If you only enjoy success without meeting any roadblocks, you will most likely struggle harder to handle the situation when you meet the first heavy roadblock compared to a person who has handled multiple roadblocks on the way.”
Funding the expansion of his first firm, Skooler, helped Lars see the wisdom of the adage “a CEO of a startup should always be fundraising.”
Wittario combines cutting-edge technology to provide an original answer.
Lars and his colleague Tor Ove Henriksen formed the EdTech firm Wittario in 2019 and have created a game-based smartphone application that would facilitate learning through outdoor mobility and the use of augmented reality (AR) and global positioning system (GPS). In March of 2021, the app was released to a large public, and it uses augmented and virtual reality to deliver engaging and informative educational opportunities for students and employees alike.
The team’s goal is to revolutionize education by making it more like playing games and getting exercise. As Lars puts it, “We aim to transform a 1000-year-old proven tradition of learning through reading and listening, by enhancing it with education technology.
Wittario was established on the tenets of “how we can leverage outdoor game-based learning to build a platform that accommodates for more active, meaningful, and interesting learning experiences.”
The personal and professional life of Lars
Lars wears several jobs as CEO of Wittario. At the start of a typical workday, he arrives at the office at around 8 am to check his emails, make a schedule for the day, and manage everyone by walking around and chatting with them. His responsibilities include everything from sales and marketing to finances and finance to product development, delivery, and support.
At 5, he leaves work to eat dinner with his family after having met with his employees, clients, and other external stakeholders. After 8 o’clock in the evening, he returns to his home office.
As a leader who sets and achieves goals, he is quite pleased with his record of success. He says, “Getting my first top management position as Managing Director for Global Knowledge in Norway nine years ago was the best recognition I have received as a business leader.” It is also an incredible pleasure to be included in an interview with CIO Views magazine as one of the 10 Most Successful CEOs Making a Difference in 2021.
Lars is well aware of his working and non-working hours. He finds greater calm and contentment in his life now that he has set work and leisure times. It has helped him work more efficiently.
Lars manages his time well thanks to careful planning and scheduling. He also keeps track of the schedules of those close to him and never allows his private and work life collide. Regular exercise and meditation have helped him find inner calm.
To put it another way, “motivation is the electrical power that activates the engine of success.”
In order to maintain the team’s commitment to the company’s long-term objectives, motivation is essential. He keeps his workers motivated by making sure their job is interesting. He continues, “The most effective approach is to provide workers with the freedom to explore new approaches to addressing pressing issues.” Questions such, “Where can we deliver amazing service to our customers?” are commonplace in my conversations with them. What exactly is wrong with our product that needs fixing? What more can we do to improve the quality of our customers’ experiences?
By doing so, he may quickly pinpoint the problems and implement solutions. He also invests time and resources into various forms of social engagement and self-improvement education. Motivating workers also includes recognizing their efforts and asking for their input.
He is energized when the firm as a whole succeeds, when consumers provide positive comments, and when he sees his colleagues smiling broadly.
Plans for the Future
When asked about his vision for Wittario’s future, Lars says, “My long-term goal is to build the world’s leading digital platform for outdoor game-based learning.”
He has a personal objective that parallels his professional one. He explains, “My team and I will not rest until our product has gone viral in the corporate, academic, and consumer markets.” Customers, workers, and investors are all happy with the outcomes of our approach because of our exceptional staff.
Lars is well-aware of the fact that education is a continuous process that might lead to a richer perspective on the world and more fulfilling chances in later years. He’s using the fantastic Wittario platform to joke around about giving everyone more opportunities to learn.