This week it was announced that the foundation from Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA that passed away one year ago, left the largest ever donation for Lunds University.
IKDC and the School of Industrial Design has been the breeding ground for multiple famous entrepreneurs, such as Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin who founded Hövding, the airbag helmet and Mehrdad Mahdjoubi, founder of Niklas Zennström backed Orbital Systems. Alumni also include people like Isabelle Olsson who is head industrial design for Google’s Home and Wearable products.
The school of renowed for it’s high quality and accepts only 30 students each year. It is led by Claus-Christian Eckhardt.
“He has experience from international businesses and high-profile design for famous brands, but is driven by a passion and there were resources for implementing projects,”
– says Mehrdad Mahdjoubi to Sydsvenskan when talking about how his time at IKDC.
The donation, which is over €33 million will go towards the Lund University School of Industrial Design. The education, which is held at the IKDC center in Lund has already earlier gotten grants on a yearly basis from Ingvar Kamprad, but now the foundation has decided to make a large contribution, with the aim of making that money sustain the education and research going forward.
