Skillbreak founding team. From left Lina Johansson and Matilda Hannäs (CEO).

Swedish impact-tech company Skillbreak has created a new social learning platform aiming to spread creativity and allow people to meet in a time when we live increasingly isolated and screen-dependent. The idea is to make expert knowledge in arts, crafts and design available to the public.

Stockholm-based Skillbreak was founded in 2016 by Matilda Hannäs and Lina Johansson with the vision of becoming Europe’s leading platform for unique learning experiences. Skillbreak offers hundreds of unique, short and social learning experiences with the leading creative experts in Sweden. Through the platform, creators in design, arts and crafts are matched with people who want to learn new things. Experts share their skills in their own homes, studios and workshops and through the Skillbreak platform they get the tools to earn money on their expertise.

“We want to enable hundreds of thousands of craftsmen, creators and artists around the world to make a living on their creativity,” says Matilda Hannäs, CEO and one of the founders of Skillbreak. “In this way, it is also a sustainability strategy that contributes to new jobs, professional skill training and preserves culture and traditions. The workshops we offer make it easier to lead a sustainable lifestyle and we focus on categories such as green cooking, farming, minimalism, textile recycling and ceramics.”

The vision is to become Europe’s leading platform for unique learning experiences. In the long term, Skillbreak will offer a new way of traveling and learning new things locally.

“Our big idea is about democratizing creativity. There’s something mysterious and unattainable with creativity and we want to make it more available to each and every one. In the long term, anyone should be able to learn anything anywhere in the world,” Matilda continues.

The Skillbreak concept has since inception been about spreading creativity and allowing people to meet in a time when we live increasingly isolated.

“The social part is extremely important, we long for good reasons to meet in depth and make meaningful things with family and friends. A lot of people I know are tired of going out to have a beer to socialize. Also, when you work in an office, like I do, we also yearn for getting away from the computer screens and to do something with our hands,” says Matilda.

Matilda Hannäs comes from a craftsman family but has worked her whole career in the tech industry, most recently at Spotify. She has been featured on  DI’s list of hottest tech entrepreneurs under 40. The Skillbreak team is expanding and has now signed a Marketing Manager and Development Manager in September to advance faster. Skillbreak’s product range is growing rapidly (currently including more than 150 different workshops) and all courses are booked online at skillbreak.com. The courses are physical and packaged in a bite-sized format of approximately 2-5 hours per course. Some examples of Skillbreaks are “create a chic wall hanging in macrame“, “sprout seeds“, “design and create in ceramics“, “ink painting with a focus on flowers” as well as “sensory techniques and bubbles“.

More information
Matilda Hannäs, CEO / Founder Skillbreak, matilda@skillbreak.com, + 4670-776 60 06, Visiting address: Norrsken House, Birger Jarlsgatan 57c, Stockholm.

Platform: www.skillbreak.com
Blog: https://blog.skillbreak.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goskillbreak/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goskillbreak/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMlFWBxIoD8
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