My name is Joachim Aschim. I live in Trondheim, Norway, with my wife and two children.I have been starting companies since I was 23. These days I build web services on open Norwegian data, and write a little about what I learn along the way.

What I have done

A short sketch of the years, not a résumé.

2003–2007

High school in Sandefjord and on the Isle of Man, then a year at art college. I still draw, mostly picture books for my children.

2010

Co-founded Global Illumination, which made digital signage out of ordinary TVs and some software. We won the first round of Venture Cup in Trondheim, travelled to Taiwan to meet TV manufacturers and sold to a few customers. In 2014 we called it a day. It was my first experience of a good product not selling itself.

2011

Started Oddworks. At first as a small incubator, where among other things I put money and time into a development team that later raised more capital and grew into a company with offices in several countries. From 2013 Oddworks built websites, apps and systems for small businesses, with me as the only employee. The company is still mine, and it is where I build my things today.

2011–2020

Co-founder of the investment company WorldView Innovation in Oslo. We owned and followed up several smaller companies. I left in 2020.

2014–2016

CEO of SuperEgo. We built digital tools for mental health, based on methods with documented effect, for organisations working on behalf of the public sector. We received EU funding. I learned how long things take in healthcare, and how important it is to keep going.

2017–

Board member at Nidaross, which invests in early-stage companies. It lets me see what founders look like from the investor's side.

2017–2024

Responsible for IT and business development in Scandinavia for an international fashion company. I connected finance systems, set up electronic trading with the retail chains, built an online store that turned a profit, and trained the shops in the new tools. Seven years of daily contact with people who run shops for a living.

2023–

Employed as a developer and adviser in a larger consulting firm. I build tools used internally by the organisations I work for: for the national broadcaster, an energy company, a government agency, a university and two county councils. Much of the work is on Microsoft's low-code platform, and almost all of it is about getting more out of data they already have. Right now I am on paternity leave.

2026

This winter I built Havspor in three weeks while on holiday in Malaysia. A regional newspaper wrote about it before I got home. That spring I entered the Norwegian AI Championship on my own and finished 74th overall, with third place in the image recognition task. Since then I have launched Togspor and Veikamera.

What I run now

• Havspor Shows where the express boats and ferries along the Norwegian coast are right now, with timetables and delays. Used by tens of thousands of people every month.
• Veikamera The Norwegian road authority's camera images collected on one page per road and place, more than a thousand pages. Launched August 2026.
• Togspor A list of how punctual Norwegian rail lines really are, updated every night from Entur's data. Launched July 2026.
• Norwegian AI Championship 2026 Third place in the image recognition task, 74th overall.

How I think

Most of the things I have started began with something that annoyed me. Why does digital signage cost so much? Why do people wait so long for mental health support? Why is there no map that shows where the boat is? I find it hard to leave questions like that alone.

I have learned that it pays to launch early. A simple website that works, on a real domain, says more than a presentation. Afterwards I watch who uses it and what they do, and let that decide what I build next. It is often not what I expected.

Norway has a remarkable amount of public data that sits open and almost unused. The road authority, Entur and the coastal administration publish real-time data on roads, trains and boats around the clock. I like pulling it down and seeing what can be made from it.

I use artificial intelligence in most of my work, and it is the reason one person can keep several services running at once. Even so, it is conversations with people from completely different fields that teach me the most.

Things I have written

I write now and then at oddworks.no, mostly about technology and what it does to us. Most posts are in Norwegian; the site has an English switch.

• One engine beats ten streams
• Your child's first surface
• The water you're already standing in
• When the head of the world's largest fund says what you're thinking
• The oil, the power, and the data centers
• What do you do when the CEO of AI says we have two years left?
• Hello, World();