Iceland!

2020-07-07, 09:53

Yup, we're in Iceland!

Iceland is a volcanic island in the North-Atlantic with about 370.000 inhabitants, most of whom live in or around the capital, Reykjavík. Although close to the Arctic circle, the climate is kept moderate (if a bit windy) by warm ocean currents traveling all the way from the Gulf of Mexico.

These days Iceland is probably best known for disrupting international flights with volcanic ash clouds, the odd economic meltdown, and somewhat eccentric musicians such as Björk and Sigur Rós.

Less well known, is that Icelanders love technology and the Internet. Most homes have high-speed Internet connections, iPhones and Androids are everywhere and everybody is on Facebook.

In spite of (or in maybe thanks to) the nation's small size and economic troubles, Iceland has been a hotbed of innovation and creativity during the past few years. Reykjavík hosts a lively scene of small startup companies, which we are happy to be a part of, incubators, a hacker-space and multiple tech-focused user groups. But innovation in Iceland isn't limited to the technical sector: our constitution is being rewritten with the help of social media and crowd-sourcing and Iceland is the home of the International Modern Media Institute, a groundbreaking attempt at modernizing the legal environment of free speech in the digital age.

Overall, Iceland is a good place for a company like ours. The legal environment is friendly, we have easy access to lots of local talent, and situated mid-way between Europe and the U.S.A. we get the best of both time-zones. Thanks to companies like Linode, we can locate our physical infrastructure close to our users, no matter where they - or we - are. Just because the company is based in Iceland, doesn't mean our servers have to be!

To learn more about Iceland, we recommend these sites:

• Iceland Wants To Be Your Friend.
• Iceland Review
• ... and of course Wikipedia