About me
My name is (Stein) Runar Bergheim, I was born in december 1974 at Sandane, the administrative centre of Gloppen Municipality, County Sogn og Fjordane, Western Norway. I currently live in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. I am working for a technology company, Asplan Viak Internet as, which has offices located in Sogndal and Trondheim.
Address:
Stein Runar Bergheim
805 Al Reyami Furnishings Bldg
Tourist Club Area
Abu Dhabi
United Arab EmiratesE-mail: runar(at)bergheim(dot)dk
Homepage: www.bergheim.dkMobile: +47 91 69 34 02
Mobile: +971 50 580 3449
MSN Messenger:runar(at)bergheim(dot)dk
Skype: runarbe
Starting from the beginning… (1974-1994)
In the beginning – as with most people – there was nothing. Then came light, then childhood quickly followed by youth.
I stayed at Sandane until I had finished secondary education at Firda Vidaregåande Skule where I studied English, biology and social studies. The selection of subjects – as the skilled reader no doubt has already noticed – implied a quick entry into the unemployment statistics… After this period of studying highly theoretical subjects I felt I was ready to do something that would bring more substantial physical results – not merely handwriting on paper. I was off to a school called Valdres Folkehøgskule.
Now Valdres Folkehøgskule was a nice place although it turned out to be somewhat of a Christian correctional institution for urban youth who had strayed from the straight and narrow. Seeming as I didn’t belong to that category I found some of the school regulations to be rather strict. Anyway – I coped. The reason why I went to this school was a study offering called furniture design. Basically we were given basic training in design and production of furniture and then was left to ourselves to design and prototype our creations.
From the Christian atmosphere in Valdres I moved on to the army. Doing service in the army is compulsory in Norway – just for the record. I was transported to Evenes in Nordland and driven off to Harstad where I spent a looooooong winter in prehistoric tents equipped with archaic and useless army outdoor equipment.
The study years (1994-1998)
My horizon was quite wide enough at this moment regarding superfluous skills. The time had clearly come when I ought to specialize in a subject in order to prepare myself for financial independence. At the moment I had two prerequisites that I would like to be satisfied. One: I would like to do something where I could be outdoors some of the time. Two: I wanted to be admitted fairly easily (due to me prioritizing Telemark-skiing over school work during secondary school and therefore were just slightly above average in some subjects).
I chose Sogn og Fjordane University College. They offered an education in landscape management and planning which satisfied both of my prerequisites. The courses were fun and the classmates nice people, but the labor market weren’t actually in dire need of people who were trained in landscape management and planning. None of us really let that bring us down at the time. The most valuable skill that I acquired while studying there was the interest for digital mapping and GIS.
Because of this I started to assist in teaching this subject and in time took part in reshaping the whole course into a more timely fashion. I was also quite taken with the possibilities of using the Internet as a means of communicating GIS content.
The planning years (1998-2001)
At this time I was contacted by Sogn og Fjordane County Council which was in a hurry to get themselves a new GIS person since the former GIS person had recently quit and moved to Bergen. Long story short: I was hired.
I stayed on in the county municipality for three years with interesting responsibilities among fabulous colleagues. I took particular interest in spatial planning processes and international project activities dealing with making the regional authorities better service providers on the Internet. The GIS paradigm never left me. and I kept giving lectures at the university college.
The technology years (2001-2008)
Upon completion of one of the international projects that Sogn og Fjordane County Council took part in there was an idea to establish an ICT company based on the knowledge that was acquired during the project.
A colleague of mine at the County Archive, Gunnar Urtegaard, agreed to manage this company and me and two others got on board as consultants. Asplan Viak Internet (AVINET for short) was born. after two years we were eight employees, after six years we were eleven and provided a wide range of services to customers throughout Norway and abroad.
I took over the management of AVINET after Gunnar Urtegaard joined the Norwegian Authority for Archive, Library and Museum development in late 2002.
In 2008 I took on a range of exciting projects in the United Arab Emirates which kept me away from Norway for long continuous periods of time. I therefore passed on the baton to my excellent colleague Per Andersen who is now the manager of Avinet.
You can read more about Avinet at the company homepage
The Arabian years (2008-present)
Originally intending to spend four months in Arabia, I arrived in Abu Dhabi a rainy january morning in 2008. The original scope of assisting in the design and implementation of a new addressing system for Abu Dhabi, the tasks and number of projects kept growing. As a result I found myself still in Abu Dhabi, observing Ramadan in the Islamic year of 1430H (2009).
In March 2010 I moved out of my old apartment in Sogndal as it turned out that I hadn’t used it for more than four nights in 2009. This concluded 15 years of residence in Sogndal. Moreover, it concluded 10 years of senseless accumulation of goods in one small apartment.
