Lars Christian Engström (born 9 February 1960) is a Swedish

computer programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...

, activist and

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

. He is deputy chairman of the Swedish

Pirate Party Pirate Party is a label adopted by various Political party, political parties worldwide that share a set of values and policies focused on Civil and political rights, civil rights in the digital age. The fundamental principles of Pirate Partie ...

. Engström was elected a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) in the 2009 election.

Education and career

Christian Engström was born in Högalid,

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. He graduated from

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

in 1983 with a degree in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. While studying, Engström worked as a

tutor Tutoring is private academic help, usually provided by an expert teacher; someone with deep knowledge or defined expertise in a particular subject or set of subjects. A tutor, formally also called an academic tutor, is a person who provides assis ...

at the university, teaching

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impl ...

Simula Simula is the name of two simulation programming languages, Simula I and Simula 67, developed in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo, by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard. Syntactically, it is an approximate superset of AL ...

. From 1978 he also worked part-time as a

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

at Skriptor, a small company which specialized in phonetic similarity searches for trademark names. After finishing his studies he started working full-time at the company. He became a partner in the firm in 1987 and in 1991 he became vice president. In 1997 the company was sold to the leading European trademark search house CompuMark. Engström stayed on in a similar capacity as before until 2001, when he left the company to set up his own consultancy firm Glindra AB.

Activism and politics

For five years Engström worked as an unpaid activist within the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), lobbying against

software patents A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something ...

. He was active in the campaign against the EU software patent directive, which was rejected by the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

in July 2005. He also co-founded the Swedish section of FFII and served as its deputy chairman during the first year. In the late 1980s, Engström became a member of the Swedish Liberal People's Party. He served as a lay assessor () for the party in the Stockholm District Court between 1992 and 1998 and was active in local politics in Bromma,

. He left the Liberal People's Party on 1 January 2006, following the founding of the Pirate Party. Engström was elected a

(MEP) in the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

held on 7 June 2009, in which the Pirate Party won 7.1% of the votes and received one mandate. However, when the Lisbon treaty came into effect a second mandate Amelia Andersdotter entered parliament for Piratpartiet. Engström was placed as his party's top candidate and received 43,808 votes (19% of the Pirate Party's total votes). After negotiations with some of the political groups of the European Parliament, it was announced on 25 June 2009 that Engström will join the green group ( Greens–EFA). Engström was the only Swedish member of the European Parliament who voted against Mary Honeyball's report "Sexual exploitation and

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

and its impact on gender equality", which recommends EU member states to adopt the "Swedish Model" that criminalises the purchase of sexual services.

Personal life

Engström is married and has one son. He lives with his family in Nacka, Stockholm County.

References

External links

* * at

The Pirate Party Makes a Bid for the European Parliament
Wired.com article, features interview with Christian Engström. {{DEFAULTSORT:Engstrom, Christian Living people 1960 births Pirate Party (Sweden) politicians Writers from Stockholm Stockholm University alumni Swedish computer programmers Swedish male bloggers Intellectual property activism Copyright activists Pirate Party (Sweden) MEPs MEPs for Sweden 2009–2014 Articles containing video clips

Education and career

Activism and politics

Personal life

See also

References

External links