About
Two people, one long argument with how technology gets made.
Torstein and Samina have been building toward this since 2020, from opposite ends of the same question.
The founders
One came from the lab. One came from the law.
Torstein Vabo Ansari
Founder
Trained in nanotechnology and quantum mechanics at NTNU, with a Master's in Entrepreneurship and a background in the Norwegian Special Forces. He works in consciousness and transformational projects, and teaches yoga, so the inner practice in the Hub is one he keeps himself. He carries the Viking inheritance he grew up with as a way of standing in the world rather than as decoration. He has been nurturing this idea, a home for ethical technology rooted in planetary consciousness, since 2020.
Samina Vabo Ansari
Co-founder
A background in cyber law and international peacebuilding across Kabul, Washington D.C. and Brussels, now focused on technology, sustainability and social impact. She practises Sufi philosophy, which is where her sense of how people change comes from. She wrote When the Almond Trees Bloom, which now sells internationally. She builds the community, bridges the cultures this project brings together, and tells the story that holds the rest of it in place.
Where the idea came from
Torstein came at it from inside the machine. He studied nanotechnology and quantum mechanics, then spent years around consciousness and transformational work, and could not reconcile the two. The most advanced tools we have are pointed at capturing attention, and the people building them are rarely asked what that costs.
Samina came at it from the other side. Her work in cyber law and international peacebuilding put her in rooms where the damage shows up first, in Kabul, in Washington and in Brussels. She had watched what happens when systems are designed without anyone accountable for their effect on people.
They both recognised Ericeira independently, and for the same reasons. A town with an ocean that sets the pace, a steady flow of technical people passing through, and a local community with its own life. Fertile ground for building something conscious, and small enough that it would be noticed if it were not.
The plan is not to bring innovation to Ericeira. It is to give the people already here a reason to build together.
Timeline
Six years, so far.
The thinking started earlier. In 2017 Torstein wrote his master's thesis at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship on the potential of interdisciplinary basic research, graded among the strongest the school had seen in a decade. In 2019 he wrote a second thesis on how network ties inside an incubator shape the companies that grow there. Both questions sit under the Hub. What happens when disciplines meet, and what a building can do that a person alone cannot.
2020
The question takes shape
Torstein finishes his time in the Norwegian Special Forces and starts a year of ISTDP psychotherapy, training emotional capacity rather than physical. Concept work on what a home for ethical technology would need to be begins here.
2021
Pinecone Leadership
He builds a leadership development program out of what the previous decade had taught him. The same year he completes yoga teacher training and begins studying tai chi. The practice and the program develop together.
2022
The Arctic, and a loss
A one month solo expedition in the Arctic, skiing alone with a 100 kilo sled. Later the same year Torstein and Samina lost their first child, Shams.
2023
Back among people
The hardest year, worked through rather than around. Through the summer he helped build several of Oslo's large music and cultural events. Grief and the making of things sat side by side, which is much of why the Hub treats inner work as part of the working week.
2024
Into the chip industry
Months spent researching semiconductor manufacturing, with interviews at Intel, the University of California San Diego, NTNU and the University of Oslo. He visited Lace Lithography, a Norwegian company whose approach could change how chips are made. In the same period he moved into nanomaterials manufacturing for the battery industry at Vianode.
2025
From lab to production line
Continued work at Vianode, following one advanced nanomaterial the whole way from current research through piloting to manufacturing for a global market. The question running through it is what it actually takes to move deep science into production.
2026
The Hub takes a form
The building enters design. The project is put forward to the Ericeira Business Factory incubator, the first advisors come on board, and applications open for capital, for the first cohort and for the first memberships.
Running under all of it are several hundred conversations with researchers, physicists, mathematicians, neuroscientists, psychologists, programmers, artists and meditators, on quantum mechanics, consciousness, entrepreneurship and what holds a community together. The Hub is the room those conversations kept pointing at.
Inside the building
Four things describe the character of the place.
Innovation center
Founders test and build new technology here. That means bench space and equipment, not only desks and video calls. The first work is communication software. The research moves toward nanotechnology and quantum technology, which is where the founder's own training sits.
Consciousness lab
Personal growth and inner work happen alongside the technical work, inside the working week. Founders make better decisions when they can hold pressure without losing judgement. We treat that as a skill to train, not a perk to offer.
Collaboration space
Members contribute a defined share of their skills to projects running inside the Hub, and get the community and the programs in return. People work across each other's projects rather than beside them. That exchange is what separates this from a room full of laptops.
Impact oriented
We judge a project by the change it creates, not by growth alone. We also work with the Municipality of Mafra so the Hub creates jobs and programs for people who already live here. Ericeira has enough places that serve visitors and ignore residents.
Community
The community exists before the building does.
We are building alongside people who are already here. The wellness, surf and founder communities around Ericeira have their own gatherings, and we would rather join those than compete with them.
Workshops, build sprints and open evenings start once there is a room to hold them in. They will run in English and Portuguese, so residents and visitors are in the same conversation. Nothing is scheduled yet. When something is, it appears here and in the newsletter first.
We are hiring our first engineers.
Founding software and deep tech roles are open in Norway and Portugal. Partnership conversations are open too.
Apply