Name: Linda Åkerberg
Company: Wilderness Stories
Title: Adventurer and content creator
Country: Sweden

Favorite outdoor activities:
I love all kinds of activities – especially if I haven’t tried them before! I’m curious by nature and love to explore both myself, nature and new things. If I had to pick one activity I would say long-distance hiking in the mountains.

What’s your main contribution of being in the Jury do you think?
Spending a lot of time in nature on different adventures gives me an idea of what functions that are really appreciated and helpful in the products and not only a “cool feature”. When I pick products for my own adventures I am very picky and look at both functionality, sustainability, quality, weight, comfort, price etc and I think all of this is important for a winner as well. I will also look for how the brand have adapted the products for the female body (if applicable) or if they only produce products by male standards.

website: wilderness-stories.com
instagram: @wildernessstories

Name: Carsten Jost
Company: Outward Bound Germany and Fastpacking.de
Title: Outdoor Education Program Manager
Country: Germany/Austria

Favorite outdoor activities:
Long-distance-hiking with tent (backpacking) using lightweight equipment. But as a dad of two children also a lot of family outdoor activities.

What’s your main contribution of being in the Jury do you think?
The variety of gear that I used and that I am interested in. My outdoor career started at age 6 with the boy scouts, led to a job in outdoor retail, followed me e.g. along the Pacific Crest Trail and brought me to managing outdoor programmes for Outward Bound. Gear is important but more so is the person using it.

www.fastpacking.de

Name: Leslie & Nate Axvig 
Company: Aktiv
Title: Owners
Country: United States

Favorite outdoor activities:
Downhill skiing (Leslie) Cross-country skiing (Nate), hiking, cycling, drinking wine or beer outside, outdoor concerts.

What’s your main contribution of being in the Jury do you think?
The origin story for our brand is as organic as it gets. Our family and moved to Oslo for additional legal education after we spent 17 years in the litigation trenches. As we lived in Norway we discovered: 1. Norwegians and Coloradans dress the same way, quasi-technical almost all the time. 2. The brands from Scandinavia make the best clothing in the world. When we returned to Colorado we decided to bring those clothes to the United States, first through a website (aktivstyle.com) and later to a store in the Denver Metro area. For the jury, we think our background will bring a fresh perspective to the review as we pick clothing for the store that is built well, is sustainable, technical but also at home with everyday wear.

activestyle.com