A letter from Magnus a RYE student back in 2013/14
Dear Merv,
It has been a while since last time we were in touch, so I'd like to give you an update what has been going on the last eleven (!) years since my year in New Zealand. After my exchange I went home and finished high school with focus in science and mathematics. However, during my last year of high school I found that my interest were more within economics rather than the sciences, so I started studying at Stockholm School of Economics in the fall of 2017. During the studies I was active in the student association and tried my luck within acting and singing (somewhat inspired by my host father Mark’s performance in the show Hair Spray) and got the main role of the Student Farce. There, I met the dance choreographer Cajsa, who would later become my girlfriend. During the fall of 2019 I went on another exchange, this time to Frankfurt, Germany for one semester. It never got close to New Zealand, yet a worthy experience. Further, back in Sweden during 2020 I finished my degree within business and economics and joined a start-up company within tech and big data analytics, LEANalyser, which I have been with since. We’ve build a software focused on enabling intuitive data analytics and visualisation on large scale without the need for large IT-infrastructure. Cajsa and I have been together since the Student Farce and are now living in Stockholm. We got engaged in the spring of 2025 and on the 20th October we became parents to our son Emil. I still keep in touch with some of the exchange students I met in New Zealand. Vera and I met up in Frankfurt during my semester there and Lasse visited me in Stockholm once, and I him in Copenhagen. I hope you all are doing well and are in good health. Best regards, Magnus von Perner, Rotary Youth Exchange 2013-2014 PS: If you have the relevant contact details to my other host families, you are more then welcome to share this with them. I seem to have old email adressess. "
