Director of International Business Development, Bob Spence talks to Linsey Brown, Projects & Communications Manager about the third day in Poland for C4DI International.
Katowice
At 06:15 hr a 300m stroll for Dave, John, and Bob (AKA Team C4DI International) across the square to board the PKP Intercity train departing Katowice at 06:52 hr for Warsaw.
Coffee and a croissant on the Pendolino which had excellent Wi-Fi and we arrive at Warsaw Central 09:20 hr to walk out into the city centre opposite the world renown Palace of Culture.
Warsaw
Our first meeting was scheduled at the TRENDhouse Warsaw which forms part of the Venture Café ecosystem. It was great to meet Mike Chaffee CEO of Wolves Summit again. Wolves Summit is the largest tech conference in CEE. The event supports startups, investors and businesses create relevant connections. Mike was over from Wroclaw, and we discussed the plans of C4DI International and where they overlap with the Summit. Mike has developed the Summit to be THE force in CEE networking and we were grateful for his time and sharing with us his informed views. (Do check out the SUMMIT. Our Community Manager, Louise Cooke appeared in 2021 as a panellist reviewing funding pitches).
At the end of the meeting, we were pleased to meet with Martin Ring. Martin is a Non-Executive Director of Wolves Summit and provides advisory services, specialising in scalable Tech companies. C4DI will be meeting with them both in 2022.
Our second meeting was at the British Embassy (big thanks to Mike for the lift!). In the first instance thanks to Sylwia for setting up the meeting and it was our opportunity to thank her face to face for her invaluable input to our online Anglo-Polish conferences.
The fast-moving session was hosted by Bartosz Kozinski Director - Foreign Direct Investment and we were joined by Ewa Veenendaal-Rawicz who is the Deputy Director for International Trade, Warsaw and also the CEN lead in Financial Services. It was also a pleasure to be introduced to Magdalena Ociepa-Wroblewska who holds the brief of Regional Campaign Director at the British Embassy, for Healthcare Central Europe. For C4DI it was a great occasion to meet face-to-face with the British Embassy team who have done so much to support our efforts in creating tech and innovation contacts in Poland but also share tech and innovation contacts in England for Polish enterprise.
Our topics included further online conferences, hybrid events, meet the buyer events for Polish companies looking to export technology to England and trade missions going from the UK to Poland and then Poland back to the UK! We were very excited with the opportunities possible and look forward to continuing the conversation and our plans.
Our third meeting was with Dorota Mielnik the account executive specialising in AgriTech for Microsoft. Long time since our last conversation in the Polish Embassy London and this time it was at the Flaming & Co restaurant. Dorota recently co-authored an excellent AgriTech report which gave perspective on the Polish market. C4DI look forward to working with her to develop the link between the C4DI Northallerton AgriTech hub and opportunities in Poland. Whilst with us she introduced us online to Julian Ćmikiewicz the managing director of AgriSolutions. This was an excellent opening for C4DI to listen to a leading AgriTech businesses and hear first-hand the type of innovation the Polish market has developed in this area. We were thankful to Dorota for this introduction and look forward to speaking further.
We then held our fourth meeting with Kaja Szczygiel. Kaja has done much to help guide and counsel C4DI International activities in Poland. Our Polish tech market debrief with Kaja included an excellent meal at ‘Butchery & Wine Restaurant’ and a big thanks to Russell Towlson for introducing this venue to Dave and John on a previous visit to Warsaw.
During four days in Poland, the C4DI team met face-to-face 34 people, across 3 Cities. The meetings included: local government representation, legal representation, representation from 12 tech companies, preview of 3 HealthTech products and an AgriTech innovation, introduced to 3 co-working spaces, met the Microsoft Poland AgriTech lead, the British Embassy Warsaw team as well as three EU funding leads.
A very exciting trip with much to reflect on as we left Warsaw Chopin airport at 06:10 hr for Doncaster the following day.