Created in 2015, Polish Tech Day (PTD) is one of the most important technology conferences and the biggest project of the PLUGin Foundation, a non-profit organisation led by Polish technological and innovation diaspora members from all around the world. After two years of online meetings, the Polish Tech Day conference switches its format to an online event & face-to-face meetings. Hence, in June, it hosted meetings online (June 10th), as well as in Warsaw (June 14th), Paris (June 15th) and London (June 16th).
The Polish Tech Day conference aims to connect, inspire and empower the community members of the Polish innovation diaspora to develop innovative tech businesses and make an impact on a global scale. Having welcomed over 100 partners and sponsors and over 3000 participants so far, PTD is organised with passion by a dozen volunteers from 6 different countries, reflecting the diverse nature of the Polonia.
“Since 2020, we have been meeting only virtually. The pandemic has influenced both our perception of the technology’s role in human interactions and our perception of closeness and help. Although we have not had a chance to process the last two years yet, we are standing in front of another challenge – war on the European territory, which is a great tragedy for Poland’s neighbours. However, we are observing some kind of development of something that the pandemic gave the basis for and about what we talked about at the last year’s Polish Tech Day – the technology development serving the society and the good state of another human being. At this year’s edition, we want to look at the innovations and connecting to the community,” said Kuba Janas, Project Leader of Polish Tech Day.
Polish Tech Day 2022 – Connect to the Community
The event focused on the “connect to the community” theme. The panels delved into the social, technological and diasporic topics.
During The “Business and organisations supporting Ukraine – the tech perspective” panel, PLUGin Foundation, together with Google For Startups and Ukrainian Tech Collective, looked at the Ukrainian startup ecosystem and talked about its current struggles.
Emigration Museum in Gdynia (Poland) discussed the details of its latest project, “Femigracja”, about highly qualified Polish female emigrants, their life and work situation, and the reasons and conditioning for their leave.
Marcin Kosciski (PLUGin Foundation; Associate Partner at Foster + Partners) talked to Adrian Krężlik (Dosta Tec; School of Form) about “DesignTech in Architecture”. They talked about how technological innovation could transform the building industry and architectural design to deliver buildings and spaces with more sustainable and liveable habitats.
Afterwards, the “Tech and Data in Sports” panel looked at how databases shape our reality and how our favourite sports games go. Paweł Osterreicher (ReSpo.Vision), Adam Szummer (Analityk.edu.pl) and Mateusz Kusznierewicz (sailor, Olympic medalist and businessman) explained the role of data in sports and how to use them to win a championship.
The conference was crowned by the API Awards Gala for the Ambassadors of Polish Innovation, which aimed to recognise and appreciate extraordinary individuals who have developed and strongly contributed to promoting Polish innovations on the international scene. This year’s API winners include Fryderyk Sitnik (TeenCrunch), Ela Madej (Fifty Years) and Joanna Jurek (PhD BSc Human Nutrition and Immunology).
Networking meetings in London, Paris and Warsaw
A new form of this year’s Polish Tech Day is based on the networking meetings organised in three European cities, during which the participants were the most important element. The event in Warsaw (June 14th), co-organised with Google, took place on the Google Campus. In Paris (June 15th), the participants were invited by the Polish Embassy to Hotel de Monaco, and in London (June 16th), they met at the Eight Moorgate Club.
The events aimed to re-establish personal contact with the community and attracted those interested in meeting fascinating, like-minded people, both from the Polish innovation diaspora and the tech community.
More information can be found on the event website: www.polishtechday.com.
Author: PLUGin Foundation (edited by Marta Kąkol)
Main picture: PLUGin Foundation
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