10 Polish Start-up and Tech Events Still Waiting in 2015
Are you interested in visiting Poland soon to find out more about its start-up and tech scene or establish some new business relations? We prepared a list of the most interesting conferences and meetups for you to attend until the end of 2015
With fall in full swing, several extremely interesting Polish start-up and tech conferences and events are just behind the corner. Such events, attended eagerly by Polish start-up entrepreneurs, experienced developers, investors or journalists, are a great way to establish new business ventures as well as learn something new. Whether you are an investor or a start-up entrepreneur searching for new investors or clients, a trip to Poland is worthwhile.
“If your customers attend conferences – this is a good idea. You get a room with 300 customers instead of just one. It works for us. Attending conferences is what makes 90 percent of our traffic in Poland direct. My favourite events for start-ups and marketers are Internet Beta, Startup Weekends, Social Media Convent, Social Media Day and the Marketing Automation Congress,” says Michał Sadowski, CEO and founder of popular Polish start-up Brand24 about the benefits conferences bring his company.
Andrzej Targosz, a start-up entrepreneur (Eventory) and CEO of Proidea, organizer of popular start-up and tech conferences (Bitspiration, Atmosphere, PLNOG), believes you should ask yourself a different question...
“The real question isn't whether you should participate in conferences or not, but which conferences you should pick, which ones are worth your time. If you answer these questions honestly, you will definitely manage to achieve return on investment. As for the events themselves, I recommend meetups such as Aula, Reaktor, Startup Stage.”
The point then is to find a conference that provides quality leads and content and fits your target as an investor or start-up person. Perhaps one of those below is just for you.
2 October – Startup Weekend Space
An unusually difficult challenge awaits start-up adepts on 2-4 October in Gdansk. During the Tricity (short for Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot) edition of Startup Weekend they will try to create a space start-up in under 60 hours! The organizers invite both space engineers/scientists and people who don't have previous experience with the space industry. They can still contribute with their knowledge of economics, law, PR or anything else. The participants will form teams and get help from well-known start-up entrepreneurs such as Chris Kowalczyk and Marcin Kowalik.
8 October – soap!2015
It's a common knowledge that user experience and accessibility are still in their infancy compared to the level of sheer technical knowledge we generate and invest in start-ups as well as any other tech products. Perhaps, it is an excellent UX/UI that will make your project stand out among many other technically advanced products and services. The soap! conference gathers UX experts, developers and managers to revise and improve the current state of UX/accessibility knowledge.
8 October – OpenCoffeeKRK#102
OpenCoffeeKRK takes place twice a month in the Krakow co-working space COLAB to provide a light casual place for the start-up community and everyone interested in tech e-business and start-ups to talk. Topics also include fundraising. COLAB is one of the biggest co-working spaces in Krakow, which many Krakow start-ups call home.
14 October – the Outsourcing Fairs – Innovation For Your Business
The upcoming third edition of Outsourcing Fairs is one of the best occasions for businesses providing and using outsourcing services to meet. Aside of stands and speakers, the event will offer for the first time some really great network opportunities such as Business Speed Dating and 'the biggest networking breakfest' in Poland.
14 October – OpenReaktor#38
OpenReaktor is one of the most popular series of start-up meetups in Poland. The organizers from the co-working space Reaktor invite experienced speakers as well as the whole Warsaw start-up scene to talk and bond in a casual atmosphere. Though it seems modest, OpenReaktor managed to make quite a name for itself, having attracted individuals such as John Biggs (TechCrunch), Michał Juda and Jasiek Stasz (Showroom), Ela Madej (BaseCRM), Bartosz Gola (SpeedUp Group), or Michał Sadowski.
16 October – East-Biz 2015 Białystok
Białystok, one of Poland's biggest cities in the East, has an occasion to show that valuable start-up and tech ventures can be found outside of Warsaw or Krakow as well. The two day event East-Biz 2015 centers around the topic of e-commerce and attracts with a strong team of speakers and the chance to establish contacts in a large yet still partly undiscovered start-up ecosystem Bialystok is.
17 October – Mobilization 2015
Another specialized event, much as the name suggests it's all about mobile, and another from outside of the most obvious locations. This time it's Łódź. The Mobilization conference has been active since 2011, attracting developers, project managers and business people talking about technical and business aspects of mobile platforms.
19 October – Product Development Days 2015
Product Development Days is another conference for those willing to boost their soft skills and get ahead of competition in areas often overlooked. User experience, design thinking, Agile, Scrum or Product Architecture are only some of the topics. The event is suitable for all sorts of tech producers and product managers, developers, designers and Agile/scrum teachers and adepts.
19 October – Meet Magento
Magento is one of the most popular content management systems for e-commerce. As such, not only does it attract the attention of store owners and developer, but also countless companies, start-ups and interactive agencies providing them with all sorts of marketing, hosting and SEO solutions. Meet Magento is a conference for all of them. Be where a very strong representation of the Polish e-commerce is going to be.
26 November – IT Future EXPO 2015
The IT Future EXPO are going to be one of the biggest IT fairs in Poland this year. The event target company representatives from areas such as security, big data, cloud, start-up and just about any other to showcase their products and services as well as join other action packed segments of the event such as the IT Future congress or the 3D Zone, where you will see the best of robots, 3D printing and augmented/virtual reality.
3-4 December - Startup Summit
The second edition of the Summit, one of the biggest interneational tech conference in Poland, will be held December 3-4 at the National Stadium. Several hundred guests and dozens of speakers, including well-known mentors, investors and start-ups, will talk about the latest technological trends and startup ecosystems in Central and Eastern Europe.