The Road Towards Entrepreneurial Poland

Indicative Project for the Polish economy titled "THE ROAD TOWARDS ENTREPRENEURIAL POLAND", which forms a part of the Operational Programme "Innovative Economy", priority axis 5 "Diffusion of innovations", measure 5.2 "Supporting business environment institutions providing pro-innovative services and its networks of supra-regional importance."

The Inactive Project "The Road Towards Entrepreneurial Poland" forms an integral part of the national programme "The Road Towards Entrepreneurial Poland", which endorses entrepreneurship and innovativeness in Poland. The main objective of this project is to develop and implement the best integrated system for advocating academic entrepreneurship in Poland that Europe has to offer in the form of two cooperating institutions: Academic Business Incubators and Academic Business Incubators Business Links.

The first National Public Campaign "Hire People With Disabilities", organised by Academic Business Incubators and Business Centre Club, included 27 interactive meetings with employers, which were held in each voivodship of Poland and featured employers from their respective regions. The objective of this campaign was to inform companies about their possibilities of being granted EU subsidies as a result of hiring people with disabilities. In partnership with BCC, we have succeeded in integrating communities concerned on a daily basis with disabled persons.

This nationwide campaign, organised by Academic Business Incubators and the Parker brand, is the only venture of this kind in Poland. The objective behind this campaign was to promote the art of calligraphy among Polish junior high school students and to create public awareness about the fact that beautiful writing is a disappearing skill. In the 7 years of this campaign's operation, it has received almost 30 thousand entries from junior high school pupils. The campaign invited the following celebrities to help promote beautiful writing: Katarzyna Dowbor, Maciej Stuhr, Andrzej Pągowski, Katarzyna Grochola, Jacek Santorski, Ania Dąbrowska and Barbara Rogalska.  www.ladnepisanie.pl

This project was held from September 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008 and had been the first outreach campaign of such importance pertaining to EU funds in Poland. Directed toward the younger generation, its objective was to broaden the public awareness about the possibilities of obtaining EU funds in Poland in the years 2007-2013. In the course of this campaign, Academic Business Incubators have published a free youth magazine with the aim of promoting European funds, which contained articles encouraging young people to start a private enterprise with the support of EU funds.

Millionaire School

The Millionaire School, a part of Academic Business Incubators, is the only school in Poland offering courses on how to operate an enterprise and achieve success. The aim of the Millionaire School is to provide support for people with innovative ideas. Its participants are students, Ph.D. candidates and graduates (up to 12 months since graduation), personnel of research and science institutions and employees of small- and microenteprises. The whole project consists of three stages: School of Innovation, a four-day field course with the aim of developing innovativeness; individual counseling, during which participants of the Millionaire School can receive counseling from mentors, coaches, pro-innovative counselors, patent attorneys and finance brokers; course on conducting business activities, which supplements prior experience on the matter.

The aim of this initiative is to introduce a new quality in creating entrepreneurship in Poland by means of providing young people who wish to start their private enterprise with a broad range of tools crucial to fulfilling their ideas. This contest is aimed at young people under 30 years of age who wish to start a private enterprise and at students in particular as those who have the biggest potential in knowledge, creativeness and innovation, which, when put to good use, can become the dominant factor shaping the economic development of Poland in the future. The contest was held for the first time in 2004 and resulted in the creation of approx. 2500 companies operating within ABI. In the course of the whole contest, over 3700 individuals have sent in their business plans and ABI experts have trained approx. 10 thousand people. www.biznesplany.pl 

 Innovators

 The "Innovators 2009" programme, implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, is aimed at young, entrepreneurial and creative Polish citizens from the academia: students, graduates, Ph.D. candidates and academic research workers. The project is divided into five stages (5 x I): Information, Inspiration, Innovation, Incubation and Investment. Thanks to "Innovators 2009", originators of the most innovative ideas - selected by a board of judges - will be given the opportunity of putting them into practice. The professional support in improving on the initial business idea and creating the necessary environment for testing one's idea in conditions protected under the ABI preincubation programme enable young scientists to fulfill their dreams and enter the business world. Thanks to our partnership with ABI Seed Capital, those companies which show the most potential for innovation will be able to receive equity investments and comprehensive business support. This will give the best Innovators of 2009 a head start on the market without having to find an investor, who would hesitate to allocate his funds for such a project.

Experts from ABI ran the project "Poland as a business region - a course in entrepreneurship" in partnership with Business Centre Club. The aim of this project was to shape entrepreneurial attitudes among young Poles in schools. The programme was aimed at senior year students from post-secondary schools located in Warsaw and provided knowledge indispensable in creating a private enterprise.

Business Mixer

A series of modern business meetings for young entrepreneurs organised by Academic Business Incubators and held in multiple institutions of higher education in Poland. Aimed at young, active individuals, students and entrepreneurs, this programme was designed to respond to their needs - inspire them to take action and create new possibilities of development. In the course of each meeting, young people were able to obtain practical knowledge on operating one's own enterprise from the big shots of business, economists, economy-oriented politicians and business psychologists. Among the invited speakers were Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Janusz Palikot, Zbigniew Niemczycki, Grażyna Kulczyk, Maciej Grabski, Ludwik Sobolewski and Wiesław Rozłucki.