The French are coming ! 33entrepreneurs to hold Warsaw pitch contest

33entrepreneurs, a French startup accelerator, is heading to Poland looking for local talent- particularly those specializing in three pillars of French pride: wine, food and tourism. The search culminates at the UX Conference Warsaw on Monday, April 20th, with a fast and furious pitch contest. Winners of the 33entrepreneurs prize, as selected by an expert jury, will have access to a prize pool of over 250,000€. This includes a one week of free coaching in Bordeaux, valued at 10,000€, travel expenses and three years free access to Microsoft Software.

In search for digital and tech innovation in promising markets, the 33entrepreneurs team has traveled all across Europe for a year to meet with key startup ecosystem actors.  Their series of startup pitch contests aims to find and support startups that want to grow internationally, along with building important partnership with other accelerators like H-Farm Ventures (Italy), Lisbon Challenge and BGI in Portugal, the Global Accelerator Network and Techstars (USA).

33entrepreneurs Founder and CEO, Vincent Prêtet, has an eye for a specific type of startup the team will be looking for in Poland.

“We are looking for Tech oriented StartUps that push forward game changing products or services in the wine, food and tourism industries. Entrepreneurs, we believe that success mainly relies on the quality of the team — its members' competences, complementarity and ability to create great relationships,” says Prêtet “We are seeking startups that solve real customer pain points and have a profound impact on their market. We want to be part of each adventure from the very beginning.”

Teams that apply to pitch in 33entrepreneurs’ pitch contests are also considered for the three-month Accelerator Program. Based in Bordeaux, the Program leads with a great place to work, at La Bourse Maritime in the very heart of Bordeaux. Alongside this is competitive pre seed-investments and help for settling during the program (15,000€ for less than 4% equity), highly skilled mentors and an Accelerator Program that has proven its efficiency. At the conclusion of each ‘cuvee’, 33entrepreneurs may then reinvest up to 200,000€ into the most promising teams.

Polish startups looking to apply to pitch may do so through the 33entrepreneurs webpage (http://www.33entrepreneurs.net/event.php?event_id=27).

For further information about the contest, or 33entrepreneurs, please contact Sarah Phillips. (sarah@33entrepreneurs.co)

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Saule Technologies Chosen Polish Startup of the Year

Adrian Senecki

Saule Technologies has just received Poland’s Startup of the Year award. Olga Malinkiewicz’s venture is aiming to use the perovskite mineral to create easy-to-attach material and facilitate the use of solar energy. Other awarded startups include InPay and Brand24.

During a recent award ceremony, organized as part of the Entrepreneurial Poland (EP) project, it was Olga Malinkiewicz, the researcher behind Saule Technologies, that attracted the most attention. The jury, which included the current Marshal of the Polish Sejm (Congress) Radosław Sikorski, EP’s Darek Żuk, T-Mobile’s Milan Zika and Krzysztof Dzięcioł as well as Krzysztof Kaczmar from Kronenberg’s Banking Foundation, picked her venture as the best in Poland. But the real challenge for Saule Technologies is just beginning.

Saule Technologies – where science and business meet

Olga Malinkiewicz has long been researching perovskite minerals and the method of producing solar cells based on them. Unlike the popular Oxford methodology, involving the usage of temperatures as high as 500°C degrees, Saule Technologies came up with one that worked at room temperature. Better yet, it can be molded into all kinds of elastic pieces that can be integrated with just about any surface to turn it into a little solar battery.

“I believe in this technology and I am convinced that it will succeed. The commercialization of new methods of perovskite production can make the world a better place,” said Malinkiewicz.

While Malinkiewicz is the head of the scientific part of Saule Technologies’ operations, Piotr Krych and Artur Kupczanas help make the solution “a thing”. According to them, it is instrumental for scientists to work closely with business and marketing experts to make sure that the solution receives the proper exposure, target and a fighting chance on the market.

“Even though we can’t compete with, say, German salaries or the cultural offer of London, we definitely can compare what we offer to budding businesses. We may not be right at the top in terms of innovation just yet, but when I look at the startup companies here, I truly believe this may change.”

Malinkiewicz was also named as one of the top 50 most creative business people in Poland in 2014 by the Polish marketing magazine Brief.

Two more startup companies, InPay and Brand24, were recognized by the jury. InPay’s goal is to facilitate the use of the Bitcoin digital currency. InPay offers solutions that makes it a lot easier for businesses to implement Bitcoin payments. Brand24 is an internet monitoring tool already active in as many as 30 countries all over the world, including Qatar and Indonesia.

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!
This is a re-post of an article that appeared on Bitspiration.com on March 26, 2015

Romanian IoT startup, DeviceHub.net, receives 80,000 Euro from Hub:raum Krakow

DeviceHub.net Team

Romanian startup, DeviceHub.net -  which provides cloud services for the Internet of Things communication, receives 80,000 € from Hub:raum Krakow, the Innovation Hub for the CEE region of Deutsche Telekom Group.The team will receive funding to develop their project, support from the Hub:raum Krakow, mentors, as well as market access to 150 million Deutsche Telekom Group customers all over Europe.

Romanian startup DeviceHub.net was selected the winner in the 3rd edition of WARP turbo accelerator in December 2014, ahead of other projects from different European countries.  As a result of further talks regarding potential investment, the team was invited to join the incubation program. The project will receive financing of 80.000€, co-working space, and the possibility to work closely with mentors who will support the team throughout the execution of the project. On top of everything, through the cooperation with Hub:raum Krakow, DeviceHub.net will receive access to the Deutsche Telekom experts and know-how, as well as a base of 150 million customers of the Group in Europe with the possibilities of cooperation including marketing campaigns or bundling with telecoms’ offers. 

DeviceHub.net is a cloud service for Internet of Things communication, that allows users (both makers and companies) to easily create services based on IoT, by connecting their Internet-enabled hardware projects to analysis and remote control systems. Practically, it is an IoT web platform which gathers data, summarises it and gives the possibility to remotely control connected devices. DeviceHub.net can be integrated with any kind of hardware and is specially designed for smart metering, fleet management, medical industry, home automation, IoT makers, automotive, wearables etc.

After OmniPaste, DeviceHub.net is the second Romanian start-up which receives financing from Hub:raum Krakow.

“With the growing importance of the Internet of Things global trend we are really glad to welcome DeviceHub.net on board. It’s a very promising project and I am impressed with the work the team has done so far. I believe that their passion and skills combined with our experience and assets at Deutsche Telekom Group will soon turn it into a commercial success” – says Jakub Probola, head of hub:raum Krakow. 

“We are very pleased to announce that we have successfully signed the investment agreement with hub:raum, the incubator of Deutsche Telekom. We are grateful we had the opportunity to participate in WARP in December 2014. Our partnership with Deutsche Telekom represents a major strategic and development opportunity for the entire DeviceHub.net maker community and it is a solid foundation for our roadmap to becoming the go-to platform for the Internet of Things.” – says Ionut Cotoi, CEO at DeviceHub.net

The announced investment is the next step taken by hub:raum Krakow to support innovative IoT projects. Recently, during Mobile World Congress the innovation hub announced a joint Internet of Things (IoT) accelerator “Challenge Up!” by Cisco, Deutsche Telekom and Intel that offers its program to early-stage startups from Europe, Middle East and Africa. Startups interested in joining the accelerator can apply here, until May 25th.

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!
This post originally appeared on DeviceHub.net 's blog.

Living beyond the Story

Malgorzata Dzik Holden

Innovation & Personal Freedom

The history of humanity on this planet from its earliest traces to the present time is a remarkable record of technological achievement.  Whether one considers the advances from smoke and drum signals to digital signals or from sailing ships to rocket ships, we have demonstrated a unique capacity for mastering our environment and providing a continuous increase in the length and comfort of human life.  However, what is equally remarkable is that though our technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, human being itself seems to be the weak link in the chain of development.  Though the content of our thinking is clearly different from that of our ancestors, the place we think from – namely survival – is the same.  Though our goals have clearly advanced since our beginnings, how we organize and communicate among ourselves to achieve them have not.  And though many of us live in political structures, which guarantee human rights, there is no evidence that we experience more freedom and aliveness.

In this experiential and practical 2½ day course we will explore fundamental themes in our personal and professional lives to enhance the way we live and work.  Our inquiry is designed to go beyond merely presenting new concepts and theories and instead will seek to open up a new way of being, leading to innovation and personal freedom.

• Innovation is not having new thoughts, but rather having a new place

from which to think.

• Personal freedom is not getting what you want, but rather discovering

who it is that wants it.

But innovative thinking and real freedom are only available beyond one’s story.

To find out about getting rid of the story go here: http://www.doowise.org/Site/listening_to_life.html

Come to our teleconference with David on at Ambasada Krakowian: https://www.facebook.com/events/354202484769352/

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Polish Startup community, wake up and smell the freaking coffee

Paul Chen

A few months ago, MOCAK Art museum in Krakow installed beacons produced by Kontakt.io.  It was installed by HG Intelligence.  All are Krakow companies.  The only information available is my article, this short bit on the HG Intelligence website, and this info on the MOCAK website.

Why isn't the Polish and Krakow startup community more excited about it? Finally a product, built in Krakow, can be used by Cracovians and not even a single peep?  Polish startup community thinks that having a Unicorn is the only thing that matters, and gain you validation.  Well, you are missing the point.  You want traction? This is a low pressure way to get traction and users.   I would have expected that Gazeta Wyborcza would have done something about it. I understand that the main actor in MOCAK is the art not the technology. But this article in the New York Times proves my point.  A certain VC partner would rather promote the NY Times article than a development right in his backyard.  For shame!

Marketing isn’t Poland’s best suit

Technology is installed to be used. So people should be using it. If the advertisement is so miniscule then, people will think that it isn't important.  So we should be seeing a TVN or a TVP Krakow report about it.  Get the press involved.  The whole startup community in Krakow should go to the museum and bask in the Bluetooth glory.  

I know that it isn't as sexy as retail applications of beacons where it is making money for some business, but this is where you are dead wrong.  Beacons in museums are the perfect way to introduce the technology to the public.  It is low commitment and people are more forgiving.  If the technology fails in retail, then it is investment lost and the store owners can raise a stink.  If it fails in a museum setting, people are not so angry because they still have beautiful art to enjoy. any you get a chance to see what is wrong and fix it.

Teens are hard to impress

It is also another way to get teenagers excited about the technology. Teens are a lot more receptive to new technology than adults. So having them use it at the museum might inspire some teens to want to start a startup in the future or get into coding.  Which in turn, insures the startup community more fresh talent in the future.  

I am not doing this because I love MOCAK. Although, I think it is a fine institution.  I am frustrated because of the lack of vision of the community.  Wake up and smell the damn coffee! Stop being all academic, looking for cute ways because the solution is right at the end of your noses.

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Polish VC, Innovation Nest organizes a Meetup to help Start-ups tackle the Recruitment Issue

Paul Chen

In many incubator and accelerator programs and some VC's, once a startup gets up to a certain level where they have raised millions of dollars in funding and/ or have acquired a large amount of customers and are earning revenue, the incubator and accelerator starts to phase out their involvement. Once in a while, it is encouraging to see a VC continue to develop their startups professionally even after that point. Piotr Wilam, the founder of Innovation Nest said that this meetup was organized to give startups a chance to connect with each other. They don't usually have a chance to talk and exchange ideas.

He would like to keep it as an invite only meetup inorder to connect the right type of people and to make the time spent more effective. Ideally, Mr. Wilam would like to hold a meet up every other month. And in the next meetups, he would like to invite startups and mentors for other parts of Poland as well as the rest of Europe.

The first meetup was in October where they talked about „getting your first 1000 paying customers”.  Their second meetup was held in December, where the topic was „Fundraising”.  On Friday March 6, 2015, they organized their third meetup.  This meetup was called „SAAS Meetup: People”.

There is a saying that circulates around the start-up community that states,”An investor doesn’t invest in your idea, he invests in you and your team.”

Such ideas are true. It is nice to have an really great idea, but it is great to make that idea into a reality.  As a start-up, you can’t do that without a great team. Larry Page had Sergey Brin for Google and Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak for Apple.  

In order to get your start-up to grow, your team needs to grow as well.  As a result, you will need a really well functioning team.  

Innovation Nest brought together three recruitment experts to Krakow for their meetup about building a great start-up team. And they had many bits of hard-won wisdom to pass on to the start-ups in attendance.

Ola Pszczola, HR Manager of Netguru, told them to hire slow and fire fast.  She emphasized that company branding is very important in getting good talent.  Ms. Pszczola also said that money is not always the most important recruitment tool.  Talented individuals often would like to get involved in a meaningful project.   She also hinted that if you must part with a colleague, make sure it is on pleasant terms to prevent backlash.  

Thor Muller, CIO of Off.Grid:Electric, told the group that your first three months will often indicate how it will go in your first three years with a hire.  He also advises that you put new recruits through a long and tough orientation process inorder to make sure that the new hire is on the same page as the rest of the company.  Mr. Muller emphaszied that constant communication is the best way to prevent any bad surprises.

David Bizer, Partner at Talent Fountain and ex-recruited of Netscape and Google, Said that company culture is one of the most important things that a start-up should establish in the beginning.  Like when you are getting into a new relationship, you should get to know what are each other’s core values.  He advises that a start-up should create a company culture that will help employees succeed.

Along with the keynotes, there was a two hour of speed mentoring with the partners of Innovation Nest, the expert speakers, Piotr Nedzynski (COO of Base), Jakub Kubrynski (CEO of DevSKiller), Paul Klipp (Product Manager of Kabanery), and Sam Cook (CEO of Prism Communications).

One of the most interesting parts of the day was the Open Space Technology  sessions. It was as the organizer called it, a longer coffee break. The cool thing is that there were topics like:

- How to establish company culture?

- How to measure/increase work efficiency?

- Hiring abroad?

The positive points of this approach is that you can join the discussion that interest you and that you can switch discussions when you want. Sometimes, the best way for a startup to solve a problem is to consult other startups. This was a wonderful opportunity to do so and to share some ideas and to understand that there are other startups that are going through the same growing pains as you.

„We are quite happy with the growth of the meetups.  This time we had about fifty start-ups participating, but we are shooting for one hundred start-ups in the next couple of meetups.” Marcin Szelag, Partner of Innovation Nest

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

This post was originally published in Polish on web.gov.pl, and was financed by PARP.

Explore the MOCAK museum with beacon technology

Paul Chen

“The future is now” according to MOCAK, a contemporary art museum based in Krakow, Poland. The museum has implemented beacon technology to enrich the experience of the public through its interactive exhibitions

For a few years now, the tech world and the media have been talking about the iBeacons as being the next disruption in retail. Business Insider says that it will be "the most important retail technology since the mobile card reader". By the end of 2018, they project that there will be over 4.5 million active beacon devices installed in retail spaces. They also report that half of the top 100 retailers are testing beacons this year. And one third of them will have beacons installed in their stores by the end of 2015. Business Insider Intelligence reports that over 570 million Android and Apple phones are able to interact using Bluetooth low energy (BLE) 4.0, which wakes their phones up with push messages.

For the most part the uses of beacon technology are set in the future and the general public has not had many chances to interact with iBeacons. Well, that has changed. A few months ago, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK) did more than just change the installations of some of their exhibits. They installed iBeacons. HG Intelligence SA, a Krakow-based start-up that provides beacon and cloud based solutions, was chosen as their technology partner for the task. Their main iBeacon supplier is Kontakt.io. Web.gov.pl talked with Szymon Niemczura about the installation:

"Beacons in museums can create an amazing experience. Kontakt.io beacons along with the great mobile app and content enable MOCAK visitors to experience a truly deep immersion. This is the future," said Szymon Niemczura, CEO of Kontakt.io.

Read more here....

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How to build beaconified Apple Watch apps using Estimote's SDK & Nearables Simulator

By: Estimote
Apple Watch’s debut is just around the corner but WatchKit, Apple’s framework for building Watch extensions for iPhone apps, has already been out for quite some time. We know that thousands of you have been eagerly waiting to start working on integrating iBeacon and nearables with the most exciting wearable of the season. So here it is: Estimote WatchKit SDK, consisting of an open-source demo app and a beta build of Estimote SDK 3.0, which includes tools to smoothen the Watch app ⇔ iOS app communication, and Nearables Simulator to go along with the Apple Watch simulator already available in Xcode.

How to build your first WatchKit app with stickers?

A quick recap on the architecture of the WatchKit app. We have the WatchKit app itself, it runs on the Watch and it’s only about the presentation layer. We have the WatchKit extension which resides on the phone and runs all the Watch-related code. This code is supposed to be lightweight, so it’s not a good candidate for beacon/stickers ranging and monitoring. And finally, we have the “parent” iOS app, also running on the phone, in a separate process — and that’s our perfect spot for any long-running, background tasks like monitoring.

There’s the catch: the WatchKit extension and the “parent” app live in separate processes and sandboxes, so if we’re to pass beacons or stickers ranging/monitoring results from the app into the extension, we need to employ some inter-process communication. Apple has naturally given developers all the necessary tools to do it, but at Estimote we went one step further to make sure that you can have your beacon-enabled Watch application up and running in no time. So let’s talk about ESTNotificationTransporter, the latest addition to the3.0 beta of the Estimote SDK. Shameless plug: there’s a lot of other changes coming in 3.0, and since it’s still in the beta phase, we would love to hear your feedback about it.

Read more here...

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Despite riding an entrepreneurial rollercoaster, Polish start-ups see a bright future

Paul Chen

After the successful launches of start-ups like Estimote, Base CRM and UXPin, the Polish start-up community is starting to witness how it feels to be in the rat race that is the global start-up market. One local VC feels that the Polish start-up community has what it takes to take our start-up game to the next level

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, once wrote: “First and foremost, a start-up puts you on an emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced.”

Poland, as a start-up community, has gone through the first stage of the rollercoaster, also known as startup transition cycle, where they have launched start-ups with great products and have raised quite a bit of money. Polish entrepreneurs learned a lot about how the global market functions. They know they have to scale their ventures fast. They also realize how tough it tends to be and how many fail to live up to the expectations – they entered another stage often referred to as “informed pessimism”. From now on they can either go all the way or crash and burn. How to tell whether a start-up is heading the right path? We talked this through with our today's guest...

We had a chance to talk to Bartek Gola, a VC and a founding partner of Speedup Group in Poznan, about all of those challenges and opportunities Polish start-ups are currently facing.

Bartek Gola is the Managing Partner of SpeedUp Group, an entrepreneur and innovator. He has co-created over a dozen technological start-ups. Speedup Group is a group of venture capital funds established in 2009. It was created by four partners who cooperated with one another for many years.

Read more...

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!