The Hub for Central and Eastern European Innovation Start-up opens up in Warsaw with €4M pilot programme.
The Warsaw-based non-for-profit foundation StartUp Hub Poland (SHP) along with the Polish National Center for Research and Development (PCR&D) and Giza Polish Ventures (GPV) announced today the opening of the first innovation hub dedicated to inventors from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). SHP mission is to help the innovators and entrepreneurs from the CEE region to start-up hightech companies and strengthen innovation in the region. Startup Hub Poland has just announced its first call for submission of applications from prospective innovators.
Poland’s economy is the European growth champion since 1989, more than doubling its GDP in that period. The recent report by The Economist along with the OECD “Survey of Poland” Poland as an open, prosperous and business-oriented economy ready to undertake global challenges together with its closest neighbors. Marcin Piatkowski, World Bank Senior Economist and the author of a World Bank report on “Poland’s New Golden Age” argues that “Poland has a big potential to become the global springboard for innovative startups from the CEE region”. This would encompass contries like countries like Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia or Slovakia.
There is a great deal of creativity to be unleashed in the CEE region. StartUp Hub Poland is an unique place for CEE inventors and business pioneers to prove their concepts, work with experienced mentors and make use of grants amounting to up to € 400.000 for the best teams - said Marek Borzestowski, founder of Wirtualna Polska, one of the largest Internet portals in Poland and a seasoned venture capitalist, who came up with the idea of creating SHP. Apart from money and career opportunities, the support and local expertise is crucial while moving to a new environment. SHP will help inventors to with EU visas and provide all necessary logistical support. The SHP staff is multinational and multilingual, speaking English, Polish, Ukrainian and Russian.
Teams from different countries, carrying different experiences and competences should have a common space to work. The SHP will allow talents from the CEE region to mix and collaborate. New ideas and inventions should follow. This kind of cooperation is warmly welcomed by Polish authorities. “At the beginning of the free-market transformation Poland enjoyed important support from the U.S. America successfully promote entrepreneurship in Poland and today
Poland wants to support its Region based on those experiences” says the Minister Advisor of the President of Poland, prof. Roman Kuźniar. Polish President is very active in supporting regional CEE sturtup environment. He has recently announced a start of a $100M fund for SMEs in Ukraine.
Warsaw, the host city of the SHP, becomes an increasingly important player on the European start-up landscape. “Our city is ready to be a start-up capital not only for Poland, but also for business pioneers from Ukraine and other neighboring countries. Warsaw is smart, hospitable and welcoming for peoplecoming here” says Michał Olszewski, Deputy Major of city of Warsaw. “Warsaw is very active in supporting regional CEE sturtup environment. It is our city that has been chosen by Google to found the first Google Campus in the CEE” says Olszewski.
Initiatives like Warsaw based HUB will facilitate actual integration between the CEE and EU markets in a new way. Not by providing inexpensive and well trained labor but through wellorganized innovative startups building the reputation of our Region and ready to compete on a global scale.
StartUp Hub Poland (SHP) is an NGO created to gather international experts and capital investment into Hub for regional tech&business pioneers to support and guide them from a disrupting idea stage, throughout proof of principle and proof of concept into a promising startup able to win global markets. Its main focuses are clean-, nano-, bio-tech, new materials, robotics as well as on ICT and software applications in any field of industry.
Twitter: @HubSHP
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