If you want to be in the know, you just had to be there! What were we talking about? Last week, at the IMPACT’23, the most prestigious economic and technological event in Central and Eastern Europe, we had a chance to see many great guests from all over the world. One of them was Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a trader, mathematician, and author of the famous „Black Swan”, one of the most influential books published after the second world war. He shared with us his thought which is, that bad times, and a bad economy can be a great chance to come up with an idea for a business.

Since we have mentioned the black swan before, if you remember the movie with the exact same title, you must remember the phenomenal role that resulted in an Oscar for the incredibly talented Natalie Portman. Yes, Natalie Portman also took part in the event and told the audience how amazed she is by the support Polish people have given to Ukrainian refugees. The next key speaker was Adam Tooze, a great historian with a financial background who has recently in the media referred to Poland as an economic powerhouse.

We particularly liked the speech given by Miron Mironiuk from Cosmose, the Polish shining star in the IT industry. He said that Poland rocks when it comes to engineers. As we employ engineers we couldn’t agree more! Also, he praised AI for its many possibilities. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that tools like that are like a double-edged sword, it all depends on how they are used.

As Paweł Kubiński, from our Commercialization Department, said: „There were so many quotes worth passing on”. For instance, Michał Gajewski, president of Santander Bank Polska: „Better be a warrior in the garden than the gardener on the war… just be prepared.”

To wrap it up, a big thank you to Remigiusz Kopoczek, PhD, for mentioning us (who said from the stage on our water sensors being developed by Kiranmai Uppuluri, MSc, and about how they improve water quality).

See you next year!