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The Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology is planning to create a technological campus to cluster all Polish cybersecurity specialists in one place. This autumn, the project’s operator is going to be selected. The business accelerator is based on solutions applied in Israel and its role is to reinforce Poland's security and attract investors from the IT sector to our country.

The Polish priority National Space Programme, to be implemented over the coming 2-3 years, is going to be ready in the second half of the year. Poland is also in talks regarding the accession to the European SST Consortium which performs space surveillance and tracking. “The domestic sector has an opportunity to participate in the new financing perspective after 2021,” the President of the Polish Space Agency said. The Agency itself is also due to undergo major changes in the upcoming months. These events might elevate the use of satellite technologies in the country to a new level.

Business angels are increasingly active in Poland. According to the Startup Poland foundation, 33 percent of Polish start-ups took advantage of the services of domestic and foreign business angels. The EBAN data shows that the three most frequently chosen industries are technology, ICT and healthcare. The Vice-President of the largest European organisation of business angels believes that the next five years will be promising for the whole CEE region, and Poland will be the first choice among investment locations.

“In Poland there is a need for providing financing not only to small start-ups but also to larger projects, which require the involvement of greater sums of money,” said Krzysztof Domarecki, Founder of the Fidiasz investment fund. According to one of the richest Poles and the man behind the success of the Selena group, investors should apply more stringent criteria to the projects they support. One should search for the first Polish unicorn among fintech or e-commerce companies; however, in the longer term, it can also be found in industry or biotechnology.

Support offered by business angels to young companies in Poland is still much smaller than in developed Western European countries, but it is continuously increasing. Several hundred people are dealing with such investments, while in Germany or the United Kingdom, there are several thousand such individuals. They not only help to acquire capital but also support companies with knowledge of corporate governance, information policy and investor relations. Such support will also be offered to the winners of the CEE-Released competition, which will select 15 best young companies at an early stage of development in Central and Eastern Europe.

Automation might have a good effect on the level of wages and salaries in the Polish economy. It may also solve the problem of labour shortages which impede the development of businesses. An industrial robot costs from several hundred thousand to million zlotys, but it is an investment with a short payback time – it pays back as quickly as within a year or two, thus increasing efficiency and giving the business a competitive edge. This, in turn, results in lower costs and extra revenues. In Poland, industrial robots are used primarily in the automotive, chemical and steel industries.

A designed-from-scratch, more modular and spacious Citroën Berlingo, and a new C4 Cactus after a facelift, equipped in a number of technological innovations – these two were the main stars presented by the brand during the Motor Show in Poznań. But Citroën has a few more premières up its sleeve, including C5 Aircross, a large D-segment SUV, which is to appear in stores in the second half of the year. This year the concern aims to sell 17,500 cars and delivery trucks on the Polish market. The C3 continues to be its best-selling model.

Energy poverty, which affects up to 4.6 m people in Poland, the problem of smog in towns and cities, cyber-security of power plants and the digitisation of the power industry as a whole – these are only some of the challenges that can be addressed through energy sector innovation. Start-ups provide completely new solutions and perceive business in an entirely different way compared to traditional, conservative energy businesses.

Poland has been the European leader in window exports for three years. DOVISTA Polska, which belongs to the same capital group as the roof window producer VELUX, has just finished an expansion project, which is going to boost its position as a producer and exporter. The company invested PLN 22 m in the new 11,000 sq. m distribution centre. This project will help the company increase its production by 10-15 percent this year and create 100 new jobs. The factory in Wędkowy is the largest facility manufacturing wooden windows in Poland and one of the biggest employers in Pomerania.