Demo Day 3. Experts evaluated startups from Hub of Talents 3

Demo Day 3. Experts evaluated startups from Hub of Talents 3
On December 17, the third edition of Demo Day within the Hub of Talents 3 startup platform took place at the Bialystok Science and Technology Park. The event brought together startups, experts, investors, and business partners, who had the opportunity to see up close the results of several months of work by teams developing their projects at BSTP.
 
Twenty-five startups presented on stage, operating in areas such as artificial intelligence, health, education, energy, industry, and ecology. Each team had 5 minutes for pitching and another 5 minutes for questions and feedback from the jury.

The event opened with a lecture by Beata Cichocka-Tylman, innovation expert and recipient of the Business Angel of the Year 2022 award, titled – Innovation in Motion: How to Overcome Paradoxes and Build Startups that Change the World – Innovation is not a linear process, but a dynamic movement full of tensions between science, market, and capital – she emphasized. She described the scientist–founder–investor relationship as “one dream and three different languages,” noting that the startup in this setup usually focuses on a single goal – surviving the next quarter.

She encouraged startups to test solutions quickly, treat prototypes as “needed yesterday,” engage in frequent customer conversations, and build psychological resilience within teams. She appealed to investors to look beyond the numbers and notice organizational culture and founders’ adaptability, and to scientists to simplify, separate experiments from perfection, and collaborate more often on market solutions.

The lecture was enriched with inspiring examples showing how easily real customer needs can be missed and how crucial it is to understand the essence of business and have the courage to follow emerging opportunities. Beata Cichocka-Tylman’s presentation set the tone for the entire Demo Day 3, emphasizing that innovation starts with action, attentiveness, and readiness to change direction.

Projects were evaluated by independent specialists representing the world of innovation, business, and science: Beata Cichocka-Tylman, innovation expert; Damian Wojciech Prałat from Effective sp. z o.o.; Ernest Konrad Wawryniuk from Infini Seed sp. z o.o.; Andrzej Chmielewski from Bialystok University of Technology; and Piotr Koral, President of the Board at Investin sp. z o.o.

Seventy percent of the highest-rated teams received a recommendation to apply for a grant of up to PLN 600,000 from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (component IIa, action 1.1 FEPW), which for many startups may become a key step toward business commercialization and scaling.

Barbara Supińska / BSTP