Coming up with an idea for a good technological product is the key, but even the best concept is bound to go to waste without research, investment, promotion, teamwork and well-planned processes. How can you turn your idea into a business? Ericpol, together with guests from the USA, Sweden, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, will attempt to answer this question during the Ericpol Innovation Pathway workshop which will take place this January in Zakopane.

This three-day, free-of-charge workshop on innovation and processes for the implementation of innovative solutions in the IT sector will take place on January 13-15th, 2012, in the Kalatówki mountain hostel. The workshop’s theme is ‘Sharing knowledge and experience’.

The event will be attended by, among others, Tomas Qvist, Vice President of the Swedish Ericsson corporation, Doug Solomon, Chief Technology Officer at IDEO – an American consultancy specializing in the field of innovation, Nicolas Kireeff of Deutsche Telekom AG and several representatives from other successful companies. Lectures and discussion sessions have been designed with a view to covering the so-called 8 P’s: idea, R&D projects, money, promotion, problems, failures, teamwork, process and chance (in Polish: Pomysł, Prace R&D, Pieniądze, Promocja, Problemy, Porażki, Praca zespołowa, Proces i przypadek).

Ericpol Innovation Pathway 2012 will provide an unprecedented amount of time for discussion for both experienced market players from Europe and the United States and technological companies which have the potential to develop attractive and innovative products. The idea behind the workshop is to initiate a dialogue between IT and ICT specialists with many years of expertise and small and medium enterprises representing this sector. Both entrepreneurs and people involved in research and development projects have been invited to take part. Participants in the meeting will try to answer the questions of how Polish companies can contribute to the global process of technological development; how ideas can be turned into fame and fortune; how to plan a good business and marketing strategy for technological products; how to find partners and how to introduce a product to the global market.

The very form of the workshop to be held as part of the first Ericpol Innovation Pathway 2012 seminar is supposed to make it different from other, more traditional business events. ‘Our goal is to provide the participants with a friendly and casual atmosphere, where intelligent discussion can be held by people wearing jeans and sweaters, looking forward to sharing their experiences. It is by no accident that the meeting is scheduled to take place in the Kalatówki mountain hostel, as it is the place where the first Polish school of alpine skiing was founded one hundred years ago. We are taking our backpacks and skiing equipment with us and leaving our business suits at home. We hope that this atmosphere will provide comfortable conditions for discussion.

Poland has produced some of the most outstanding engineers, but in order to develop interesting products for international markets, we need to become part of the knowledge and experience exchange process. We hope that Ericpol Innovation Pathway will contribute to the stimulation of technological development and growth in Poland,’ explains Jan Malkiewicz, originator of the seminar.