After last year's debut of the Polish stand, during the edition which gathered over 2,700 exhibitors and approximately 100,000 participants, Warsaw wants to build a brand of domestic technology and technology in Barcelona this year open the doors to new markets for Polish companies.
During this year's edition in Barcelona, the Polish national stand was officially opened for the second time in history, which Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Paweł Olszewski described as an element of Poland's consistent presence in “the most important places in the world”. As he emphasized, the pavilion is primarily a tool for strengthening business relations and is intended to bring “real profit” to Polish enterprises through bilateral meetings and building contacts.
The rest of the article below the video:
The deputy minister reminded that Poland does not come to Barcelona as an observer, but actively promotes its potential and “fights for new markets”, taking advantage of the fact that MWC is one of the key points on the map of the global telecommunications and digital industry.
Paweł Olszewski, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs
|
Grzegorz Kowalczyk / Grzegorz Kowalczyk
The deputy minister will meet with Musk's rival
In a conversation with journalists, Deputy Minister Olszewski pointed out that the presence at MWC is also an opportunity to talk about future large technological events in Poland. The Ministry of Digitization is involved in the Cybersec Forum, and in parallel – as he said – Minister of Finance Andrzej Domański is conducting talks regarding Web Summit, although their final outcome has not been decided yet.
The Polish administration is also interested in the MWC solutions that can be used in defense. In response to a question from Business Insider, Deputy Minister Paweł Olszewski admitted that his agenda included, among others: meeting with Open Cosmos, which develops satellite technologies and solutions intended to be an alternative to systems Starlink type, and the Polish delegation is to visit one of its plants in Barcelona. The British-based company now also operates in Spain and Portugal and works on Earth observation for scientific and defense purposes.
As reported by Britain's The Telegraph, Open Cosmos today announced plans for a new orbital network called ConnectedCosmos, which it claims will counter Europe's “over-reliance on transcontinental mega-constellations.” The company wants to produce up to 200 satellites a year and create infrastructure that will make the Old Continent independent of Elon Musk's solution.
Polish companies in Barcelona
At the Polish stand you can see a cross-section of Polish companies and technological projects, from cybersecurity to telecommunications systems. There was also an exhibition of the Polish mObywatel and a number of private companies such as Asseco, STP Polska or Beyond.
mObywatel is a project that the Polish administration often boasts about
|
Grzegorz Kowalczyk / Grzegorz Kowalczyk
Traditionally, several companies also have their own stands at the fair, such as MaxCom, which provides phones for seniors, translators and payment rings, and Dynacon, which offers cybersecurity solutions for industry.
Building resilience
The inauguration of the Polish pavilion was attended by representatives of the government and diplomacy, headed by chargé d'affaires ai Monika Krzepkowska, who emphasized that the Spanish embassy remains open to entrepreneurs looking for opportunities on the Iberian Peninsula. Krzepkowska pointed out that Poland is “building its brand” and no longer has to justify the fact that it is one of the world's largest economies – its strength today is also to be measured by its resilience in a difficult geopolitical environment.
A key element of this resilience is to be technological security and technological sovereigntywhich – as she noted – are among the “hottest discussions at European level”. The participation of Polish companies at MWC, shoulder to shoulder with the Ministry of Digital Affairs, is intended to be proof that domestic technology enterprises are competitive, seek partnerships and are able to grow beyond the country's borders.
Promoting the Polish brand
The topic of cybersecurity and continuity of telecommunications services, as discussed by the President of the Office of Electronic Communications, Przemysław Kuna, is a strong topic in Barcelona. He emphasized that the role of the regulator is to coordinate activities and best serve the telecommunications sector, and the office remains open to dialogue with companies – both during MWC and in Warsaw.
Radosław Nielek, director of NASK, also drew attention to the importance of technological and digital sovereignty, reminding that this is another international meeting during which these topics are in the center of attention. According to him Polish institutions and companies have solutions that are “some of the best in the world”, and in some categories even “the best”and what was missing so far was recognition and the ability to systematically show them on global stages such as MWC.
NASK will present, among others: PLLuM (Polish Large Language Model), a family of Polish language models for automating official processes and tools for deepfake analysis.
Nielek emphasized that when it comes to the solutions themselves, people's competences and the scale of implementation, Poland “has nothing to be ashamed of.” The problem so far has been rather too little visibility of these solutions on the main world stages, and participation in MWC is supposed to change this and enable “going out into the open”.
State institutions as a business partner
Wojciech Łopatkiewicz, head of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency office in Madrid, emphasized that the agency invited the opening participants to a networking meeting organized at the Polish stand, which was to become the place for the first talks about potential contracts. The joint presence of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the regulator, NASK and PAIH is to create – as stated by the institution's representatives – the fullest possible support ecosystem: from regulation and security, to promotion and specific business profits.
From Barcelona, Grzegorz Kowalczyk, journalist of Business Insider Polska
