MIT Enterprise Forum is a global organization of committed professionals developing a network of local branches, cooperating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It helps business technology entrepreneurs at an early stage of development of their ideas, offering the support of mentors and experts in various fields. In Poland, for the first time it runs its program as MIT Enterprise Forum Poland, under the auspices of The Ministry of Development and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
“Our vision is to create a better world by contributing to the development of world-class technology companies. And our mission is coaching and education for technology entrepreneurs, so that they can transform their ideas into companies quickly,” says Paweł Bochniarz, president of Foundation for Technology Enterprise which runs the MIT Enterprise Forum Poland acceleration program.
MIT Enterprise Forum Poland began its operations with a series of workshops for qualified companies. The meetings, which the representatives of the start-ups selected for the program attend every two weeks, help them refine their business models and prepare to carry out a presentation for investors.
“For us, the workshops are primarily an opportunity to gain invaluable knowledge of pitching, i.e. effective presentation of oneself and one’s products. Our coach is Dr Linda Plano, who has already helped more than 600 start-ups worldwide obtain financing amounting to over $250,000,000,” says Sebastian Młodziński, XTPL CEO.
The program helps the most promising Polish start-ups to develop, revealing the secrets of effective business operations and preparing them for operations in the international arena.
“I have been doing my scientific work for many years, but in business I’m really new and I need to learn how to present the company and our product so as to attract potential investors. The workshops we take part in as part of MIT Enterprise Forum Poland are a source of extremely valuable knowledge. We feel we know more with each workshop session; the experts train us using a method made up of 24 steps which lead to an effective use of a start-up’s potential, developed by Prof. Bill Aulet, who is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center,” says Filip Granek, PhD, Eng, one of two scientists developing the method at XTPL.
The workshops are not just about acquiring knowledge but also about evaluating the start-ups for their business potential. The top 5 teams will qualify for the second stage of acceleration, which will be held in June at the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The selected start-ups will also be described in the MIT Technology Review – the most opinion-forming new-technology magazine, for technology investors and consumers worldwide to read about.
MIT EF was founded in 1978 and is the only global not-for-profit organization focused on supporting technological entrepreneurship affiliated with a university.
XTPL is a technology company founded by prominent Polish scientists. The company develops Transparent Conductive Films – TCF which are applied as transparent electrodes in thin-film solar cells and liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
Source: XTPL
Photo © XTPL – Filip Granek and Zbyszek Rozynek