At the beginning of December, the SPACE.CONNECT ESA Technology Transfer conference was held in Warsaw (Poland). The conference covered business and scientific topics. It was organized at Brain Embassy, together with Absiskey Polska/ABGi Poland, Krakow Technology Park and the Polish Space Industry Association. The event promoted the innovation of young inventors and entrepreneurs whose ideas were appreciated and awarded by the organizers. Extremely important and valuable for SPACE.CONNECT conference was the substantial support of the Polish Space Agency and ESA BIC Poland together with the Industrial Development Agency – the Polish branch of the European Space Agency business incubator.
SPACE.CONNECT was an excellent opportunity to establish new business relations, but its main goal was to find a common communication channel between companies from the SPACE sector (representing the so-called New Space trend), and enterprises from other industries, such as: energy, automotive, telecommunications, or mining. The entire ESA Broker Technology Transfer project deployed in Warsaw on the Vistula River by Absiskey Polska/ABGi Poland, Krakow Technology Park, and the Polish Space Industry Association, is primarily intended to lead to the very first successful transfer of technology (proven worth in the space industry) from the entity operating in the space industry into another, civilian and more “grounded” branch of the economy, and continuing this fruitful technology transfer path in the future.
The initiators of the program believe that an innovative field of the space industry can effectively share implemented solutions, becoming a driving force for the entire economy of modern countries. To carry out the transfer, ESA has provided specific financial resources under the ESA Spark Funding program in Poland, which guarantees up to EUR 75,000 (Phase 1) for one project, to be divided between both parties: technology deliver and recipient.
On the 7th of December, during the SPACE.CONNECT meeting, various experts spoke about topics, instruments, and solutions that may help local entrepreneurs develop their businesses. Kinga Gruszecka from the Polish Space Agency talked about sources of external financing for Polish entities. As a consequence of the increased Polish contribution to ESA, on the table, there is 200 million PLN available to be invested.
Representatives of the European Space Agency – Mercedes Sánchez Álvarez and Leopold Summerer –
introduced the aspects of patents and software available at ESA and provided detailed information about the ESA OSIP platform, where you can apply for grants dedicated to innovative and novel ideas being yet at their initial level.
Jarosław Chojnacki from the Krakow Technology Park talked about the method for effective pitching. Paweł Kwiatkowski from Absiskey Polska/ABGi Poland presented the list of winners of the ESA
Technology Transfer competition, which are:
1st price: HydroPure with a prize of EUR 10,000,
2nd price: MIRORES with a prize of EUR 10,000,
3rd price: Lemon5 with a prize of EUR 5,000,
4th price in UniTest with a prize of EUR 5,000.
The ESA TT competition organizer distinguished also the Poznan-based company – ITTI, which delivered its technology ready for transfer and co-worked with UniTest on the competition solution. They also received a prize of EUR 5,000 for their contribution. In the next articles, we will present you the granted innovative solutions developed by awarded companies.
At the conference introduced their potential also: PIAP Space, ITTI, WiRan, and Arobs Polska, who showed to the audience their space technologies, potentially ready for transfer to other sectors. Apart from them, the space sector was represented by another experienced company – Scanway from Wroclaw (Poland). Among the conference’s guests appeared also Space startups, which are developing with the significant support of ESA BIC Poland: Astroteq.ai, Asynchronics, Extremo Technologies, Orbital Matter, and Supercluster.
During the matchmaking session, approximately 70 conversations between space and non-space business entities were initiated. Let’s hope this is just the beginning of their great partnership. Further planned events and meetings within ESA Broker Technology Poland will be described in the upcoming months. There is a chance that a successful transfer of technology from the SPACE industry to other business sectors will occur soon in Poland.
For more information about the ESA Broker Poland initiative and the technology transfer grants
check: https://esabroker.pl/
