SUMMARY
9th Annual
ABSL Conference

Poland. The place to grow.
06-08.06.2018 Poznań

Almost 1100 unique guests representing global business, national and local authorities, media representatives from leading newspapers and magazines, including Financial Times, Puls Biznesu, Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna gathered in Poznań to be part of the 9th edition of ABSL Conference “Poland. The place to grow”.

This year’s agenda featured three tracks: Business & Markets, People and Technology.

Lots of discussions and inspirations within each theme path, including agile talents, technology influencing sector in a positive way and development of the cities’ competiveness. A lot of statistics, trends and predictions. Exciting finale of Start-up Challenge won by Shelfwise and Timate awarded with the Audience Award. And last but not least – keynote speaker – incredible Simon Sinek with his more than inspiring thoughts on infinite leadership.

Conference Facts

1 100

participants

3

breakout streams

80

speakers

700

guests during
Off Agenda Events

35

Conference Partners

56,000+

people reached
on social media

Dozens
of media publications

ABSL Start-Up Challenge

Final of the third edition of ABSL Start‑Up Challenge

130 start-ups applications

8 ABSL Start-Up Challenge finalists

This year saw the third finale of ABSL Start-Up Challenge, a unique platform for young entrepreneurs to network and cooperate with large corporations. In this edition, we visited 8 Polish cities during the semifinals to pick who will get the chance to present in Poznań.
Among the final eight, Shelfwise was chosen as the winner, gaining the opportunity to partake in Polish Tech Day 2018 in London.

The start-up was also granted with the special prize by Main Partner of the contest – Procter and Gamble. Waywer was prized by the Nationwide Patron of ABSL Start-Up Challenge – PLUGin. Olivia Business Centre - Partner of the contest handed its prize to Timate. The company also got the Public Choice Award.

Poznań – the Host City of the Conference

Poznań is one of the most rapidly developing cities in the CEE region, strongly associated with business, known for supporting investors. What Poznań can offer to investors? How important is the modern business services sector here? Can we talk about some specific specialties of business services that are particularly well-suited to Poznań? Read the interview with Jacek Jaśkowiak, Mayor of Poznań and Katja Lõžina, Investor Relations Department Director at Poznań City Hall.