Highlights from the Enactus Poland National Competition

• July 14, 2016
• By: Tona Rowett

When more than 400 people met in Warsaw on 6 June at Kinoteka for the 2016 Enactus Poland National Competition, the students, alumni, faculty members, and business leaders in attendance had an experience far beyond a competition. In addition to being inspired by the amazing impact made by the 11 teams that presented, they had the unique opportunity to hear from two amazing speakers.

The first was Szymon Kudła, a Warsaw School of Economics graduate who has been a business speaker for nearly 20 years, including a four-year position lecturing at the Postgraduate Study Program at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw. His inspirational speech focused on our personal journeys and offered inspiration for a joyous and meaningful life through stories of courage, perseverance, passion and open-mindedness. His 20-minute address covered lessons from both the business and sports worlds, interlaced with vivid, cross-generational stories from his multicultural family. The second was Małgorzata Szczepańska, Director of Innovation for the Ministry of Economic Development who highlighted the importance of cooperation between business and universities to create innovation and bring dynamic economic growth.

Thoroughly inspired, delegates turned their focus to the competition with more than 100 executives serving as judges in the opening round and facing the tough task of selecting the finalist teams. That afternoon, the finalists took to the main stage and gave their best presentations in hopes of being selected as the 2016 Enactus Poland National Champion. In the end, judges selected the team from University of Lodz, who will now start preparing to represent their country at the Enactus World Cup this September in Toronto, Canada. You can see the announcement here, captured on the Enactus Poland Facebook page!

The team’s flagship project, Sweet Help, was particularly impressive to judges: there are 3.5 million people in Poland alone living with diabetes, and 85% of Type One diabetics are children. After learning this, the team saw an opportunity to help families deal with this health issue while also offering an engagement opportunity to the elderly population. They created a platform that trained interested senior citizens in the management of diabetes in children, while giving parents the chance to hire one of these individuals as caregivers for their child. In many cases, this allowed the parents to return to full-time employment while creating new jobs for the senior citizens involved.

The event received significant media coverage including articles in Rzeczpospolita, a national newspaper, and business magazine MyCompany Polska. And check out this great LinkedIn blog post by Paulina Mazur, Employer Branding and Talent Development Manager at BIGRAM S.A. and Enactus Poland Country Leader who shares her thoughts on why Enactus students are so inspiring.

Want more highlights from this year’s Enactus Poland National Competition? Find them here, in this great flashback video!