Our History
Our organisation dates back to 2014 when a one-off event for the Polish tech community in London took place (under the name of Polish Tech Networking). And when we noticed a need for regular meetings, Polish Tech Link was created. Within a year, a few irregular meetups in a coworking space in Shoreditch turned into monthly events on the top floor of one of London’s landmark skyscrapers.
Our flagship event, Polish Tech Day Conference, kicked off in 2015 in London, gathering about 170 participants and speakers representing the best Polish startups, enterprises and VCs. Other grant projects, including the Pitch To London competition and the Ambassadors of Polish Innovation, quickly followed in the next years.
Encouraged by the overall success of Polich Tech Link, we changed the name to PLUG. And we organised the first meetup - PLUGinWrocław, in 2016, wanting to expand beyond London with a mission to release the global potential of the Polish new economy by connecting, inspiring and empowering leaders of Poland’s technology innovations worldwide. Our ambition was to become more than just a series of meetups but to be a go-to organisation for the Polish tech and innovations sector looking to go global and an informal think tank, covering topics not only concerning the Polish tech ecosystem but also related to technology and its impact as a whole.
In the past few years, we focused on our flagship projects and introduced BizTalks, online workshops for those wanting to get to know more about the startup world from professionals. Since 2020, Polish Tech Day has been organised as an online conference with simultaneous panels and space for a new networking experience. In 2022, along with the virtual event, we gathered in three European cities - Warsaw, Paris and London, for three straight days of meetups. The same year, wanting to move closer towards a more coherent mission of helping Polish startups get international funding, the Investor Lunch was introduced to give space for selected businesses to present their work and mingle with the investors in a more intimate environment.
We keep changing for you - our community, partners and the Polish startup world. Hence, in 2023, PLUGin Foundation changed its name to Polish Tech Day - to embrace our heritage, while highlighting our values and mission.
Learn more about our new programme for 2023 here.
Our Projects
Polish Tech Day Conference
Created in 2015, Polish Tech Day (PTD) has been one of the most important technology conferences and our biggest project. The conference aimed to connect, inspire and empower the Polish innovation diaspora community members to develop innovative tech businesses and make an impact on a global scale. Having welcomed over 100 partners and sponsors and over 3000 participants so far, PTD was organised with passion by a dozen community members from different countries, reflecting the diverse nature of the Polonia. Over the years, we welcomed Marc Goodman, Małgorzata Bonikowska, Robert Biedroń, Marta Krupińska, and more.
Watch the previous editions here.
Ambassadors of Polish Innovation
Taking place since 2019, API Awards aimed to recognise and appreciate extraordinary individuals with Polish background that, with their actions within the innovation and technology sector, promote Poland on the international scene. The API winners include Tomasz Baginski, Rafal Brzoska, Agata Zborowska and Rafal Modrzewski. In 2021, the Rising Star category was introduced with its first winner - Zofia Kierner. In 2022, the Awards were given with the help of InCredible Inspirations by Sebastian Kulczyk and Polonium Foundation in three categories - API Rising Star, API Scientific Research and API Business Leader.
Watch the previous galas here.
Investor Lunch
Our great hit of 2022, Investor Lunch, was a natural evolution of one of our projects - Pitch To London (more about it below). While thanks to Pitch To London competition, Polish startups had a chance to present themselves in front of British investors, we are aware that startup contests have a very specific structured format and, as such, do not favour direct contact between the entrepreneurs and investors. We wanted to change it with our Investor Lunch, where a carefully selected group of startups interested in raising funds from British investors or expanding to the British market was offered a facilitated space to present, converse and build initial business relations.
PLUGin BizTalks
Having its origins in 2020, BizTalks was created as a fireside chat with successful entrepreneurs who created or greatly contributed to startups abroad. The aim was to help those at the beginning of their startup journey - trying to answer the questions of where and how to start and what it means to run a startup in a different country (than Poland). Later on, BizTalks answered even more questions about creating a successful concept, Business Angels, incubators, and NFTs. In 2022, the new BizTalk series of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Startups” had its premiere, exploring questions and challenges many entrepreneurs face on their startup journey - from inception to implementation.
Watch the previous BizTalks here.
Pitch To London
Organised since 2016, PTL was an annual competition for startups with the “Polish element”, inviting winners of the most prestigious startup events in Poland to compete in front of a jury of British and international investors and experts. PTL was an integral part of the Polish Tech Day Conference till 2021 and welcomed some of the most successful startups, such as Symmetrical.AI, Packhelp, and Mindgram.
PLUGin Foundation Podcast
Between 2021 and 2022, PLUGin Podcast covered thought-provoking topics - from the role of apps in the personalisation of caregiving and robotisation of take-outs to embracing failure in the startup journey. We have welcomed Stefan Batory, Katarzyna Hess-Wiktor, Agata Zborowska, Sergij Lebedyn, and more.
E-Migration Report
Conducted in 2018-2019 in collaboration with the Emigration Museum in Gdynia, the E-Migration Report was the first comprehensive and global study of the Polish tech diaspora. The research aimed to gain insight into the Poles and people of Polish heritage employed abroad in the modern market sectors through gathering data about their life and work situations. The extent of the research contained the aspects of, e.g. demographics, family, work, social relations, and national identity.
Read about the results here.
Women In Tech
A panel in 2018, which analysed gender diversity in the workplace, prompted a broader discussion that led to the creation of a guide on how to hire, retain and nurture more diverse talent and the overall benefits of gender diversity for a tech company - 28 pages filled with insights and advice from field experts.