17 June 2025
June 9-11, 2025
Wroclaw, Poland | Wroclaw University of Science and Technology
Theme: Innovations for a sustainable future: integrating technology, education and cross-sectoral cooperation for a competitive economy and a just society
The three-day international conference brought together more than 150 representatives of the academic community, innovative business, venture capital, and government to discuss new approaches to innovation, education transformation, and entrepreneurship development.
This year, Kyiv Academic University, as a member of the CloudEARTHi initiative, hosted the conference together with Wroclaw University of Technology.
CloudEARTHi is a pan-European alliance of 31 institutions from 17 countries, created as a cooperation platform for the development of Deep Tech entrepreneurship, strengthening local and regional innovation ecosystems, and implementing the principles of sustainable development not as a theoretical concept but as a guide for practical activities.
Almost 200 participants from 22 countries and 6 international projects of the initiative joined the conference in Wroclaw and online to share knowledge and experience, as well as to plan joint actions for the future.
But first of all, representatives of the CloudEARTHi initiative and the Ukrainian team expressed their sincere gratitude to the management of Wroclaw Tech and the Department of Management, as well as Professor Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska, Dean of the Faculty of Management at Wroclaw Tech.
Next, Oksana Berezhna, Director of the Directorate of Science and Innovation at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, joined online and shared her plans for Ukraine's innovation and education policy in times of sustainability and change.
The microphone was then passed to Professor Renata Krzyżynska, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation at Wroclaw University of Technology. She spoke about the integration of sustainable development principles into the university's research and innovation strategies.
After that, Professor Oleksandra Antoniuk, Head of the Scientific Committee of the National Council for the Development of Science and Technology of Ukraine, spoke about Academ.City Science Park and the importance of teaching scientists the basics of entrepreneurship.
Finally, Dr. Tamer Abu-Alam, coordinator of the CloudEARTHi initiative, emphasized that providing financial resources at the early stages is extremely important for the development of startups.
"Raising financial resources for growth has remained one of the biggest challenges for startups. We touched on this topic during one of the panel discussions, and it became clear that there is no universal recipe," he emphasized.
Olha Voropai, Academ.City project coordinator, invited to join the panel discussion presented by the SEEDplus project, funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe program.
The goal of SEEDplus is to develop youth entrepreneurship through education, support and the formation of innovation ecosystems. The project promotes the development of entrepreneurial skills among students, helps universities nurture innovators, and strengthens local innovation environments across Europe.
In Ukraine, SEEDplus partners are working closely with Academ.City Startup School, a pilot project of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, to create a national network of startup schools, incubators, and accelerators based at higher education and research institutions.
In April, Academ.City Startup School, together with the SEEDplus project, organized the Open Mohyla Hackathon to identify promising academic startups created by students and young researchers. The winners of the 2023-2025 hackathon joined the conference and presented their innovative solutions.
The SEEDplus team explored the possibility of creating a Venture Fund to invest in deep-tech and knowledge-intensive academic startups. The discussion “Is venture capital an opportunity for academic innovation ecosystems?” brought together representatives of venture capital funds focused on science and deep tech, as well as startup acceleration experts.
The session was moderated by Anna Gurecka, Director of the Academic Entrepreneurship Incubator at Wroclaw University of Technology.
"To be honest, when I first met Anna at the Deep Tech Talent Days event and saw her support for academic entrepreneurship, I immediately started thinking about the possibility of cooperation. And when we started preparing this panel discussion for the CloudEARTHi conference, Anna was my first choice.
For more than a decade, Anna has been playing a key role in the development of academic entrepreneurship, contributing to the formation of an innovative ecosystem and a system for commercializing scientific research. She is a co-author of several acceleration programs, including GROW UP TECH, which has helped launch more than 200 technology startups.
Anna has also managed international projects to promote innovative entrepreneurship funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), worked as a business coach and moderator in the Design Thinking methodology," Olha Voropay shared.
The CloudEARTHi initiative is led by the Arctic University of Norway (UiT), and after the first day's session, guests and participants of the conference were convinced that they have managed to create a truly impressive innovation ecosystem. Even in the far north, where there is no sunlight for several months, they are effectively shaping a culture of innovation and paving the way for a sustainable future.
The next day of the conference began with a speech by Håkon Gustavsson Ewer from Norinnova, a key part of the UiT ecosystem specializing in technology transfer and many other areas. The topic of his presentation was “From Research to Market: Building a Culture of Innovation through Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs)”.
The next speaker was Fern Wixon, Professor of Ocean Leadership, who spoke about transformational change for a just and sustainable future. This topic was relevant for the entire conference - in the context of diversity, equity, inclusion, social and environmental sustainability.
During the 4th CloudEARTHi Conference, many networking sessions were held, opening up opportunities for active international cooperation for all forum participants.
One of the following workshops was particularly relevant. Its organizers, W8niebie and Space Technology Park, spoke about marketing for Deep Tech startups. The main message of their speeches was that if we really want to bring innovations from laboratories to the market, we should start here.
The participants were: Lena Bakowska, Jakub Głowacki, Adam Scheiner, and Sonya Ovcharek.
During the third day of the conference, Yavuz Selim Silay, a member of the SEEDplus Advisory Board and a medical entrepreneur, shared his vision of current funding opportunities for early-stage technology startups. The topic of his presentation was: “Current trends in global investment opportunities for early-stage technology startups”.
In one of the following sessions, the conference participants explored how future-oriented leadership can facilitate the integration of humanitarian-oriented innovation, sustainability, and advanced technology in the new industrial era. Experts from various sectors shared their views on how leadership is changing (if at all), and what is needed to create a sustainable, inclusive, and challenge-ready Industry 5.0 landscape.
This panel was also a vivid example of the fact that the modern industry is open to cooperation with the academic environment. The discussion was joined by representatives of Europa Forum, the German-Polish Business Network of Wroclaw, a dynamic community of regional businesses that actively innovates and supports cross-sectoral dialogue. These are companies that create advanced technologies and at the same time realize the need to rethink traditional leadership models in the face of rapid change.
Panel discussion “Is Venture Capital an Option for Academic Innovation?”, where experts from Poland, Norway, and the UK discussed the financing of deep tech in universities.
Participants: representatives of G-Force Ventures, WP2 Investment, Lower Silesian Development Fund, Radix Ventures, 24 Ventures, Hard2beat
Moderator: Dr. Anna Gureka, Academic Entrepreneurship Incubator, Wroclaw Tech
The scientific sessions covered the topics of innovation ecosystems, sustainable economy, human capital development, AI in education, challenges of post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, and global transition to a green economy.
Workshops:
Poster sessions (offline and online), where participants from Ukraine, Poland, Norway, Egypt, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, and other countries presented their developments. Topics included technological trends, circular economy, sustainable business models, digitalization of education, gender equality, and environmental innovations.
The final day of the conference was devoted to the EIT Raw Materials Business Brunch, where leading technologies for the industry of the future and innovative solutions in the field of geology, mineral resources, education and sustainable entrepreneurship were presented.
The Ukrainian representatives included scientists and researchers from the Kyiv Academic University, SET University, NTU Dnipro Polytechnic, Odesa Polytechnic, Academ.City, NOSC-UA DIH, and others.
The event also featured the Elevator Pitch video of the finalists of the Mohyla Hackathon BE FIRST, implemented by the KAU Startup School project.
Подію організували Kyiv Academic University, Wydział Zarządzania Politechniki Wrocławskiej, Academ.City у партнерстві з İstinye Üniversitesi, EIT RawMaterials, W8Niebie KN Marketingu, EUROPA FORUM, Dolny Śląsk, UiT- The Arctic University of Norway, Technical University of Varna, Universitat d'Alacant Hochschule Burgenland, G-Force, Consorzio Sol.Co. Rete di Imprese Sociali Siciliane, Edinburgh Innovations, Edinburgh Earth Initiative, Edinburgh DDE, The University of Edinburgh, Conception X, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw [Wroclove], ATAM Technology
