From New England to England During Midterms Week
Reflections Upon the 2023 Polish Economic Forum
Thank you to the Polish and Slavic Center for the financial support that enabled us to attend this conference. You made it possible to establish close connections with our peers from other parts of the world — from France to Brazil, and from Kraków to Białystok. We come home with truly invaluable knowledge about the power of Polish businesses on the global scale and will use this experience to shape our university studies.
As my friend and I sat down at our gate at JFK’s Terminal 8 last week, we let out a huge sigh of relief. After a week of studying for midterm exams, we ran out of class, each carrying a suitcase in one hand and our passports in the other. With barely enough time to spare, we traveled two and half hours to NYC, quickly exchanged “Hi’s” and “Bye’s” with our parents at the train station, and then dashed off to catch our flight. You may ask — where were we going? Why in the middle of the school year? Was it worth it?
Absolutely.
Here’s why I crossed the Atlantic for 48 hours to get my foot in the door.
The Polish Community at Yale
One of the best reasons about going to school at Yale University is that many young Poles and people with Polish roots come to study here. We may all be from different cities and study different majors, but we love coming together around our shared heritage. It was for that reason that my friends and I re-launched the Yale Polish Students Society after the pandemic. The club dates back to 1995 with almost 200 alumni and 50 current members. We strive to connect people through traditional Christmas and Easter celebrations, volunteering at the local Polish school and church, as well as hosting a Polish Innovation Speaker series. And we do it pretty well, if I do say so myself :).
At the same time, I can’t help but admit that I’ve always craved a more thorough understanding of my homeland and its young people. Why are so many unsatisfied with the education system? Why do so many desire to move their companies abroad? Will I find my people if I try to build a future for myself in Poland?
That’s why for the past year, I’ve been nervously waiting for March and the opportunity to talk with people at the Polish Business Society at the London School of Economics. For 12 years, they’ve been organizing the Polish Economic Forum. This annual conference draws nearly 800 students, so I thought I would finally understand the future of the Polish economy and my place it in. As the weeks leading up to the conference flew by, nothing gave me more hope than the feeling that I was going to get some answers about the rest of my life.
Arriving in London
When our plane touched down in Heathrow, there was no sign of London fog and the good mood lasted as we got to our hostel — upon entering the cafeteria, all we could hear was “Ej, podaj mi kielbaskę!”, “A która to jest ta brytyjska herbata?”, “Pospieszcie się! Nie możemy się spóźnić.” as teenagers in business attire rushed around us.
We had made it.
The first workshop at LSE was led by CVC Capital Partners, an investment manager focused on private equity. I really enjoyed hearing how the advisors helped Żabka, a beloved corner store, grow into a recognizable brand that everyone, even us living in America, knows. In fact, next time I’m in Poland, I’ll look out for how they (partnered with my favourite Polish startup, Synerise) used AI to enable an autonomous retail experience. Overall, the workshop helped me realize how ubiquitous certain business frameworks were — finance really is a global language of its own.
Here are some other insights I gleaned:
- The current most desired career in Poland is being a software developer, but our status as simply a region of labor supply will soon be no more. Increased graduates with business backgrounds, paired with a nationwide trend of digital transformation through increased automation, will guarantee more startups succeed on their own, rather than as the backend for larger foreign ones.
- Investments can deliver outstanding results when in crisis. Trust your founders. If they have a vision, they will find a way to make it happen.
- Debt is not as leveraged in Poland as it is in the UK. I’m curious how this affects the quantity and quality of VC funds and incubators.
- 2021 as a deal year was especially strong. We can’t make dramatic statements about the current state of investments if recent years were outliers. Strategic acquisition growth is to come.
- The Polish government has to stop changing business regulations overnight because companies cannot keep up. I will be looking into this more since don’t fully understand the current state of lobbying. To my surprise, there were more lawyers present at the conference than actual founders. Still, they had an incredibly thorough understanding of the state of entrepreneurship. They were the most interesting people I spoke to by far.
While there was plenty of economic discourse with over 30 more speakers and presentations, there was also time for heartfelt discussions. I was especially touched by Aleksandra Wiśniewska, a young Polish woman who forfeited her post-college years in London to dedicate her diving and medical training to help people in areas of crisis.
In line with this year’s conference theme of “Life in Crisis, Looking into the Future,” she encouraged us to use turbulent times as a moment of reflection for how we, no matter our skills or backgrounds, can change ourselves and our country for the better.
Just as our notebooks were becoming full, we were rushed off to the final event of the day through bustling streets of West End theatres and double decker buses to the London Transport Museum. There, we were transported back in time (pun intended), amidst retro tube cars from the early 20th century and artifacts of wartime. I spent the next few hours talking with young professionals about the future of Polish education and why fewer students were traveling to study at British universities post-Brexit. We learned that loans had become more difficult to acquire, making it near impossible for students from smaller towns to move to England, even if they were getting admitted.
As it turns out, the unspoken consensus was that we had made it to what was one of the last big events with the diminishing diaspora.
Hosting a hypothetical conference like this in the US had the challenge of distance for students traveling from Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, while hundreds, if not more, studied in the UK, you could easily count on one hand the amount that got into US universities. The American admission system did offer more significant financial aid opportunities, but was not an alternative students chose to pursue because the application did not play to their more academic and less extracurricular-focused strengths.
As these students remain in Poland, local organizations and university clubs step in to provide mentorship exposing them to international business. In fact, the winner of the pitch competition at the end of the conference was an ed-tech (educational technology) startup. Four Warsaw and London based venture capitalists judged their presentation as having the most potential impact for Polish students around the world, and I truly wish Vaqat all the best.
Conclusions and Coming Home
All too soon the time to say goodbye arrived, and we rushed to exchange contacts, hoping to reunite over the summer. I sincerely invited my new friends to come to New York. We promised each other that we would do our best to continue dreaming, building, and questioning how we can make an impact on this crazy world.
As the plane headed back over the Atlantic, I knew I hadn’t found all the answers to my questions. Still, I felt at peace and had so much gratitude in my heart. I not got my foot in the door, but walked through it and was welcomed into a new community; I realized that all college students really are alike. More importantly, I accepted that if I keep being my insatiably curious and optimistic self, likeminded people will naturally find me. I can’t rest all my hopes on finding my co-founders in one place. That’s not to say I won’t be making any more trips to London. Oh, I’ll definitely be back, and am ready to explore Warsaw to the fullest this summer. But, come next midterms week, I’ll stay in the library and study to be the best developer I can be. I am Polish and pretty good at coding after all :).
