Ninja innovation in Poland by Kamil Switalski
June 2014, Gary Shapiro, the president of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) was one of the speakers at the 5th Congress of the Innovative Economy that was organised on June 17th in Warsaw, Poland, as part of the CEA’s Unveiled events that are happening around the globe. During his inspiring speech, he mainly focused on the problems of development of innovations worldwide. He however, also emphasized the fact that Poland has a great potential when it comes to the development of the innovative entrepreneurship. Last but not least, the president of CEA shared his experiences as the host of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is one of the most important events in the world of new technologies, attracting over 150,000 visitors every year.
CEA\’s Gary Shaprio speaking at CES Unveiled Warsaw 2014
According to Mr. Shapiro, the main advantage of the Polish market are the quality of the human resources. There are hundreds of thousands of highly educated as well as creative young people who are motivated to succeed in their professional life. In addition, the employment and operating costs in Poland are still relatively low in comparison to other European countries. Thus, new businesses are more likely to bring profits sooner. Moreover, the geopolitical location of Poland is also considered to be a huge advantage. All those factors combined, result in an increasing number of exhibitors from Poland that compete for the international clients during CES. This constitutes a solid proof for the growth of the innovation sector in the polish economy.
During his speech, Shapiro also claimed that the crucial element of being an innovator is to be as creative and smart as Japanese ninja warriors used to be. In this respect, entrepreneurs should always be ready to overcome the difficulties in the smartest way. This is because to cope with the problem is what makes an innovator.
Accordingly, the innovators should be aware of their own weaknesses and be able to complement them with the other people’s strengths. As Shapiro says, the most common mistake when selecting business associates is the tendency to hire people that are very much alike us. Evidently, it may help to create a peaceful working environment, however it may also lead to building up the weaknesses that are common to all the workers. Therefore, diversity of the team members will help to look at the same problem from the different perspectives and to find the most optimal way to deal with it.
As the real innovation leaders should always think two steps ahead of the competition, Gary Shapiro outlined the technologies that will change people’s lives in the nearest future. First of all, Ultra HDTV screens (also known as 4K) will become more and more popular. This means that we will be able to watch the images and movies that are four times of the resolution of HDTV. Clearly, such a milestone in the size of the content sent through the internet is a challenge for both the legislators and producers. Luckily, they are already working to enable the consumers to fully benefit from the quality that the newest technology offers. Moreover, even more important but also more distant step forward is driverless car technology. Its introduction will certainly re-define the way that cars are used now and may be compared to the revolution that occurred when the production line of Ford T started.
The last promising branch of the market that grows rapidly is mobile health. In this respect, it will be possible to build into our clothes a wireless body’s functions diagnosis system which will not only enable us to react quicker to the abnormalities recorded, but also to prevent health problems using the wide range of data gathered in the cloud through the numerous sensors.
Although the predictions are not always right, one thing is certain – the future looks very promising and we may expect great things to happen in the next five to ten years. In this future, the innovators and entrepreneurs of Poland are sure to play a key role in enabling the technologies on a global basis.
