Details of the Pilot Maker acceleration programme and process oriented towards the development of solutions which may be implemented in large enterprises were presented by the leader of the techBrainers programme jointly with the lead partner - TAURON Polska Energia and other partners - Kross S.A and Amplus Sp. z o.o., at the Thursday conference on 15 December in the PAP Conference Centre in Warsaw.

Pilot Maker is the project having won co-financing of almost six million under the Scale Up competition of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development . The assumption of the competition was to merge the capacity of start-ups with infrastructure, experience and resources of large enterprises.

In the programme created by techBrainers experts, enterprises skilfully selected and mapped in terms of innovativeness play a key role, ready to cooperate and share their knowledge with technological start-ups capable of responding to their challenges.

- The “Pilot Maker” programme focuses on the development of implementable solutions – Magdalena Jackowska-Rejman, techBrainers CEO said at the conference. - This is also expected by large enterprises which declared support of their specialists and experts and a possibility to conduct pilot projects within their infrastructure under letters of intents signed. If the tests are successful, large enterprises will be able to shape further business relations at their own discretion. In case of failure under pilot implementation exercises, potential applications for developed solutions will be searched for in other companies, with the use of capacities of R&D Club, TOP 500 and other project partners.

Presidents and members of programme partners’ management board present at the conference confirmed that, similar to start-ups interest in commercialisation of innovative solutions, tailoring of adequate technologies to own needs is also important for them.

- The participation of our company in this undertaking is the opportunity to expand experience in the Open Innovation model but also, in case of Pilot Maker success, to transfer knowledge between StartUps and our company. Tauron applies an innovative approach created in StartUps whereas young entrepreneurs receive the opportunity to implement their own innovative products and solutions – Jarosław Broda – Vice-President of the Management Board for Asset Management and Development of Tauron Polska Energia S.A. explained.

- The programme opens the opportunity to resolve problems which have not been solved so far - Katarzyna Rybicka, Member of the Management Board,­ Director for Strategy and Development of Amplus Sp. z o.o. added. - In the vegetable and fruit sector we have great defined challenges which we would like to dedicate to specific start-ups and, more importantly, to lead their ideas to the testing phase and subsequently, to implementation.

- In large companies the internal and procurement policy frequently limits a possibility to cooperate with start-ups which lack references and experience - Zbigniew Sosnowski, the President of Kross S.A. said. – Owing to co-financing under the Pilot Maker programme, the risk of investment in technologies at an early development stage is lower, accordingly, they undertake the challenge more eagerly, particularly in view of the fact that they may considerably benefit themselves.

Due to participation in the programme they will be able to test products and technologies under the conditions of DP infrastructure. They will receive references of the large client and/or further cooperation opportunities, acquire knowledge, tools and enhance competence at each stage of company and technology development. Besides, they will receive financial support up to PLN 50,000 in the form of services oriented to the development of the team’s knowledge and competence and PLN 200,000 for product or technology development. They will also receive the opportunity to acquire new additional investors among respected VC funds: Movens Capital, Leonarto and Arkley as well as other business partners.

Answering the question whether large enterprises taking part in the programme are afraid of internal competition, the participants unanimously agreed that the model proposed in Pilot Maker is based on cooperation rather than competition. Special emphasis will be placed on cross-sectoral projects lying within areas of interests of two or three partners simultaneously.

- Each of the partners is aware that joint commitment to the development of start-ups

will increase the probability of product or technology placement on the market – Jackowska-Rejman said. – At the same time, competition may positively influence involvement of individual partners in the development of start-ups.

Recruitment to the programme will start as early as January 2017. Three rounds of the acceleration programme have been planned.

Details concerning Pilot Maker, including the application form can be found at: http://techbrainers.com/pilotmaker/.

In the Strategy adopted in September this year, TAURON Group focuses on the dynamic development of the research and development area as well as innovation, identifying it as a path to new revenues in the future. At the same time, TAURON strives to balance “traditional” methods of R&D&I implementation (R&D projects, participation in NCBR programmes, Horizon 2020, employee innovativeness, etc.) with a “cutting edge” approach – start-ups, broad holistic Open Innovation area. New initiatives are undertaken, new projects are launched – this year, inter alia, MOBISTYLE and POLYGEN projects have been launched. Both projects focus in defining and meeting client’s needs; the client whose role in the system is also subject to change. The client is getting more and more active becoming no more an energy consumer only but rather a partner for such enterprises as TAURON. While implementing the goals set in the Strategy, companies of the Group are currently preparing new projects for which we hope to receive co-financing from funds of the National Centre for Research and Development under the Research Programme of the Power Sector launched recently. All the aforementioned activities are thus perfectly fit into the Group’s vision set out in the Strategy: “We are a company that best meets customer needs in the Polish energy industry”.