Scientists, entrepreneurs and government officials have taken the challenge to find the answer to the question: “How can we make polish businesses develop their own innovations so they don’t have to purchase solutions from abroad.”
During the conference entitled “Let’s not buy the Silicon Valley – let’s make our own”, prof. Lena Kolarska-Bobińska (Minister of Education and Higher Education), Iwona Wendel (Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development), prof. Krzysztof Jan Kurzydłowski (Director of the National Center of Research and Development), Rafał Dutkiewicz (President of Wrocław town), Magdalena Burnat-Mikosz (Deloitte Partner and Leader of the R&D Department of the Government Incentives for Central Europe), Jerzy Langer (President of the Wrocław Research Center EIT+) and Dariusz Gajewski, President of Newind.

During one of the panels, Dariusz Gajewski, the President of Newind discussed the subject of innovation in the IT sector. Here we present an excerpt from that conversation:

1. The prediction for the Polish IT sector for the near upcoming years are very optimistic. Poland is in the forefront in the region, when it comes to scale of planned investments in the years to come. What are the key business needs in the fields of IT solutions?

Our experience shows, that every business sector, because of its individual way of working, generates different needs, which can only be resolved by a selection of dedicated IT solutions. If we compare, for example, the Health Care and the Banking sectors, we notice that they are on completely different development level when it comes to Information Technology. Private businesses need optimisation on different levels – from cost cuts to improvements to management and controlling processes. Today, the competitive advantage is made by the speed of reaction to changing market conditions. Building Client-relation and ability to process gigantic numbers of data. This can only be accomplished by implementation of adequately efficient and flexible technological systems. Another aspect is security in IT. I think, a new direction that for many firms will be departure from their own IT resources, or at least the central ones, to implement of what is commonly known as “the cloud” – meaning, they will be commissioning IT resources to businesses, which perform this task professionally on a commercial basis.

2. How do you estimate the development in the public sector, the Helath Care sector in particular?

In the early days of our business we noticed big demands in the Health Care sector, specially hospitals, in the fields of system integration, audits and IT security, database management, and implementation of sector-dedicated solutions. The IT infrastructure in hospitals requires many investments, a way to accomplish them was created by the possibility of new financing sources. This is why we at NEWIND also lean towards EU funding and thus assist hospitals achieve funding for IT projects. We have created a package of niche solutions, which helped us to start operating in the Health Care sector in a unique and innovative way. An example of this is the Hospital Repository of Medical Data, which is a solution which goal is ensuring of secure storage of medical documentation. The Hospitals Integrated Medicaments Management System is a modern solution for hospital’s internal patient-speciffic medicine distribution, it also includes applications that support budget planning, as well as applications
for implementation of research – development based projects, and projects that enable centralised management of hospital resources.

3. What technologies, in your opinion, will in the next few years become necessary for polish businesses to function?

Certainly those widely understood solutions, that implement applications across the internet and the cloud. IT security will also be a key element. In my opinion the Internet and data transmission are becoming the main phrases to all IT solutions. We draw inspiration and knowledge from international experiences. We have contacts with the Far East, Great Britain, China but also countries like Serbia, where we look out for technology news within communication, security and data processing systems.

4. Research shows, that in the years to come, the most innovative firms will be the ones, capable of analysing and processing numerous amounts of data (the so-called ‘Big Data’ phenomenon), and based on that will learn to draw adequate conclusions. How does NEWIND plan to support its clients within those fields?

The first and most important step is the choice of correct solutions that suit the needs the particular trades and also analysis of the existing environment. After this we are technology-wise ready to design and implement business supporting tools, ensuring work continuity, safe communication channel with the client, appropriate reaction to emergency situations and data processing security.

5. How would NEWIND like to distinguish itself on the IT market in the next years?

First of all, offering unique solutions, which will be completely new on the Polish market. We would like the innovative ideas to be born inside our team workers.
We believe, that in IT, of biggest value and are the most valuable resource are the people. In the next years, we will be focussing on completing some very competent projects, which carry the element of niche difference very well. We cooperate for this purpose with institutions of higher education, amongst others the Wrocław Politechnic, and we support innovative projects.