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ASPIRE Poland

Name: ASPIRE Poland
Address: Rynek Główny 39/8, Kraków, 31-013, PL
Telephone: +48513077541

Strona główna
Polska
Kraków
ASPIRE Poland

ASPIRE is the representative body of the technology and business services sector in Kraków. www.asp

ASPIRE is the representative body of the shared services, outsourcing and technology sector in Kraków. Established in 2008, ASPIRE is acknowledged as being a key player in Kraków’s rise to the position of the top ranked location for global services in Europe. ASPIRE currently has over 150 member companies: multinationals operating technology and business services, and companies providing support s

ervices to the sector. ASPIRE is the first non-governmental organisation to win the coveted Małopolska Business Award.

13/02/2026

Something is stirring in Kraków — and ASPIRE is leading from the front.

Next Tuesday, ASPIRE Chairman Przemysław Roth will take part in a public debate alongside Prof. Stanisław Mazur, First Deputy Mayor of Kraków — moderated by one of Poland’s most insightful economic journalists, Zbigniew Bartuś.

Then on Thursday, we have convened a closed Leaders’ Summit with 40+ GBS/Tech leaders, where we’ll again be joined by Prof. Mazur — this time with senior representatives of his team.

The topic on Tuesday is centred on strong wage growth, AI reshaping roles and work migrating — in short, an economy and labour market in transition.

ASPIRE’s view is clear:

Kraków has truly world-class development and delivery centres. These are the backbone of our economy and our global pathfinder.
The changing sands in the market are an opportunity for Krakow to accelerate our advance up the value chain.
Skills are indeed key and Kraków has the skills — above all skills to manage change and drive processes at scale.
To take full advantage requires a multi-stakeholder plan that places our centres and the professionals that work in them at the very front of the advance.

Kraków is a great city and our goal is to compete with other great cities. Strong wage growth supported by stronger quality is a sign of our success.

12/02/2026

Your team creates value. Your contracts should secure it.

Join us next Wednesday (18 February) for a 90-minute, face-to-face IP clinic in Kraków, hosted at SPCG Law Firm. We’ll show how to secure IP rights properly—across employment and business contracts—before gaps become risks.

You’ll learn how to:
📄 apply and adapt statutory rules for acquiring employee-created IP (when they help—and when they must be adjusted)
💶 align contracts with the 50% tax-deductible cost scheme (KUP 50%)
🧑‍💼 acquire IP rights from collaborators and subcontractors — what must be in the contract
ℹ️ meet information duties and handle additional remuneration obligations

For the detailed agenda and registration, click the link in the first comment.

10/02/2026

Kraków 2.0 won’t happen by accident.

Today we’re announcing ASPIRE’s Strategic Board for 2026–27 — a leadership team for the next chapter of Kraków’s tech, GBS and R&D ecosystem.

This group brings real breadth and weight: country and site leaders, C-suite executives, Heads of R&D, Heads of Technology and Heads of Business Operations — plus local leadership including a former Mayor and the current Head of the City Education Department.

It’s international — British, Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese and Polish — with global experience that speaks to HQ stakeholders across the US/UK/EU.

The last two decades were about proving we could deliver at scale, reliably. The next chapter is about doing better work because of Kraków — connecting companies more deeply into universities, talent pathways, innovation networks, culture, infrastructure and civic leadership, and translating that into higher-value work and more strategic roles here.

We believe we have the right team to deliver.

Meet the board: Click on the link in the first comment.

&D

23/01/2026

News of an exciting development in the innovation space… Kraków is now home to FORT Kraków - DIANA Accelerator Poland.

DIANA (the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) is NATO’s way of helping promising deep-tech companies work on real defence-and-security needs.

The programme runs open “challenge” calls (problem statements), selects companies, then supports them through a two-phase accelerator programme - with mentoring, business support, and access to a network of accelerator sites and test centres where solutions can be tried in realistic conditions.

From January 2026, FORT Kraków begins supporting DIANA innovators, including a set of startups assigned to the Kraków accelerator as part of the wider 2026 DIANA cohort.

The Polish DIANA accelerator site is delivered by a consortium of AGH University of Kraków and Krakowski Park Technologiczny.

Why it matters to ASPIRE: The clue is in the name. We want to champion the capability-building path that connects business, universities, and public partners - so Kraków isn’t just a place where talent works, but a place where new solutions are built, tested, and scaled.

22/01/2026

The world is truly a global village. Today on the final stop in this week’s China series we are in Hong Kong where Przemysław Roth ran into fellow Strategic Board member Stéphane Bernard, COO of Euroclear Group.

What better illustration of Hong Kong’s super power as a connector: a small place, with local connectivity and global reach, built to move capital, decisions, and trust between people and across borders.

A few signals from Hong Kong through Przemek's lens:
🇨🇳 A compact, high-impact city: ~7.53M people living on 1,106 km² - and a GDP of about US$471B;
🇨🇳 A financial superpower. Financial services are one of Hong Kong’s core pillars (around one-fifth of GDP) - with dense, world-class capability in banking, markets, risk, and regulation;
🇨🇳 Gateway logic is evolving. Hong Kong has long been a gate to South-East Asia - and now also a gate into China. At the same time, cities like Kuala Lumpur and hubs in Vietnam are competing hard, and places like Singapore have already built global R&D depth - the region is moving fast, with young-market energy and ambition.

Takeaways for our focus in Kraków:
🇵🇱 Deep local connectivity matters. Kraków is also compact (~327 km²): short distances, walkability and café culture, fast trams and great offices enable deep focus and fast cross-fertilisation;
🇵🇱 Act Local, Win Global - every Kraków centre sits in a global network of cities. Networks shape influence: who you can connect to, what you can win, and how fast you can move up the value chain;
🇵🇱 Build our own “gateway” roles - become the place HQs rely on for specific cross-border work: risk, governance, product engineering, data, security, operational design. Choose a niche, go deep, make it world-class - then let networks do the scaling;
🇵🇱 Poland–Asia links are already there - the next step is to organise them - there are real synergies between Hong Kong / South-East Asia and Kraków already. Our job is to turn that into structured collaboration and new pathways for scope, R&D and leadership.

Pictured: Przemek and Stéphane in Hong Kong - an illustration that plumbing matters - the relationships, standards and connections that let work (and trust) flow. True of Hong Kong, true of Euroclear, true of ASPIRE.

More soon - and huge thanks to Przemek for the field notes all week.

21/01/2026

Today we are posting from Chongqing - the next stop as we follow Przemysław Roth, Chair of the ASPIRE Strategic Board, on his China odyssey.

Chongqing’s secret power is this: an inland city that is leveraging on geography, culture and industrial heritage to reach into the future. Expanding population of 31.9 Million and ~US$440B GDP (+5.7% growth year-on-year).

A few signals from Chongqing through Przemek’s lens:

🇨🇳 Heritage and hyper-modern as one story. River cruises, night-time districts, and landmark streets pull people in - while glass towers and big industry keep moving behind the scenes. Tourism as part of the city’s identity, not a side project.
🇨🇳 A serious automotive / engineering base - now pivoting hard to electric. Chongqing produced 953,200 NEVs in 2024 (up 90.5%).
🇨🇳 Geography → engineering advantage. Chongqing sits on the upper Yangtze - and it’s built a logistics set-up that links river + rail + road at scale.

Takeaways for our focus in Kraków (and the wider Kraków–Katowice area):

🇵🇱 Think “metro strengths”, not city silos. Katowice/Silesia has deep automotive and engineering capability - and there are already platforms explicitly building Central European competence in automotive + advanced manufacturing.
🇵🇱 Broaden the lens: tech + business services + R&D + engineering belong together - especially in areas like materials, product engineering, testing, and “engineering shared services” (Przemek flags polymer structures as a good example of what “specialised” really looks like).
🇵🇱 Ensure universities are a part of the value chain. Kraków (AGH) and Katowice/Gliwice (Silesian University of Technology) are huge assets - and the opportunity is tighter links between research, engineering work, and business delivery.
🇵🇱 Use “sense of place” as a business advantage. Kraków’s culture is not just nice-to-have - it’s part of why people come, stay, and grow here. Develop the waterfront, utilise the Wisła, connect to the Tatras.

Pictured: Chongqing at night - river traffic, a lit bridge, and a glowing hillside of traditional-style buildings set against modern towers. Heritage and the future in one frame.

Tomorrow the last stop: Hong Kong

20/01/2026

Today we are posting from Guangzhou - the next stop as we follow Przemysław Roth, Chair of the ASPIRE Strategic Board, on his tour of China.

A few signals from Guangzhou through Przemek’s lens:
🇨🇳 An economy powered by trade. Guangzhou crossed ~US$430B GDP in 2024. And it’s not just internal demand - foreign trade hit ~US$156B;
🇨🇳 Port-city advantage. Guangzhou Port is the largest shipping hub in south China - and Nansha (its key deep-water area) handles 20M TEUs. In other words: Guangzhou isn’t near the supply chain - it is the supply chain;
🇨🇳 Higher-value tech is being plugged into the industrial base. Guangzhou built its first 12-inch intelligent sensor wafer manufacturing line in 2024, and the city is scaling an integrated circuit chain across design → manufacturing → packaging/testing;
🇨🇳 Engineering… plus design. Visible design lift - cars, offices, commercial space. “You start to see the design… great design.”

Takeaways for our focus in Kraków:
🇵🇱 Throughput as a strategy - connectivity (logistics, routes, partnerships) changes what a city can credibly host - and how fast it can scale. Kraków has this in its strategic plan;
🇵🇱 Closing the loop between design + engineering + delivery - design as capability: better outcomes, better services, better products;
🇵🇱 Tech wins when it’s connected to real demand. Guangzhou’s lesson is “industry + innovation” as one system, not two separate worlds;
🇵🇱 Same message as yesterday - with a different flavour: do the right things first… then do them right.

Pictured: Przemek in Guangzhou - skyline behind him - and one landmark that says a lot about the city’s confidence. The Canton Tower is 600m high and, as Przemek put it: “the airplanes approaching the airport are below you ”

More tomorrow. ✈

20/01/2026

IMF Skills Readiness and Skills Imbalance Index:

Poland shows up twice in the International Monetary Fund’s latest “future of work” analysis — and it’s a useful indicator for anyone making location and talent decisions.

➡️ Poland is “ready” to supply new skills: in the IMF’s "Skill Readiness Index", Poland sits in the top tier — alongside (and ahead of) several larger Western economies.
➡️ Poland looks like a “talent surplus” market: in the IMF’s "Skill Imbalance Index", Poland is near the bottom: projected supply of new skills outstrips projected demand.

That combination matters for Kraków’s tech + business services ecosystem:

➡️ Yes, the pressure point is real: junior and routine roles are most exposed as AI reshapes task-level work.
➡️ But the bigger opportunity is hidden in plain sight: if supply is strong, the constraint becomes demand — innovation capacity, product mandates, new firm creation, and HQ confidence to place higher-value work here.

🐉 ASPIRE’s role is to turn this into practical action: with ~200 global companies and ~120k people working in our tech + business services sector, Kraków can be a serious test-bed for moving faster from capability → value creation.

⚠️ A word of warning: if policy choices make it harder to retain flexible, AI-capable talent (e.g., B2B contracts) we risk exporting exactly the skills advantage the data highlights.

Big thank you to Stephane Bernard, ASPIRE Strategic Board Member, for pointing us to this analysis.

📊 Chart note:
We’ve added population to the IMF data - because scale matters. The Kraków–Katowice macro-region (Małopolskie + Śląskie) with ~7.75 million people is essentially the size of a small European country.

Source: IMF Blog (Jan 14, 2026) - link to full IMF article in first comment.

19/01/2026

Today, the first of a series of posts this week from China - as we follow Przemysław Roth, Chair of the ASPIRE Strategic Board - and our "Pathfinder-in-Chief" - on his China odyssey.

Przemek’s on the ground doing two things:
🚀 Sending back “field notes” on what high-performing cities do well - lessons that can help us keep moving Kraków up the value chain;
🚀 Making the all-important relationships to seed collaboration.

We start in Shenzhen (Przemek’s base for his tour):
As those that participated in last week’s ASPIRE Call will know, Shenzhen has in just over 40 years grown into a city of ~18 million people, with a 2024 GDP of ~US$507B.

These are some of Przemek’s signals from Shenzhen:
🇨🇳 A sharp focus on “doing the right things” rather than “doing things the right way” - strategic intent;
🇨🇳 Specialisation and ambition at city scale - an ecosystem in which expertise, suppliers, capital and ambition reinforce one another, both public and private;
🇨🇳 Low friction for experimentation - access to talent and finance - including private finance - and a focus on customer service - all shortening the distance between idea and prototype;
🇨🇳 Education as No. 1 priority - treated as a public asset and a private responsibility, with teachers accorded high status and rewarded well, and company labs that open at weekends to children and families;
🇨🇳 Quality of life - mobility, green space, daily convenience;
🇨🇳 Not low cost.

Some thoughts on what this means for our focus in Kraków:
🇵🇱 Making space (as leaders) to decide “what matters next”;
🇵🇱 Creating more “open lab” moments with universities and companies (real access, real tools);
🇵🇱 Making collaboration a habit: working groups, practitioner circles, shared practice - not just events;
🇵🇱 Reducing friction for partnerships and investment;
🇵🇱 Don’t chase low cost.

Pictured - an autonomous flying taxi - this one’s in a showroom but these autonomous taxis are a reality across the Shenzhen skyscape.

✈️ Tomorrow, Przemek in Ghanzhou.

09/01/2026

Yesterday’s view from the ASPIRE office on Kraków’s Main Market Square: the towers of St. Mary’s Basilica in the background, snow on the Rynek - and, in the foreground, a new detail: outside our window, we’ve installed an Airly air-quality sensor, which also happens to be the most central sensor in the city.

If you don’t know Airly: it’s a Kraków start-up that’s grown into one of Poland’s best-known air-quality platforms, making the data easy to check at street level.

In the photo, you’ll also see what makes Airly particularly powerful: not just a single reading from one point in the city, but a data view built from sensors across Poland - turning air quality into something you can compare, track, and understand street by street, season by season.

Winter is when Kraków gets tested most. The city sits in a basin, and for years a cold spell often meant “smog season” as standard. But in the past few years Kraków has made stunning progress. In fact, yesterday’s data showed we have the best air quality of major cities in Poland.

It’s a testimony to how cities can transform when several forces line up:
→ Decisive policy from the City of Kraków (including the ban on burning solid fuels, in force since 1 September 2019)
→ Civic pressure and public education (led by advocates such as Alarm Smogowy)
→ Better visibility through local data, powered by innovators like Airly.

ASPIRE has also tried to play a practical role by supporting the “Business vs Smog” employee volunteering programme since 2016, helping deliver clean-air workshops to well over 50,000 schoolchildren.

Cleaner air is one of those “quiet” improvements that transforms a city’s everyday quality of life - and strengthens Kraków’s position as a place where global business and talent can thrive.

Kraków PL

Adres

Rynek Główny 39/8
Kraków
31-013

Godziny Otwarcia

Poniedziałek	09:00 - 17:00
Wtorek	09:00 - 17:00
Środa	09:00 - 17:00
Czwartek	09:00 - 17:00
Piątek	09:00 - 17:00

Telefon

+48513077541

Strona Internetowa

http://www.aspire.org.pl/

Ostrzeżenia

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