On Wednesday, January 31st, the fourth award ceremony in the Olivia Prize competition took place. Awards for projects carried out by the Residents of Olivia Centre, the largest business centre in Poland, have traditionally been granted in the following categories: Olivia Impact, Olivia Biznes, Olivia Eco and Olivia Pro Bono. From among the projects submitted by mid-January, the jury selected 4 winners and awarded 5 honorable mentions.
The choice was made by a jury consisting of representatives of companies operating in Olivia. This year’s winners were: Marta Moksa (O4 Coworking), Grzegorz Borowski (Infoshare), Remigiusz Wojciechowski (Bayer), Marcin Perkowski (Capgemini) and Mateusz Kusznierewicz.
OLIVIA BUSINESS
This year’s edition of the competition was attended by 22 projects that were implemented by companies operating in Olivia Centre over the past year. In the Olivia Business category, projects with the greatest business potential, characterized by innovation and responding to real market demand are awarded. This year, in this category, the award went to the Pomerania Development Agency for
the Pomeranian Export Broker
project, the aim of which was to support Pomeranian enterprises in business contacts abroad. The project covered more than 6 thousand. people with 2.5 thousand. Enterprises. As part of the project, 15 economic missions, 42 trips to trade fairs and 58 trips to other international economic events were carried out in countries such as China, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and many other parts of the world. The project also enabled Pomeranian companies to participate in selected economic events through 614 project grants and 47 individual, “tailor-made” B2B meetings, prepared with the use of specialized market reports from m.in. in the United States, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the United Arab Emirates, or Kazakhstan.
In the Olivia Business category, a distinction was also awarded, which this year went to the
Black Pearls VC
fund, which supports young technology companies operating in the Baltic Sea basin. The fund’s activity consists in providing financial support to start-ups at an early stage of development and searching for strategic investors for them after achieving strong market positions. Last year, Telemedi and Solwit reached this level, and in the previous two years, this process covered 6 other companies. In 2023, the fund provided its investors with a 252% increase in return on capital compared to the previous year. As part of its investment portfolio, the Black Pearls VC fund holds shares in a company known as unicorn, valued at over EUR 2 billion, and as much as 57% of the latest portfolio is made up of foreign startups. The fund has invested m.in. in Ondato (Lithuania), Autenti (Poland), insly (Estonia), Swotzy (Latvia), Fluentby (Poland), infoshare Academy (Poland), Enso (Poland/USA), eAgronom (Estonia) and Heavy Finance (Lithuania).
OLIVIA IMPACT
In the Olivia Impact category, awards are given to companies and projects with the greatest impact in the area of corporate social responsibility. In this category the statuette was awarded to
Energa, a member of the Orlen Group
for the two projects submitted this year: implementing a wide-ranging ESG agenda and supporting important initiatives in the region, Poland and around the world, including through programmes Houses of Good Energy and
Planet of Energy
. As part of the first one, Energa provided 18 institutions (including 15 orphanages in Poland, the St. Brother Albert Home for the Homeless and Needy Aid Society in Gdańsk and one school in South Sudan) with access to efficient and environmentally friendly energy sources. The project provides clean and energy-efficient energy sources, but also workshops, educational meetings, excursions and holiday trips. The second project is Energia’s original educational program, which includes the promotion of knowledge about electricity, its sources and safe and rational use of electricity among the youngest. During the deliberations, the jury also took into account numerous initiatives implemented by the company during all previous editions of the competition.
In the Olivia Impact category , a distinction was also awarded to
Bayer
for creating a climate for the implementation of social and ecological innovations by employees and for being open and encouraging cooperation with other Olivia Centre Residents.
OLIVIA ECO
Bayer also won this year’s statuette in the Olivia Eco category, for the Eco Floral project by Edyta Bieniasz-Krzywiec, one of the company’s employees, who transferred her family’s daily eco activities to the company. It is based on the principle of circular economy and education with the possibility of reusing everything that employees in the office and at home have at their disposal. Edyta Bieniasz-Krzywiec defines it with the motto “We do what we can, with what we have, where we are”. At the threshold of Olivia Centre project Eco Floral visited as part of the event Eco Family Days, organized by and for Bayer employees, when Edyta Bieniasz-Krzywiec and her husband brought their machine used to process waste from various types of plastic at home and trained other employees in the field of household waste management and what products can be created from plastic waste.
In this category, the award went to
EPAM Polska
for the Green Sweep Gdańsk project, involving over 30 employees from the company’s Gdańsk branch in a nationwide initiative to clean up illegal landfills.
OLIVIA PRO BONO
The main prize in the category Olivia Pro Bono, awarded to pro-social projects, won the Gdansk Foundation for Management Development per project GFKM Masters – Pomeranian Tournament of Decision-Making Games. The project is aimed at Pomeranian students of high schools, technical schools and vocational schools and includes supporting education in the field of management, entrepreneurship and teamwork, as well as supporting young talents in their search for paths of their own development. The project is based on the use of a tool used to conduct business simulations, and assumes showing young people the challenges associated with running a business. This program is usually used as part of the Executive MBA classes and is aimed at middle and senior management representatives. As Krzysztof Jędrzejowski, a representative of the Gdańsk Foundation for Management Development, emphasizes, GFKM Masters is a project that is to give young people a chance for favourable conditions for development and gaining practical professional skills: In all school corridors there are many leaders, both present and future. The potential of these young people is enormous, and we do not want to miss the opportunity to support their development. We try to provide them with the opportunity to gain experience even before they enter the job market, which will make it easier for them to have a good start in their careers. We decided to create an initiative aimed exclusively at students, knowing that they will soon be able to work in our environment and make key decisions. We want to equip them with competences and skills that will allow them to meet modern market requirements.
In the Pro Bono category, two companies received awards: Bayer and
O4 Coworking
. The first of them was awarded for the
Jump High for Santa Claus
project, which integrates employees from 14 companies around a charity volleyball tournament supporting the Hospice Foundation in Gdańsk, and the second for the O4-ians help project, under which the coworking community regularly and systemically engages in social and charity campaigns.
– This year’s edition of Olivia Prize applications included projects at a very high level, which makes us happy, because its intention is to distinguish and promote the most valuable projects in all categories – says Bogusław Wieczorek, Olivia Centre Representative. ” What’s more, the awards are given to projects that companies usually do not talk about publicly, but which bring great business, social and environmental value, so we feel obliged to emphasize the social benefits of their implementation and help the authors of the projects to publicize the beneficial initiatives that are carried out in the Olivia Centre.
The winners of each category received statuettes by Dr. hab. Tomasz Sobisz, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.
The special guest of the Olivia Prize 2023 award ceremony was Marcin Piatkowski, professor at Kozminski University in Warsaw and economist at the World Bank in Washington. He gave a lecture Pt. “The Golden Age. How did Poland become a European leader in growth and what does the future hold for it?”
