How to empower #employees to innovate?

It is important to promote the culture of disruption, new ways of working and experimentation to prepare the workforce of tomorrow with the right skills.

Akash, Functional Head for Business Transformation & Consulting, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, in Romania & India, discussed the internal programs that are fostering #innovation within his organization.

Catalyst is one of them.

The accelerator program has been created to involve, challenge and empower employees to put good use of their innovation skills to solve practical problems of the #bank using new technologies like VR and AI.

The results?

⭐ 100+ use cases developed

This episode features Akash Bahl, Functional Head for Business Transformation & Consulting, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, in Romania & India, interviewed by Grégoire Vigroux, President of La French Tech Romania.

#Intrapreneurship

💰 Are you looking to #finance the growth of your startup or boost the innovations in your corporation?

Raising funds is tempting.

Different solutions exist, from public funds, friends and family, private #investors, or exotic terms like mezzanine financing, just to name a few.

The best solution for you depends on your company's situation, obviously.

In this episode, Jerzy Krypel, Attorney-at-law at BSJP | bnt, discussed with Billy Yen, member of La French Tech Krakow, about the elements to consider before raising financing for your company.

Raising debts and raising #equity, the most common ones, both implies some risks that you need to evaluate. Also, you also need to remember that some company structures are unsuitable to get investors.

We will answer to questions like:

👉 What are the main differences between borrowing money from a bank and raising money from a private investor?

👉 what happens if your company fails, and you cannot reimburse the money?

👉 What solution is the most risky?

👉 Which one is more expensive?

👉 What is there to be vigilant in the investment contract?

Jerzy explains that "if you don't think about these situations when you raise money, it might be too late at the end of the day."

Reach out to Jerzy Krypel for more information.

Do you have experience #raisingfunds? Share them with us!

#podcast #FrenchTech

🍀 What is the potential of Ireland for business?

For more than 2 decades, #Ireland created a favorable market for foreign large corporations, hence it became a land of #opportunities for those who wanted to gain valuable experience abroad.

During those years, the Emerald Isle moved from being a European outsourcing center to developing technology with R&D labs. Not to forget that successful startups like Stripe started in Ireland.

John Murat tells us that the role of La French Tech Dublin is to animate the #French community locally, but also to accompany startups and scale ups willing to learn from the American tech giants established there.

The French entrepreneur tells us how France became Ireland's biggest EU business partner after Brexit, and that Dublin is still a formidable pool of skilled #talents.

John Murat, co-President of La French Tech Dublin, was interviewed by Billy Yen, community member of La French Tech Krakow.

Are you located in Dublin or interested to know? Reach out to La French Tech Dublin.

Walid Barsali, CEO of Ballsquad, and President of the new French Tech Warsaw, was interviewed by Billy Yen, community member of La French Tech Krakow.

The #Polishstartup wants to democratize access to #publicfacilities for citizens by establishing partnerships with local administrations and bringing them into the smart cities age.

The idea started in Romania when the French-Algerian played high-level basketball and needed access to public courts that were managed with pen and paper.

Starting from frustration, Ballsquad was born to bring a solution.

The serial entrepreneur discussed his path, from 2018, from finding a technological partner in Ukraine, and how the COVID period was a blessing in disguise for the young company.

According to Walid, "there is no silver bullet in business, and you need to go through (many) failures to learn and improve."

Want to learn more about Ballsquad? Visit their pages and reach out to Walid.

#smartcity

Jean Marc Harion, CEO of Play and UPC, part of Groupe Iliad, was the special guest of Romain Rebour, President of the recently rebranded La French Tech Krakow.

The #telco veteran explains how Play arrived in 2007 to disrupt the Polish market, with a mission to make mobile communication affordable for everybody.

Jean Marc, shared the ambitions for UPC is to open its network to all the operators, in order to accelerate the development of fiber coverage in #Poland.

The Belgian-born emphasizes the #social responsibility of having such companies - including bringing access to communications for Ukrainians since the beginning of the war.

They also discussed the project of bringing the concept of "42" created by Xavier Niel, with its new way of learning how to code.

What's your thought on this topic? Reply below.

Geoffroy Verney-Carron, ambassador of La French Tech Bruxelles, presented the international community to Billy Yen, a peer French Tech co-founder.

Since 2016, the Belgian hub has the will to bring the local #community of entrepreneurs together. 7 years later, it is around 1000 entrepreneurs, #tech professionals and enthusiasts, or simply people interested in the #French culture, who are gathering frequently to connect around various topics.

The French serial entrepreneur explains that a few industries are more prominent in the capital of the EU: B2B software, Healthtech, and Fintech. The dynamism of the startup scene is represented with Collibra and Odoo, among others.

Being a close neighbor to France, Geoffroy and his team are regularly working with French organizations looking to expand, and it works on both sides.

Do you want to know more? Reach out to La French Tech #Bruxelles.

#FrenchTech

Build a world-class tech ecosystem in Kraków with OMGKRK - La French Tech on Air #18

Dominika Walec, CEO of OMGKRK, tells her story to Billy Yen, board member of La French Tech Cracovie, from her personal journey to leading the tech community in #Kraków.

The startup advisor is speaking about her motivations to drive the foundation, and her ambitions for the ecosystem when discussing with startup #community organizers in Amsterdam and Barcelona, for instance.

Dominika states: I really like working with young entrepreneurs and if there's even a small percentage that I can add to their growth, that's really something that makes me happy.

OMGKRK's goal is to create the best environment for companies to grow, learn, and share. Brainly or Airly (episode FTOA #10) are among the local #startups and scale-ups shining on the international scene.

Reach out to OMGKRK to know more about the tech scene in Kraków.

Understand the IT market in CEE with SquadGurus - La French Tech on Air #17

In this episode, Romain Rebour, Co-founder of SquadGurus and President of La French Tech Cracovie, discussed with Mylena Pierremont, President of La French Tech Amsterdam about the trends and challenges in recruiting IT talents with a perspective on Central and Eastern Europe.

Innovative companies are looking for developers to help them build solutions on trending topics like the Metaverse, the Blockchain, AR/VR and gamification, or even AI.

However, as some of those technologies are still recent, it is difficult to find and acquire talents with relevant experience. The second challenge is to keep those employees - if you are interested in this topic, we discussed it in our episode Grow a team of tech talents successfully with Unit8 - La French Tech on Air #12.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine drastically impacted the local tech resources, which switched the attention on surrounding countries like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, but also revealed others like Azerbaijan, Albania, or Moldavia.

The IT market has been reshaped.

What is your experience on the topic?

#ITtalents #CEE #trends

For this first episode, Elizabeth Pauchet, La French Tech Amsterdam, interviewed Florence Richardson and Cecile Bassot, co-founders of WinEquity, a Venture Capital firm that wants to empower mixity by investing only in innovative startups that count at least 1 woman in their founding team. 

Florence and Cecile shared that only 24% of French startup founding teams include at least one woman (2021). However, a McKinsey study show that companies with a mixed board member perform better the ones without gender #diversity.  

WinEquity is also collaborating with organizations who share a similar goal like Femmes Business Angels to make a bigger impact.  

During this episode, Grace Mehrabe from Outmind and Pauline Koch from Sitowie testified of the positive aspects of this project. On the other side, Meryem El Aroui, a young investor, and Eric Phillipon, a veteran investor from Famae Impact, explained why they decided to invest in WinEquity.  

Do you believe that more diversity in tech can lead to more successes?  

#femaleinvestment #womenintech

Alexandre Lainé, Game Manager at Gameloft discussed with Adrien Bacchi, CEO of Chibi Phoenix and fellow French citizen living in Bulgaria.

Alexandre moved to Bulgaria 12 years ago for a career opportunity and stayed for Gameloft, which he called his biggest love story. He also learned to love Bulgaria, a country that at the time recently joined the European Union.

He explains why Bulgaria can be on the European opposite side of France, but at the same time be so close.  On the business side, the video game expert also explains that the birthplace of the Cyrillic script is attracting more and more entrepreneurs from various sectors.

The French native describes how the video game industry changed, from his personal stories. According to Alexandre, you have to learn all the time because it is a fast-evolving industry, and techniques that were applied 10 years ago don't work anymore. The metaverse, for instance, is closely connected with video games.

Both video games professional also discuss the challenge of understanding this business, for instance for investors, which they consider a risky investment.

Alexandre believes that Sofia can become a hub of the industry. The video game community in Bulgaria doubled in terms of professionals in the last 10 years.

If you are interested in Bulgaria, we talked about Bulgaria in episode 13 of La French Tech on Air.

#videogame #bulgaria #mobilegame #metaverse