ARP and POLREGIO are planning a set of events promoting the development of innovation and entrepreneurship. The companies will encourage – in the form of information activities, seminars and workshops – young, innovative firms to joint projects. The aim of the initiative is to integrate and build a culture of innovation among companies from the SME sector, as well as in the entire railway industry.

The program is particularly important due to the hermetic nature of the industry, which requires large financial outlays for the acquisition of knowledge. Small companies do not have easy access to information on the needs of railway carriers. The problem of carriers lies in the lack of a wide selection of suppliers in this specific market. The acceleration program is meant to respond to both challenges.

The first meeting of the program was held in the form of ARP Innovation Pitch. POLREGIO was a partner of 11th edition of workshops on innovative ideas. The company was looking for ticket sales software at the stationary, on-board entertainment or mobile applications for passenger integration.

ARP Innovation Pitch is a series of meetings which aim to create conditions for cooperation of large companies with startups. Participants include such enterprises as: ‘Polish Airports’ State Entreprise, URSUS, Azoty Group, Synthos. In the previous editions, there were almost 300 applications, over 100 had the opportunity to present themselves directly before the organizers and workshop partners. Three winners were selected from each competition (40 companies in total).