Entrepreneurship

Nordea partners with University of Warsaw Incubator to support entrepreneurs

Nordea is now a proud and active partner with BraveCamp – an event organised by the University of Warsaw Incubator to support young people who want to enter the business world.

The BraveCamp Entrepreneurship Academy stage

Community engagement at Nordea is about contributing positively to society, with our volunteers helping others improve their skills, >mainly in the financial and entrepreneurial areas. One of the possible ways to achieve this is via entrepreneurship programmes which aim at teaching young people how to strengthen their financial well-being. 

With that in mind, we were proud to be given the opportunity to start a partnership with BraveCamp – an event organised by the University of Warsaw Incubator with the goal of supporting young people who want to enter the business world. 

From student to business owner

The BraveCamp Entrepreneurship Academy (in Polish: ‘Akademia przedsiębiorczości BraveCamp’) is an initiative designed to help students at the University of Warsaw and the Medical University of Warsaw who have an idea for a business but lack the expertise necessary to bring their dream to life.

During the whole five days, participants attended workshops and consultations conducted by experts and experienced practitioners from various areas such as budgeting, marketing or brand communication. They learned how to properly develop their ideas and present them to potential investors, and the most creative students received financial support for further advancement of their projects

Nordea awaits young brilliant minds

Heading training sessions was by no means Nordea’s only contribution to BraveCamp. For quite some time, our long-term goal as a company has been to strengthen our brand and reputation as a employer in Poland. We have managed to merge two ideas – building awareness among potential employees and helping students to develop professionally and find a perfect career path – by inviting the event’s participants to our office in Warsaw. 

We described to them the general principles of working at Nordea and shared our company culture. All that followed by office sightseeing and lunch. According to the feedback received afterwards, the visitors were impressed by Nordea’s modern office space, but what surprised them the most was the fact that working in banking turned out to be much more interesting than they initially thought. 

Piotr Grajewski, the third place winner of 10th BraveCamp edition with his project in Digital Psychology.

If I had to sum up BraveCamp in one sentence, I would say that it's a chance to meet inspiring people and see things from a different perspective which allows to understand better what I'm about to pursue in terms of my own project’s development.", says Piotr Grajewski, a doctoral candidate at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Psychology, the third place winner of 10th BraveCamp edition with his project in Digital Psychology.

Unconventional and innovative

“The vibrant energy and enthusiasm surrounding the participants during BraveCamp were impressive and contagious. Although the idea behind the event was based on competing, you would not be able to tell from the atmosphere of the place. The students were supportive towards each other and challenged each other to make their projects even better. The ideas prepared by them were often unconventional and innovative but also very well prepared and thought through,” comments Katarzyna Szczudlińska-Urban, Head of Technology Talent Services, who represented Nordea at BraveCamp as one of the mentors and a jury member tasked with choosing the best project. 

“I believe that building a talent pipeline would not be so effective without the collaboration with students and universities since they are the future of the job market – not only when it comes to IT and banking studies, but also in other fields linked to AI and modern technology, for example medicine.”

Jacek Sztolcman, the founder of the University of Warsaw Incubator, continues: 

“Our prime benefit of working with partners is a fresh outlook, most importantly, on education by offering the practitioners’ experience and perspective. That is why we appreciate so much the involvement of the Nordea team in our BraveCamp summer training. We invite experts who work in our partners’ organisations daily; their enthusiasm for working with young people, professionalism and experience make students accept new information more easily. We want students to implement their projects and make them feel they can develop them according to their ideas. It gives them a sense of agency – one of the key features of being an entrepreneur.”