On 17 December, at the Faculty of Organization and Management, a lecture by Maciej Gdula entitled
“Artificial Intelligence, Real Start-ups. Will AI Really Do Everything for Us?” took place.

The lecture was organized by the Cognitive Technologies Student Research Group and was opened by the Dean of the Faculty of Organization and Management, Professor Aleksandra Kuzior. The discussion following the lecture was moderated by Dr Bartłomiej Knosala.

Maciej Gdula is a specialist in artificial intelligence and computer image analysis and processing. Over his more than thirty-year career, he has gained experience in the IT industry as a designer, programmer, project manager, business analyst, sales support engineer, and executive managing IT companies. He is the author of five books in the field of IT. He is the co-founder and CEO of Skillforce.pl Sp. z o.o., a company specializing in AI and machine vision solutions for industry, sports, and medicine. He is also a member of the Supervisory Board of The Farm 51 S.A. Privately, he is a combat sports enthusiast and an instructor of Japanese jujutsu and self-defence.

During the lecture, drawing on his personal experience, Maciej Gdula spoke about start-ups—small organizations created to quickly test and develop innovative ideas, usually products or services, under conditions of high uncertainty. He not only presented the methodology of building such organizations in considerable detail, but—what was a particular strength of the lecture—also discussed what can go wrong, what pitfalls to avoid, and what dangers await those who, inspired by colourful stories from Silicon Valley, decide to invest their time, energy, and investors’ funds in dreams of technology that will change the world.

The lecture included many practical tips: where to look for investors, how to choose collaborators, and what financial resources are needed to begin a start-up journey. Above all, Maciej Gdula succeeded in convincing students of the Faculty of Organization and Management that creating one’s own innovative product is possible even at a very early stage of a career.
“It is worth trying and taking the risk, because although many such initiatives end in failure, those who succeed achieve enormous financial success,” Gdula said.

After the lecture, a group of students approached Maciej Gdula to present their ideas for innovative products and services.