In this episode of Business Planet, we travel to Poland to discover how the Silesian Aviation Cluster is helping more than 100 European firms extend their international reach by sharing knowledge and innovative solutions.
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00:00 Once dependent on black coal mining, this part of southwest Poland is now home to an aerospace cluster, one of Europe's over 1,500 industrial clusters.
00:12 What was our gold 100 years ago today became a burden, especially regarding environment.
00:19 And we know we have to change it to transform the region from black coal to the future.
00:26 Hello and welcome to Business Planet. Space tech company KP Labs has recently launched their first satellite, just one of the many technologies they've developed here as part of the Silesian aviation cluster.
00:43 This cluster grew out of the region's glide industry and is now home to 120 aerospace companies.
00:52 3, 2, 1, ignition.
00:56 KP Labs sent Nano Satellite Intuition 1 and an on-board data processing unit called Leopard into space on Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 last year.
01:06 This is the hyperspectral sensor. Pictures from the sensor goes to the Leopard, where Leopard performs different operations, different algorithms, and then with this, we downlink this information, we get this information to the ground station.
01:21 Processing the Earth observation data on board closes the gap between detecting a problem and acting on it, whether this is crisis management such as mapping a fire or flood or crop applications.
01:35 Usually you will see the entire field being green or yellow, but sometimes when there is something wrong going on with the crops, for example, the disease starts to develop.
01:47 You will not notice that because the color you see won't change. The hyperspectral image is more complex.
01:53 You can actually see 10 different shades of green. So it helps you to see that something bad is happening before humans would notice.
02:02 KP Labs has been part of the cluster since it was founded in 2016 with just three people. Now it's many times bigger. The cluster's brought them an international reach.
02:14 One of the biggest conferences that we went to was the Space Tech Expo in the U.S. and that was really important. It was the first conference for us, so we had a chance to go there thanks to the cooperation with the clusters.
02:28 Black coal mining played a vital role in Silesia, but since the 1990s the industry has been decimated. EU and foreign investment plus a pool of skilled local people led to the creation of the aviation cluster.
02:42 Considered a key Polish cluster, it receives government funding.
02:47 Yearly we are able to organize about 70, 75, 80 different missions, trade missions around the world for our members. So this is really huge.
03:00 We spend sometimes even 2 million euro yearly for support of our members to be present to promote their export sales.
03:11 In Europe there are hundreds of clusters. Silicon Saxony in Germany is a world leader in the production of microelectronics, while Mine the Gap is a cluster network in the critical raw materials sector.
03:24 All promote competitiveness, resilience and innovation. Clusters are geographic concentrations of not just businesses but R&D centers, universities, suppliers, service providers and so on.
03:39 They boost regional GDP and lower unemployment.
03:45 Around 70% of cluster companies are SMEs. For some SMEs clusters can actually be a lifeline.
03:52 Covid came, which completely killed aviation for some time. And in this moment the participation of cluster became very fruitful for us. Because cluster gave us a chance to get some equipment and this equipment was a key for the new product.
04:12 The company now specializes in manufacturing parts for drones.
04:18 This is at the moment 80% of our activity. We are producing some drones for military purposes or components for drones.
04:27 To be honest I cannot imagine right now what could happen if we are not the member of the cluster. For me it was a key item.
04:37 This runway is built on the remains of a black coal mine. The aviation clusters changed the local landscape both literally and economically, bringing new jobs, new companies, new investments to this part of Poland.
04:52 See you next time on Business Planet.
04:54 [Music]