Deep Tech Corporate Toolkit: Getting Your Organisation Ready to Work with Deep Tech Start-ups

Working with deep tech start-ups raises questions that go well beyond the technology: who owns the business case, who decides, what “ready” means, how risk is assessed, and how a working prototype becomes part of everyday operations. Without clear responsibilities and a workable process, even a promising collaboration can stall. This workshop helps you identify what your organization needs to put in place to work effectively with deep tech start-ups: from initial assessment through pilot decisions to preparation for implementation. Whether you are establishing your open innovation approach or improving an existing one, you will apply practical tools to your organisation or a specific partnership. You do not need an active start-up collaboration to take part. Expect short introductions, practical exercises and focused discussion. Over two hours, you will work through your own organizational challenges or a start-up partnership you are exploring or already developing, using three tools: Deep Tech Readiness Check - assess how prepared your organisation is to evaluate, test and adopt a start-up’s technology, and identify gaps in ownership, resources and internal capabilities.TRL-to-Decision Map - connect technology readiness levels (TRLs) with the questions to ask, evidence to request and internal decisions needed before committing money and people.Collaboration Canvas & Process Outline - map roles, decision rights, key approvals, IP considerations, milestones and criteria for continuing, changing or ending a partnership. You will leave with reusable templates, initial work on your own case and a clearer set of priorities for moving your organization or partnership forward. Who should attend? Innovation, Open Innovation, R&D, Product Owners, Strategy and Business Development leads, together with business owners responsible for testing or adopting new technologies. Participation is limited to 25 people to allow focused discussion and feedback. About the workshop leader Katarzyna (Kate) WszolaCreative Executive Innovation Partner for Applied Innovation · Founder, PMC DA VINCI Kate helps large organisations make innovation executable, turning strategy, new technologies and R&D ambition into decisions, processes and projects that work within corporate structures. She brings more than 14 years of hands-on innovation leadership across corporate, start-up and academic ecosystems, including regional and group-level director roles, most recently as Director of Innovation at Veolia Energia Polska. Earlier, she headed the R&D Club, connecting more than 60 large corporations and SMEs in Poland around joint innovation initiatives. Today, as an independent consultant, facilitator and trainer, she works with corporate innovation teams, R&D departments and leadership boards on innovation management, organisational readiness, deep tech commercialisation and corporate–start-up collaboration. Kate is a Fellow of the Leadership Academy for Poland and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, with specialised training at the Fraunhofer Institute, Max Planck Institute, TU Dresden, IBM New York and Lund University. She works in Polish, English and French.