From employment support to business growth: Over 20,000 beneficiaries and hundreds of new companies created in the BEST programme

From immediate support in a crisis to the professional development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Over four years, the BEST programme (Business Entrepreneurship Skills Training) reached more than 20,000 people, becoming an incubator for local businesses – from family companies to modern technology solutions. We summarise a project that gave entrepreneurs from every sector practical tools to build stable foundations.

The article was originally published in Polish on Money.pl

From crisis support to business acceleration

It all began in July 2022. In the face of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the large numbers of refugees seeking safety in Poland, the BEST programme was launched as a first-response career support initiative. At that time, the goal was simple: to help participants regain stability in a new situation by supporting them in finding employment or starting their own business. This included professional career counselling, upskilling training and SOS mentoring. The initiative grew rapidly and reached over 15,000 people within its first two years.

This enormous level of trust became the driving force behind the programme’s evolution and adaptation to participants’ specific needs. In July 2024, BEST transformed into an accelerator programme for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, supporting 102 entrepreneurs through 160 hours of practical business workshops, 200 individual analyses, thousands of connections and USD 20,000 allocated to financial grants. The four-year impact of these activities is impressive. More than 300 new companies and hundreds of new jobs have been created in the Polish market. The initiative is led by Youth Business Poland and Standard Chartered Foundation, in cooperation with Standard Chartered Poland.

“The Polish market still lacks comprehensive programmes that support micro-entrepreneurship, even though this sector is the true foundation of our economy and generates 46.6% of GDP. Young entrepreneurs are too often left alone with their challenges right after registering a company. In Poland, it is not difficult to obtain funding for a startup if you say that you are one. The BEST programme reverses this model and supports those who cannot count on such help. Over four years, we have helped create more than 200 companies that are dynamically developing, creating jobs and paying taxes in the country. I believe that there is not enough initiatives like this one, and every large entrepreneur once started with a small company. Today, these companies are the driving force for our economy.”

– Adrian Migoń, CEO, Youth Business Poland

“The BEST programme has shown that partnership between business and non-governmental organisations can have a deeply human dimension. Programme beneficiaries have created more than 300 new jobs in their companies: each of them is a new story and greater stability for more people and families. I am glad that we were part of a strategically developed initiative that had a positive impact not only on the participants, but also on their communities and the local economy. This human dimension also includes the engagement of Standard Chartered volunteers, who over the past four years not only supported emerging entrepreneurs with their knowledge and experience, but also stood by them when they were making important decisions, organising their ideas and building confidence that their businesses could take off. The participants’ stories show how much can change when someone helps you translate ambition into a concrete action plan and understands the challenges faced by the other person.”

– Anna Urbańska, CEO, Standard Chartered Poland

What exactly is the BEST programme and what did participants work on?

To understand the scale of success achieved by the finalists of the programme’s fourth edition, it is worth looking at the idea behind it. BEST is an intensive accelerator that combines practical business education, mentoring and networking. Instead of theory, it focuses on specific methods for validating ideas and generating innovations that can be successfully introduced even in a traditional bakery or a flower shop. An important element of the programme are workshops led by business practitioners, with individual mentor support as its main foundation.

The range of projects demonstrated the participants’ strong market maturity and confirmed that BEST effectively supports the development of companies operating both in traditional sectors, such as fitness studios, flower shops, e-commerce stores and clothing brands, and in technology startups in areas including AI, SaaS or HealthTech.

The latest edition of BEST – results after four months of intensive development

The Demo Day for the latest edition, held on 23 June at the Standard Chartered Poland office, was a major test for the business models developed by participants. Their projects were carefully assessed by experts. The jury included leading specialists from Standard Chartered: Marcin Kaczmarski (Director, Risk and Control), Magdalena Wąwoźna (Director, Engagement), Juliusz Stefankiewicz (Business Analyst Team Manager), as well as Adrian Migoń (CEO, Youth Business Poland) and Grzegorz Wolf (Deputy Director at the Labour Office).

Here are the three projects that received the highest recognition from the jury and proved how significant a leap can be made in just a few months.

The main prize, first place and PLN 10,000 went to Inna Bozhko, founder of Autism Friendly Haircut. It is a unique hairdressing service for children on the autism spectrum, adapted to their sensory needs. The winner says that she underwent a key transformation during the programme, developed her business model to include cooperation with a child psychologist and has already started working with her first therapeutic centre.

Second place and a PLN 5,000 award went to Dominik Ilnicki, who is developing Benched – a platform connecting the community of football enthusiasts with the sports equipment market. The founder emphasises that during the acceleration he validated his project in the market, gathered a community of more than 50,000 users, built a five-person development team and is preparing to launch the finished mobile and web application in the coming weeks.

Third place and PLN 5,000 went to Natalia Lewczuk, author of the Hyperion Diagnosis project. This medical innovation supports diagnostics through the analysis of biological data and personalised therapies. As she explains, she joined the programme with only an idea and is finishing it with a ready prototype. Just 11 hours after launch, she secured a paid B2B pilot agreement with a karate club, and an outstanding scientist, Professor Chmura, joined her team.

People create the labour market and business

The success of the BEST programme over the past four years proves that people are always behind employment statistics and newly opened companies – whether it is someone writing their first CV in a new country, or an entrepreneur opening a family carpentry business, a cosy café or a technology startup. It was this unique combination of participants’ passion and mentors’ experience that helped build a stable professional future for thousands of people.

We extend our sincere thanks to Standard Chartered Poland employees for their expert support of the participants. We also thank the programme implementers and main partners: PwC, the Labour Office of the Capital City of Warsaw and the Mamo Pracuj Foundation.

The four years of the BEST programme have come to an end, but the jobs created, the companies developed and, above all, the professional skills gained by participants are lasting capital that will continue to contribute to Poland’s GDP for decades to come.