THURSDAY GATHERING #55 Polish Tech | Agentic AI
TO REGISTER GO TO: venturecafeberlin.gatherus.app
Agentic AI is rapidly moving from experimentation into production — bringing with it an entirely new layer of technical, organizational, and regulatory complexity. This edition of Thursday Gathering brings together founders, engineers, researchers, and operators from Poland’s and Europe’s AI ecosystem to explore what it actually takes to build, deploy, and scale autonomous systems in real-world environments.
From trustworthy AI and EU AI Act considerations to governance gaps, orchestration challenges, production failures, and infrastructure trade-offs, the evening focuses on the realities behind deploying AI agents at scale. Expect practical insights, honest conversations, and firsthand lessons from teams working directly on production-grade AI systems.
Startup incubator Berlin UX-Testing
🕔 17:00 – 20:00
MENTOR HOURS: Trustworthy AI – Practical Guidance for Teams Shipping AI
🕔 17:00 – 20:00
Speaker: Emre Öcal — Co-Founder & CEO, lextrace
1:1 consultation sessions for founders, product teams, and operators working on AI-powered products and features. These mentor hours are designed to help teams quickly evaluate AI use cases, identify potential risks, and turn uncertainty into practical next steps.
From Pilot to Production
🕔 17:15 – 18:00
A practical discussion with engineers and operators who have taken agentic AI beyond demos and prototypes into complex production environments.
The panel explores the friction teams encounter when deploying autonomous systems into organizations shaped by legacy infrastructure, fragmented data, and operational constraints.
Speakers:
Malte Pietsch — CTO, deepset
Arash Javanmard — Co-Founder & CTO, Selonor
Atita Arora — AI & Search Strategist
Matthew Honnibal — Founder, Expansion AI
Business Club Welcoming
🕔 17:30 – 17:50
AI, Capital & Innovation - Unlocking the Polish-German Growth Opportunity
🕔 18:00 – 18:45
This panel brings together founders, investors, ecosystem leaders, and policy representatives to explore the growing opportunities between Poland and Germany — from startup growth and venture capital to deep tech, cybersecurity, and international expansion.
Speakers:
Marcin Król – Minister-Counsellor, Head of the Economic Division, Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin
Michał Suchocki – CEO & Co-Founder, CyCommSec
Florian Steger – Managing Partner, betacluster Ventures
Bartosz Pakulski – Investment Analyst, Vinci S.A.
Moderated by:
Ewa Emilia Geresz – Interim Director, Venture Café Berlin
Building agentic AI that works when it counts
🕕 18:10 – 18:50
How do you govern AI agents acting directly on behalf of users? What happens when autonomous systems operate in environments where errors have financial or operational consequences?
This panel examines the deployment realities of customer-facing AI systems across banking, e-commerce, and consumer platforms.
Speakers:
Frederik Hamann — Senior Strategy Lead, Taktile
Hasna Najmi – Value Engineering Lead, Merantix Momentum
Michał Kopczyński – Senior Machine Learning & AI Engineer, DAC.digital
Josua Ziegler – CEO, punktum
Agentic AI in the Wild: What Actually Changes When Agents Leave the Lab
🕖 19:00 – 19:20
Speaker: Marek S. Tatara, PhD – Chief Scientific Officer, DAC.digital
As AI systems become increasingly agent-based, the core challenge shifts from model quality to system design. This session explores what changes when autonomous agents begin operating in dynamic, unpredictable environments.
Agentic AI Startups Pitching Track
🕖 19:00 – 19:20
Speakers:
Felix Gerberding – Technical Account Manager, AWS
Tom Sieron – Chief Revenue Officer, DAC.digital
Ewa Emilia Geresz – Interim Director, Venture Café Berlin
Adam Formanek – Co-Founder, Polish Tech
A fast-paced pitching track featuring startups building the next generation of agentic AI applications and infrastructure. Discover emerging tools, platforms, and systems shaping the future of autonomous workflows and intelligent automation.
🎟️ Free & open to all
Full agenda will be announced at venturecafeberlin.org