(String: {%- set hs_blog_post_body -%} {%- set in_blog_post_body = true -%} <span id="hs_cos_wrapper_post_body" class="hs_cos_wrapper hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field hs_cos_wrapper_type_rich_text" style="" data-hs-cos-general-type="meta_field" data-hs-cos-type="rich_text"> <div class="blog-post__lead h2"> <p style="text-align: justify;">A month ago, we took part in Burning Minds. It’s an internal conference, organized once a year along with our team retreat.</p> </div></span>)

Burning Minds – Our Biggest Internal Conference

Photo of Greta Gryz

Greta Gryz

Updated Oct 17, 2023 • 5 min read
Netguru_Burning_Minds_2019_max-2306-2

A month ago, we took part in Burning Minds. It’s an internal conference, organized once a year along with our team retreat.

Knowledge sharing is really important in our culture, as one of our values says that we should grow ourselves and people around us. By organizing something more complex than an ordinary team retreat, we wanted to put emphasis on this part of our identity and bring value to everyone in Netguru. That’s why we decided to organize a team retreat along with internal conference for educational purposes.

Check out our post-event video here.

The Idea

The event, formerly named Netguru Tech Talks, took place in Hotel Warszawianka, Serock, from Thursday to Sunday. It featured a wide range of speakers, mentors, and creative activities designed specifically for this occasion. The event gave us a lot of opportunities to explore different forms of self-development, share our knowledge, and inspire each other. It was a perfect combination of educational value and community engagement.
The event kicked off with a Grand Opening Presentation given by Wiktor Schmidt, Marek Talarczyk, and their guests. This time, we also decided to invite people directly from our team to share their inspirational stories with the whole company.

“It was an amazing idea. It’s authentic and it’s inspirational. I believe these real-life examples show that everyone has some impact on our organization. It was an honor for me to be on the stage at that very moment,” said Joanna Falkowska, Learning & Development Team Leader.

Netguru_Burning_Minds_2019_max-2447

Why?

We decided that participation was key to a successful community building event. Netguru encourages selfless sharing of one's unique talents, knowledge, and experience for the benefit and enjoyment of all.

The main goals behind hosting The Burning Minds, were:

  • Adding educational value to annual company retreats by running an internal conference for all Netgurals split into by thematic Tracks.
  • Promoting a culture of knowledge-sharing and giving all Netgurals a platform to share their experiences and ideas across different departments.
  • Helping people improve their presentation skills through public speaking trainings and giving them an opportunity to deliver keynotes and workshops in front of a big audience.
  • Bringing together all Netgurals and engaging them in well-being activities, creative workshops, and fun attractions.

Netguru_Burning_Minds_2019_max-2521

Go Big or... Go Bigger

During the conference we had a chance to listen to over 50 speakers and participate in 44 workshops and presentations split into 5 main paths. 400 attendees could choose between 8 conference rooms. We talked about taking ownership and questioning the status quo. We also had a chance to discuss personal and professional growth that can allow us to exceed our clients’ and colleagues’ expectations. There was also a path where we talked about creating beautiful software, and another one showing how to do that in an agile way. Last but not least, as Netguru has been growing rapidly we had some speeches about how we roll and what has changed inside the company.

In the evening, we all got together one more time for the Closing Keynote and an #AMA session with the Core Team. The crowd then gave a massive round of applause for the Burning Minds Organizers: Iga Walczak, Joanna Antkowiak, Zuzanna Stolińska, Anita Migacz, and Justyna Fibich. You rock!

Netguru_Burning_Minds_2019_max-4121


Saturday was filled with well-being and team-building activities such as yoga and dancing classes, home-made cosmetics and detergents workshops, a scavenger hunt, and kayaking. These activities allowed us to strengthen our relationships with teammates and relax a little before going home on Sunday.

We came back well-rested and filled with knowledge and inspiration. It was a great way to kick-start another half of 2019. We truly can’t wait for the Burning Minds 2020 edition, and we hope that you’d like to join us on this adventure. See our openings.

Photo of Greta Gryz

More posts by this author

Greta Gryz

Greta is a grey-haired girl who never stops smiling. She studied Psychology, and she currently uses...
Netguru Culture Book   Download now

We're Netguru!

At Netguru we specialize in designing, building, shipping and scaling beautiful, usable products with blazing-fast efficiency
Let's talk business!

Trusted by: