Project Kazimierz: Innovation in Central Europe Education, discussion and collaboration for 21st Century entrepreneurs

Summary:
It's no secret that Poland's Jewish community has had a tumultuous existence. Our guest for this edition of #ProjectKazimierz is upcoming TEDx Krakow speaker Jonathan Ornstein who brings his unique perspective on the state of the Jewish community in Poland to the mic for a discussion with Sam and Richard.





Table of contents:
Krakow Then and Now

00:47 Sam's Intro
01:13 Richard Introduces Jonathan Ornstein
02:22 Krakow's Jewish Heritage
03:55 Krakow Today

Poland and Jewish History

05:42 Krakow and Tourism
07:19 Poland and Jewish History
09:17 Richard's Time Capsule
09:51 Poland Today

A Modern Rennaissance

10:38 Jonathan Ornstein and TEDx
12:20 A Modern Rennaissance
13:07 Origins of the Kazimierz Community
14:17 Multiculturalism in Poland

Kazimierz and Jewish History

17:01 Kazimierz and Jewish History
18:01 A New Poland
20:06 We're All Royalists
20:24 A Visit from Prince Charles

Passion in Leadership

23:28 Leadership Vision
24:47 Passion in Leadership
26:40 Contradicting Popular Media

This is the Real Poland

29:56 Getting the Facts Straight
30:44 TEDx Warsaw

Jonathan Ornstein at TEDx

32:56 Jonathan and Rabbi Schudrich
33:30 Jonathan's Upcoming TEDx talk
35:22 Sam's Wrap Up





Transcript:


00:47
sam cook: 
Hello again, Podcast Listener, this is Sam Cook, the co-host of Project Kazimierz with Richard Lucas, how are you doing Richard?


00:55
richard lucas: 
I'm doing very well.


00:56
sam: 
All right, Richard. We're sitting here actually in the office of the heart of Kazimierz, near Plac Nowy where we're interviewing someone that Richard knows very well, and as it’s tradition on this show I'm going to make Richard make a more detailed introduction of our guest, Jonathan Ornstein.


01:13
richard:
Yes, well, I met Jonathan before he was doing the job he's now doing leading the Jewish Community Center, here in Krakow. When I met him he was a younger, successful, popular academic in the Jagiellonian University, I think teaching jewish studies. And we got together not through no kind of professional relationship we were just friends and I think that it would be much better for Jonathan rather than me to explain how the building we're now sitting in came into being and what's being done here which is really remarkable and to complete contrast to what people think about these days when they hear about what's going on in the Jewish world.


01:54
sam:
Well, Jonathan, welcome to the show and I'm really excited as a history fledgling historian myself to hear a little bit about the story of Kazimierz, which seems like it's had a remarkable transformation in the last 20 years probably, mainly due to what you've done and obviously to the Jewish Community Center that you founded being a big part of that renaissance here in Poland of the Jewish community.


02:21
jonathan ornstein:
That's a very interesting story and it depends how far we can really dive into the history very much I think that we have to go a little bit before the war. I think this area in Krakow itself was a quarter Jewish; about 65, 000 Jews here in the city of 250,000 and of course most of them perished, murdered during the Holocaust. This area which was the Jewish quarter before the war; not that all the Jews lived here but there were a good amount of Jews here; it was primarily Jewish; and this really became kind of a wasteland after the war, the Jews were killed and then the area was to some degree vacant, they moved people back in, it had some kind of criminal element. So it wasn't really a very good place to be for a long time and that for about 30 years, 40 years after the war was the case and then Schindler's List was filmed here in 1993 and that really kickstarted this revitalization of the community and of this neighborhood, which has now then led to the revitalization of the community.

Summary:
Sam Cook and Richard Lucas talk about their new project and the climate for business, particularly entrepreneurship, in Central Europe today. This is the premier episode of this new and unique podcast experience.





Table of contents:
Why Poland is A Global Leader in Technology Innovation

00:47 Sam's Intro
01:06 Richard Lucas Introduces his Brother Edward
02:43 Global Reach of Poland and Central Europe
03:50 Edward's TED Talk Themes
05:01 Richard Comes to Krakow
05:56 Edward Comes to Krakow

Business in Post-Communist Era Poland

07:48 British/Polish Relations and the Warsaw Uprising
08:47 Poland in the Post-Communist Era
10:41 When is it Too Late to Apologize?

Analyzing the "Peak West" Concept

14:54 Is There Validity to the "Peak West" Concept?
17:34 The Future of the West
18:25 Immigration and Capital

The Cultural Effect on Entrepreneurship

19:09 The Most Dynamic Companies
21:17 Technology Innovation in Central Europe
23:30 The Cultural Effect on Entrepreneurship
25:12 Closing Thoughts from Edward





Transcript:


00:47
sam cook: 
Hello again, Project Kazimierz Podcast Listener, this is Sam Cook, co-host of Project Kazimierz with my co-host here, Richard Lucas, and we have a very special guest today, that I'm going to let Richard introduce because he's probably better qualified than anyone to introduce our guest, Edward Lucas.


01:06


richard lucas: 
Yes, well, I'm not going to do much of an introduction other than to say straight over to my big brother Edward Lucas I'm very proud to be co-hosting here on podcast.




01:16


edward lucas: 
Well, it's great to be here. I was a student in Krakow many years ago and I remember Kazimierz just it was in the communist period and I will say I feel I had a lot of my geo-political education at the hands of those who understood the situation in Europe much better than we did in the West. I was a foreign correspondent for 20 something years in Wesley, Eastern Europe and I’ve spend most of the time working for The Economist. I write books about Russia, Putin and European security and I have to say, although I agree with everything The Economist says about Putin, I don't actually write the Russian coverage myself, that's done by a very distinguished team of colleagues.




01:57


sam:
Well, Edward it's great to have you here and I'm just tickled to finally speak to someone behind the excellence and reporting that is The Economist. I always used to tell my cadets at West Point that if there’s one news magazine that they should be reading is only The Economist, because if you read that cover to cover every week you get everything that you need to know about what's important in the world and just the editorial quality of what you guys do there is amazing so it's great to have you on here.




02:28


edward:
Thanks for your kind words. If you ever need another job our marketing department would like to hear from you.




02:33


sam:
Well, I certainly would do a great job marketing The Economist; I'd do it for free for you anyway. Edward, one of the reasons that Richard and I founded this show it's really, we've centered the name of this podcast in Kazimierz, which is the intellectual heart of Poland but really it's about innovation in Central Europe and when we talk about innovation that could be about entrepreneurship, but what we want to do with you today is really zoom out and take a global picture of how Poland and Central Europe fits into the broader trends that are going on the world today. We’re also very excited to announce that you’ve been able to commit to being a speaker at TEDxKazimierz on 23 May. And just wanted to explore a couple of the proposed themes that you’ve run by us and really just give the listener a chance to just hear you out discussing those and then maybe we can get some listener comments on that.

Sam Cook and Richard Lucas talk about their new project and the climate for business, particularly entrepreneurship, in Central Europe today. This is the premier episode of this new and unique podacast experience.