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The EIC Summit 2026 brought together Europe's most ambitious innovators, investors, scientists, and policymakers at the stunning Tour & Taxis venue on the Brussels Canal - two days of big ideas, bigger conversations, and the kind of energy you only get when an entire continent's innovation ecosystem is in the same room.
Our founder and president, Kinga Stanislawska, was there in her role as EIC Ambassador, and she wasn't just attending. She was on stage. Twice.
Panel 1 - Momentum Stage: "Scaling Smart: Stage-by-Stage Capital Strategy"
The first session was a hands-on workshop for EIC-backed founders: how do you actually build a funding roadmap that holds up across every stage of growth?
Kinga joined the panel alongside:
- Kurt Stokbro, CEO, Sparrow Quantum
- Mihaela Diana Rucinschi, Investors Programme Coordinator, EIC Business Acceleration Services
- Cristian Dascalu, Founder of GapMinder VC, Techcelerator, and ClujHUB
The conversation got into the real texture of fundraising - not the polished pitch deck version, but the decisions that actually determine whether a company reaches the next stage. What are the key pitfalls founders consistently underestimate? What does a resilient capital strategy look like when the macro environment keeps shifting? When do you push for the next round, and when do you consolidate?
For early and growth-stage founders in the room, this was exactly the kind of grounded, experience-led advice that doesn't fit neatly into a slide deck, but stays with you.
Panel 2 - Horizon Stage: "Companies with Gender-Diverse Teams Are Set to Win - But How Do You Build One?"
The second workshop was closer to home for EWVC, and Kinga moderated it.
The panel brought together four exceptional voices:
- Sara Jud, Women Leadership Programme Coordinator, European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency
- John Metselaar, Professor of Management Practice at Solvay Brussels School for Economics and Management
- Annick Verween, Head of Biotope
- Corine Dubruel, President of HSL Technologies (HySiLabs)
The premise was simple and backed by evidence. Gender-diverse companies are rare, but they consistently outperform. They generate more innovative solutions. They deliver higher profits. The data has been clear on this for years.
So why is it still so hard?
The workshop didn't settle for platitudes. It dug into real success cases from the European innovation ecosystem - what it actually took for companies to build genuinely diverse leadership teams. Not the policy version. The founder version. It also named the hurdles honestly, and then did something rarer still: it got practical. Participants left with concrete approaches they can apply inside their own organisations, right now, without waiting for the system to fix itself.
Why both panels matter and why they belong together
At first glance, scaling capital strategy and gender-diverse leadership might seem like separate conversations. They're not.
Access to capital and access to leadership are two sides of the same coin for the founders and operators who are still systematically overlooked in the European ecosystem. The decisions made in both rooms, how companies are funded, and who gets to lead them - shape the same outcome: whether Europe builds an innovation economy that uses all of its talent, or only some of it.
The EIC Summit is not a side event. It's where European Commission leadership, deep tech founders, investors, and policymakers sit in the same building and decide what the future looks like. Having both of these conversations on the main programme and having Kinga in both rooms is exactly the kind of presence that moves things forward.
The work continues
For EWVC, the EIC Summit 2026 was a reminder of how much momentum there is and how much work remains. Thank you to the European Innovation Council for the platform, to all the panelists across both sessions, and to every founder and operator who showed up ready to build something better. The evidence is clear. The tools exist. The moment is now.