People connected with WUT on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list

From President of a Student Research Group to CEO of a "Space" Startup

Łucja Rugor began her career at the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering, where she also led a Student Research Group. It was there that she developed her passion for space, which she later channelled into her own business.

"Above all, I remember a lot of hard work surrounded by people with a strong passion for space. Of course, the solid knowledge I gained from lectures at the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering was invaluable, but the real springboard for a career in the space industry for me was the Students' Space Association. There, together with a fantastic group of people, we could turn theory into practice. We built sounding rockets and stratospheric balloons, while our colleagues created rovers and satellites — all in our free time, driven purely by passion. The experience I gained from those projects meant that employers noticed me even before I earned my engineering degree. And serving as president of the Club was the best management school I could have dreamed of," explains Łucja Rugor, CEO of Kosmok.

Łucja Rugor

“I am now focused on developing my own company. I am the founder and CEO of Kosmok, a startup working on solutions for a sustainable ecosystem in outer space. Our first goal is to develop an on-orbit satellite refuelling interface. Once we achieve that, we won't rest on our laurels — we will take further steps toward becoming on-orbit fuel suppliers. It's a long-term project. My interests are not far from this — I love technology and physics, but I also feel the need to balance them with art, especially classical music," she adds. "Being included on Forbes' list is an enormous honour and recognition of the work, not only mine but of the entire team and everyone who supports the project. For me, it is above all a powerful motivation to keep going and a confirmation that the direction we have taken with Kosmok is important and noticed. I see it as an encouragement to pursue our goals even more boldly."

As Łucja Rugor adds, her immediate professional plans are 100% focused on developing Kosmok. "We want to complete work on our technology and begin its commercialisation. This involves many challenges — from further team building, through securing funding and business partners, to tackling the pioneering nature of our activities. Our goal is to introduce a solution that will drastically change the future of satellite operations. That requires full focus, so I don't really think about what comes next."

A virtual assistant for doctors

Graduates of the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, brothers Krzysztof Paczuski and Paweł Paczuski, created upmedic — a system that not only streamlines doctors' work but also helps patients better understand their test results, which they often wait months to receive. The system offers doctors templates that — thanks to standardised terminology and structured organ descriptions — encourage the creation of medical documentation with a consistent structure. Upmedic also allows for working with medical documentation created using traditional methods.

Today, the company is thriving — upmedic is present in medical facilities across Poland and is expanding its operations to Europe and the United States.

“The biggest challenge in our work is change management. What in other sectors is taken for granted — such as faster documentation — becomes a revolution in healthcare. And while the benefits are obvious, implementation often meets resistance not because of a lack of technology, but a lack of readiness to change the paradigm. As Thomas Kuhn's theory suggests, new ideas, even clearly superior ones, spread slowly — not because they are inefficient, but because they require a change in thinking. And that, in a system as complex and institutionalised as healthcare, is the hardest part," say the creators of upmedic.

Paweł Paczuski and Krzysztof Paczuski

Conversations with major medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare system operators clearly show that everyone is competing for one thing: the doctor's time. It is the most valuable resource in the entire medical ecosystem. As an intelligent assistant for doctors, upmedic becomes a natural point of contact between the doctor and the technological environment they interact with after seeing patients and performing procedures.

Importantly, unlike HIS (Hospital Information Systems), upmedic is not a tool imposed from the top down — doctors choose upmedic because they genuinely recognise the value it offers. This voluntary adoption, rather than an obligation, makes its presence in doctors' daily work both authentic and effective. For business partners, this is a significant advantage, as they can build unique value for doctors through integration with upmedic.

“We focus on one thing and do it as well as we can. We are a plug-and-play component — ready to implement, lightweight, flexible, and efficient. Today, upmedic already serves as a data layer for other products developed by our partners. In this model, everyone can focus on what they do best, without having to build everything from scratch," emphasise Krzysztof Paczuski and Paweł Paczuski. "Our team is not large, but it is composed of specialists in their respective fields, which gives us multiple perspectives in building our doctor's assistant — technical, medical, and even linguistic. We currently have around 10 people, but as we grow, the need to hire more is increasing. We are open to this and fully aware that our team will grow in the near future."