Nexera has once again become a partner of the Leadership Academy for Leaders in Education (APLO - Akademia Przywództwa Liderów Oświaty). Thanks to the company's commitment, five school principals from Nexera Regions will have the opportunity to take part in a unique, annual project involving close cooperation of the teaching staff with experienced business trainers and specialists in the field of psychology, sociology and social innovation.

APLO, the Leadership Academy for Leaders in Education, is a 2011 project created by the Humanites Institute, which initiated the need for systemic changes in the field of leadership in education in Poland. The essence of the program is the development of competences among teaching staff through close cooperation of school principals with leading lecturers from the world of business, psychology, social innovation, sociology and pedagogy, educating leading leaders. The idea behind the project is to build and develop skills among the most active school principals who have the courage to go beyond the usual patterns of education and are able to involve others in their projects. The program lasts a year and consists of thematic workshop sessions and individual cooperation with an appointed mentor from the top business management for 4-6 months. This year, Nexera financed the participation of five school principals from Oblędorek, Mazowsze, Tur, Ruś and Gierzwałd in the APLO program.

Last year's edition of the APLO program, in which Nexera was partnering, was met with great interest by school principals in the Regions. We are glad that the initiative was favourably received and the participants' involvement far exceeded our expectations. There were even more candidates to participate in this year's edition of the program than in the previous year. By joining the APLO program, we support the ideas of development of education leaders who will be able to fully use the potential of modern technologies and modern education. Nexera willingly engages in initiatives that address educational and social issues, aimed at improving the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Regions where we are developing our network. According to the Nexera survey, only 28% of respondents admitted that Polish schools are ready to switch to full-time online learning at the time of the announcement of distance learning in March 2020. It is all the more important to develop the skills of principals and teachers so that they are able to meet the demands of today's reality. Participation in the initiative of the Leadership Academy of Leaders in Education is an opportunity for new education leaders to acquire new business competences that they will be able to use in their daily work - says Paweł Biarda, member of the management board of Nexera, a company that is the first in Poland only wholesale carrier of a fiber optic access network with large scale.

After having many conversations with school principals, we learned that modern education does not keep up with the pace of changes in the environment, both in terms of content and teaching methods - emphasizes Zofia Dzik, investor and entrepreneur and founder of the Academy of Leadership of Education (APLO). - In order to quickly react to changing circumstances, you need skills that support the self-empowerment of a person, his or her internal compass, the ability to think critically. Today's key competences, such as the ability to learn and unlearn, emotional intelligence, building relationships and cooperation, independence, perseverance and taking responsibility for decisions made, are developed to a negligible extent at school and, unfortunately, also in families, due to the progressive phenomenon of the crisis of bonds. Therefore, if we want to improve the quality of education, and it is to ensure both the proper transfer of knowledge and the development of competences, people managing educational institutions must have a chance to develop at a level that has been reserved so far, mainly due to a financial barrier, for the top business staff. In our program, we broaden the perspective, we connect different worlds, which is why we value the possibility of working with Nexera. The practical dimension of APLO is also supported by over 350 high-level business managers who work individually with our directors as coaches / mentors. This year, the 12th edition of the Program takes place - adds Zofia Dzik.

Nexera is expanding its network in four Polish Regions: Łódzki; Świętokrzyski; Kujawy, Pomorze and Mazowsze; and Warmia and Mazury, ensuring fast, stable and reliable access to the digital world. Ultimately, the company will cover 3,000 schools and educational units in 1,900 locations. 1,815 locations already use the Nexera network. Additionally, schools connected to the OSE network have guaranteed free access to an internet connection of up to 100 Mb/s.

The remote mode of classes and the transfer of responsibilities to the Internet created new challenges for the Polish education system. To meet the requirements of digital education, it is first of all necessary to provide institutions and households with access to a reliable and stable network and teach students and teachers to use the benefits of digitization. We are convinced that the APLO program will effectively support education leaders in acquiring new competences so that they will be able to respond to the requirements and needs of today's school system - summarizes Paweł Biarda.

The series of workshops under the APLO program are to last until December 2021, and the first inaugural meeting is to be held on February 16.

About NEXERA

Nexera is the first in Poland exclusively a wholesale telecommunications carrier operating at a large scale, developing a fibre-optic access network (NGA) with high capacity (at least 100 Mb/s). Nexera's shareholders are companies that have been operating on the global telecommunications market for years, e.g. Infracapital and Nokia.

On the basis of the Operational Program Digital Poland (POPC), Nexera is building a fibre-optic network in 14 areas of central and north-eastern Poland. The program aims to eliminate those places in the country that do not have access to high-speed internet and to counteract the digital exclusion of European Union citizens. Ultimately, the most modern fibre-optic network will cover over 1 million households and almost 3 thousand schools and educational facilities that will be included in the NEXERA network, thanks to funding under OP DP and as part of the implementation of own projects.

In 2019, Nexera initiated the proprietary #RegionyNEXERY2019 report, which is the result of a study conducted jointly with the GfK agency. The report is one of the most cross-sectional sources of knowledge about Polish internet users in areas where there is no broadband internet access or where this access is limited (#RegionyNEXERY report for download). The survey and the report will be carried out periodically.

The company won the "Innovator of the Year" title in the Golden Antenna competition organized as part of the 18th Teleinformatics and Infrastructure World Symposium. It also received an award for the Best Implementation of Cloud Services in the Best in Cloud 2019 competition, organized by the Computerworld Polska editorial team. Nexera also won the international competition Global Carrier Awards 2020 in the category of the best implementation of OSS/BSS systems, thus joining the group of the most respected telecommunications companies in the world that are passionately changing the telecommunications industry.