Educational activities

Education is a foundation of trust in the capital market and its participants. In pursuit of its mission, the Warsaw Stock Exchange has for years engaged in educational campaigns addressed to students, investors and professionals on the capital market.

The key educational activities of the GPW Group are carried out directly by the Warsaw Stock Exchange and by the energy exchange TGE. To amplify the reach and efficiency of their educational initiatives, the GPW Group companies established the GPW Foundation.

The mission of the GPW Foundation is to develop and adapt the educational offer concerning the capital market and the exchange. The GPW Foundation pursues its mission by implementing training and educational projects for school and university students. The GPW Foundation’s programmes are also dedicated to investors and professionals active on the financial market.

GPW and the GPW Foundation in partnership with other capital market participants educate next generations of investors.

Educational activities of the GPW Foundation and the GPW Group companies in 2020

Key educational projects and initiatives implemented by the GPW Foundation and GPW in 2020

Go4Poland - Wybierz Polskę! – a programme designed to seek talents among Polish students of foreign universities and to encourage them to work in Polish companies and institutions. In the Programme, the GPW Foundation works with businesses, institutions and student initiatives including student clubs and associations which promote returns of students to Poland to have a career in Polish companies and the public administration. The Programme is open to Polish students and graduates of universities around the world, including students participating in exchange programmes at foreign universities and Polish students from the Polish diaspora who are advanced speakers of Polish.

Go4Poland-Wybierz Polskę! is a platform of communication for Polish students and graduates of foreign universities with companies and institutions which offer paid internships. The GPW Foundation initiated the fifth round of the programme in 2020, including its key components: internships in partner companies, a conference, a mentoring programme, and meetings of the Programme Board which defines the directions of the programme.

In 2020, Go4Poland hosted the first-ever Summer Exchange School for 25 Programme winners selected in a recruitment process comprised of several steps. The course included seven days of workshops, panel discussions, lectures, expert talks, networking, meetings with prominent specialists and experts in capital markets, innovation, start-ups, NewConnect and business. The Go4Poland Summer Exchange School was financed by the National Freedom Institute – Centre for Civil Society Development under the Civil Initiative Fund Programme 2014-2020. The Go4Poland Summer Exchange School and the fifth edition of the Programme closed with the conference “Your Career – Direction: Poland!”. The event combined face-to-face and remote participation. The conference featured an Oxford debate and two panel discussions. Certificates were presented to graduates of the Go4Poland Summer Exchange School.

Online School Exchange Game (SIGG) – an educational project addressed to students of secondary schools and senior students of primary schools. The 18^th edition of the project was offered by GPW in partnership with the GPW Foundation and the Lesław A. Paga Foundation. The project included a final game held online in June with the participation of the 20 winning teams from all over Poland. Enrolment in the next edition of the project opened in November 2020.

SIGG is an online investment game. The educational module of the 18^th project edition included a dozen e-learning sessions combined with gamification. The participants invest virtual cash but their orders are executed based on actual buy and sell orders from the market.

INDEX Investment Challenge is a national investment contest hosted by the GPW Foundation and the INDEX Capital Market Science Club at the Kraków University of Economics. The 2020 contest was co-hosted for the first time ever by the GPW Foundation. The Warsaw Stock Exchange was the Technology Partner. The project promotes the Polish capital market and active investment. The initiative provided students from all over Poland with an in-depth understanding of the exchange and traded instruments as well as hands-on experience. Nearly 3,000 participants from 345 universities and 165 science clubs participated in the contest.

Summer Online Exchange School – The GPW Foundation in partnership with the Association of Exchange Investors (SIG) completed a series of online training sessions of the Summer Online Exchange School. Nine training sessions were offered from 8 July to 2 September 2020. The programme was addressed to beginners in exchange investing across Poland. The training participants were 3,341 unique users. The project featured speakers from brokerage houses that are Exchange Members: Noble Securities, DM BOŚ, DM PKO BP, and Santander Securities.

The GPW Foundation delivered a special edition of the project dedicated to investments during the pandemic in 2020, which attracted great interest: 2,826 participants joined five webinars.

Niebanalnie o giełdzie – In October 2020, the GPW Foundation closed the second edition of an educational project addressed to teachers who teach subjects related to economics. The programme closed with an online conference hosted on the GPW Trading Floor. As a part of the second edition of the project, the GPW Foundation offered 16 local training rounds (including 11 webinars). The training programme included two training cycles. Training in the first cycle was offered to new participants and included three lectures (“Impact of the economic environment on the exchange”, “How does GPW work?”, “The capital market and financial instruments”) as well as a methodology workshop: “How to teach economics effectively?”. The second training cycle was dedicated to participants of the first project edition and included 7 hours of workshops. The project also included a competition for the best capital market lesson plan. The project engaged approximately 400 teachers who teach subjects related to economics.

The project was co-financed by the National Bank of Poland as an economics educational initiative. The objective of the project was to improve the skills of teachers of primary schools (grade 7 and 8) and secondary schools who teach subjects related to economics in order to develop knowledge about savings and investing and promote rational behaviour of young people, including a presentation of capital markets, investment instruments and their critical review, as well as psychological factors driving investing and saving preferences, and the ability to rate investment risks. The project was national in scope and offered free of charge to participants.

The Third Financial Education & Entrepreneurship Congress co-hosted by the GPW Foundation took place at the Warsaw Copernicus Science Centre on 10 March 2020 with the participation of 300 representatives of 130 institutions and entities from the world of finance, education, and training. The main part of the Congress was a plenary session including the keynote debate on “Challenges of financial education on the threshold of the 2020s”.

In 2020, the Foundation continued the project DIALOG - Knowledge-Skills-Competences: Innovative acceleration model for cross-sector co-operation in the development of the Polish capital market financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, aiming to strengthen Poland’s capital market by developing a model for cross-sector co-operation.

The project aims to define an optimum model of co-operation between researchers, businesses (including investors, issuers, SMEs), and the economic and legislative environment.

The project included the following initiatives in 2020:

• A survey of the competence gap of target groups: science – business – economic environment from the perspective of the conditions for development of inter-sector co-operation and implementation of a system of learning together to support the resolution of hurdles on the capital market.
• Framework of a new model of inter-sector co-operation on the capital market and a system of learning together for partners.
• Testing a new model of inter-sector co-operation and the conditions for implementation of a system of learning together to support the resolution of hurdles on the capital market.

Investment as a Challenge: a new project of the GPW Foundation under the umbrella of the programme Science Social Responsibility: Promoting Science and Sports. In 2020, the Foundation completed one of four activities in the project by hosting the opening conference: “Investment as a Challenge: Methods, Best Practice, Attitudes” held on 17 November 2020. The conference patrons included the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the Chamber of Fund and Asset Management (IZFiA). The conference industry partner was PFR Portal PPK. The event was co-financed under the Science Social Responsibility programme of the Minister of Science and Higher Education.

School visits to GPW – the Foundation offers school visits to the GPW head office for students of secondary schools and senior students of primary schools. Visits include a presentation by Foundation representatives as well as a multimedia demo class for school students. Unfortunately, school visits were suspended in March 2020 due to pandemic restrictions.

The Warsaw Stock Exchange also engages in many educational initiatives addressed to different groups of market participants including:

• Turbo Challenge Game – an educational competition organised in partnership with ING Bank NV, offering virtual investment of cash in exchange-listed ING Turbo certificates, selected equities, and ETFs. GPW is a competition co-organiser and founder of prizes. The objective of the competition is to educate investors and to promote exchange-traded structured products. The competition had 2,682 enrolled contestants who closed at least one transaction each, the biggest number in history and an increase of 4% year on year.

• GPW Growth – in October 2020, GPW launched a new edition of GPW Growth, a comprehensive programme of support for growth of small and medium-sized enterprises based on their identified needs. The programme is addressed to CEOs, Board Members and Directors responsible for key goals of companies. The unique project features networking events with the participation of experts and business practitioners, workshops, case studies, one-on-one meetings. This edition of the programme offered 110 hours of workshops and lectures, as well as many accompanying events. The first edition of the GPW Growth Academy brought together 21 participants from 13 companies. The initiative is organised by GPW in partnership with the Polish Development Fund (PFR), EY Academy of Business, Baker McKenzie Krzyżowski i Wspólnicy sp. k., Grabowski i Wspólnicy Kancelaria Radców Prawnych Sp. k., NBS Communications, CFA Society, Stowarzyszenie Inicjatywa Firm Rodzinnych, Business Dialog. The Ministry of Economic Development, Labour and Technology is the patron of the GPW Growth Academy.

In 2020, educational activities included a number of training sessions and webinars dedicated to investment on the exchange, ESG reporting and investment policies, and raising capital on the public market. The estimated number of participants of training sessions and webinars hosted or co-hosted by GPW in 2020 crossed the mark of 5,000. The educational and promotional activities included:

• webinars dedicated to IPOs on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the introduction of shares to trading on NewConnect (“Capital for growth - #IPO”, “Capital for growth - #NewConnect”);
• webinars dedicated to investment education (including “Passive investment in times of the COVID-19 pandemic”, “Exchange traded products based on oil prices: Everything you need to know about the oil market in times of high volatility”);
• webinars dedicated to ESG factors and reporting including non-financial reporting (including “Integrated report as a tool of integrated organisation management”, “ESG Warsaw 2020”, “Sustainable Investment Fundamentals” workshop, “Best Practice for GPW Listed Companies 2016. Application and reporting. Plans for 2020” workshop).

Educational activities on the commodity market

Towarowa Giełda Energii has for more than 20 years offered educational initiatives for market participants, TGE members, and the media. The initiatives promote TGE as a transparent energy trading venue which determines reference prices. They also raise awareness about the benefits of trading on the exchange.

Following the launch of the Organised Trading Facility (OFE) in May 2020, TGE modified the broker training and examination format. Training now covers the key issues necessary for participants to prepare for trading on all TGE markets. Training participants who pass the examination receive the TGE Broker certificate which authorises Exchange Members or OTF Members to be entered into the TGE Broker Register and to broker trade on the Commodity Market, the Organised Trading Facility, and the Financial Instruments Market, subject to the requirements of the market rules.

In 2020, TGE delivered three training rounds (in Polish and/or English) closed with examinations for 38 participants. A refresher course was offered to holders of broker certificates under the previous terms on the Commodity Market or the Financial Instruments Market. Due to restrictions imposed during the pandemic, TGE offered training by means of remote communication. As a result of the training programmes, 373 TGE Broker certificates were issued in 2020.

“Energy Academy” - similar to previous years, Towarowa Giełda Energii carried out educational activities by participating in projects hosted by the L.A. Paga Foundation and “Go4Poland” hosted by the GPW Foundation. In 2020, TGE held the sixth competition for the media “Platinum Megawatts” in partnership with Tauron Polska Energia, PKN Orlen, TRMEW Obrót, Gaz System, Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne, and IRGiT.

On 30 September 2020, under the umbrella of the competition, TGE and PKN Orlen hosted a workshop for journalists “Guarantees of origin as a part of the EU environment policy. Challenges on the Polish and European market”. Apart from presentations, the workshop featured a guided tour of the gas-fired CHP in Włocławek.

Despite the pandemic and the resulting restrictions, 2020 brought many one-on-one meetings with the “Platinum Megawatts” competition winners on the occasion of the 2019 Exchange Gala as well as online events at the inauguration of the TGE Update conference. TGE held consultations with the Market Council appointed in late 2020 as TGE Management Board’s advisory body. The Market Council comprises more than a dozen experts from industry associations whose opinions are very relevant to TGE’s business.

A detailed description of educational initiatives of the GPW Group and the GPW Foundation is presented in section 4.2 of the GPW Management Board Report for 2020.