1. Czytelnia
3. 11.02.2021

Changes in the leadership of our organisation

Magdalena Biernat and Aleksandra Janus take over as the new directors of the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation. Aleksander Tarkowski is ending his current position at Centrum Cyfrowe, stepping down from his position as President, but he will still be associated with the organisation in a new role.

Magdalena Biernat and Aleksandra Janus take over the roles of directors of the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation. For us, this is not just a moment of personal change – along with the departure of Centrum Cyfrowe’s founder, Alek Tarkowski, we are also opening up a new chapter in our organisation. With the beginning of 2021, Centrum Cyfrowe’s direction changes, as does its structure.

These implemented changes are crucial for us, because we want to be an organisation that does not solely depend on the abilities of specific people. Instead, we want to focus on internal knowledge sharing and grow the organisation by supporting the development of all its members. We believe that the change of leadership is an excellent opportunity to recharge CC with new energy and ideas. 

We are convinced that sharing power and passing it down is essential to the growth of any organisation. That is why we are changing the current method of managing the organisation. In place of the three-person Board with the President of the Board, we are introducing a new model in the spirit of collective management – this time by two people working in equal positions. Aleksandra and Magdalena, as co-directors and members of the board, will share responsibilities and manage the organisation together. One of the key values defining our new strategy is collaboration, and we believe that it should be reflected within our structure as well.

Since 2017, Magdalena has been the Managing Director of Centrum Cyfrowe. She is an experienced IT project leader, deeply interested in free and open programming, open culture, the public domain and open education. One of her main priorities in the new role is to organise a new policy and advocacy team and define new priorities for the organization’s policy work. Since the beginning of her cooperation with Centrum Cyfrowe, Aleksandra has been a member of the Open Culture team. She deals with the use of technology in cultural and art sectors, and works to make digital heritage resources accessible to all. She is also one of the creators and the head of the Open Culture Studio. One of her main commitments is to implement the new strategy of the organization and cooperation with the new Oversight Board of Centrum Cyfrowe.

We are changing our structure at a unique time – due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, which is both locally and globally the most difficult time Centrum Cyfrowe has gone through since its beginnings. However, this is also a moment wherein the Foundation, after 10 years of development and activity, finds itself in a stable financial and organisational position. We ended 2020 with our largest team and budget to date. We are now facing new project challenges, and continue to develop our work.

In 2020, we began the project Otwarta Zachęta, a new flagship initiative of the Open Culture Studio; the Open Education Cooperative received a grant from the Hewlett Foundation for further development; we are continuing our cooperation with the COMMUNIA association; and under the framework of the inDICEs project we will be developing our future works along their recommendations to further develop the Digital Single Market, thanks to our utilisation of heritage resources. And that’s just some of what we have planned.

After 10 years, Aleksander Tarkowski is ending his current position at Centrum Cyfrowe, stepping down from his position as President. However, he will still be associated with the organisation in a new role – as the Head of the Foundation’s Oversight Board. He has also begun work with Open Future, a new European digital think tank, of which he is also co-creator.