Impact

//kood is the biggest education project we created and support. //kood is a 21st century programming school that was opened in 2021 in Jõhvi with the intention to make technology education accessible to everyone. Thus, we help reduce labour shortages and strengthen the competitiveness of the Estonian economy. Last year, we made extensive changes to our active team and launched operations in Finland.

This year, we will expand //kood in Estonia as well – to Võru and Paide. We started working with upper secondary schools to bring coding education to students across Estonia as an elective subject and launched a programme for women. We started developing our own platform, and we plan to export the training platform to Europe through OÜ FutureCoders. kood/Jõhvi will organise the first pilot project in Kenya with the support of the Estonian Centre for International Development.

kood.tech

Praktikal creates tools for the development of student-oriented and engaging learning. They offer physics and chemistry teaching materials and assist teachers in lesson preparation. Creating learning content, organizing knowledge assessments, and collecting and analyzing learning analytics is also possible. The ambition of the initiative was to expand into the German market.

The cooperation with Mastersolution AG, which started in 2024, reached a new level in January 2025 with the establishment of the joint venture Koolest Solutions GmbH. Its goal is to update the German classroom with Estonian educational technology. With this step, Praktikal proves its position as one of the pioneers of Estonian education export.

praktikal.ee

Last year, we made our first investments in two initiatives – Noored Kooli and the Active Teacher Growth Programme (Tegevõpetaja kasvuprogramm). Both are aimed at addressing teacher shortages and modernising teacher training. These programmes are quickly bringing motivated individuals into schools – people without prior pedagogical training who have chosen to transition from other careers into teaching or school leadership.

Noored Kooli

Noored Kooli is the Estonian branch of the international Teach for All programme, established in 2006. Over two years, the Estonian programme will provide people with no pedagogical qualifications with practical, modern training that develops their leadership skills and enables them to create change in education. Participants and graduates of the programme will be sent to schools that either have a high drop-out rate or are educationally disadvantaged in another way. ​In Estonia as a whole, the share of people who have completed secondary education four years after graduating from basic school has been between 78.5% and 82.1% over the last decade (Haridussilm).

Over the years, 309 people have participated in the programme, 80% of whom still work in the education system. In addition to the main programme, development programmes are offered to teachers and school leaders, which support the development of the socioemotional and learning skills of students.

nooredkooli.ee

The initiative will bring new qualified teachers into schools, thereby reducing the shortage of teachers and ensuring the quality of teaching. The programme is aimed at career changers with a Master’s degree, who will be offered a flexible training and support programme, help in finding a suitable school and support in applying for the qualification of a teacher. Every year, the programme brings 60–100 new qualified teachers to schools across Estonia, who enrich the educational environment with their knowledge and experience.

We also supported two new initiatives – Helge Kool and Project Nadija – in the area of youth well-being and mental health. One of the initiatives focuses on Estonian schools, providing support to school psychologists and students to promote their mental well-being. The other initiative is aimed at alleviating the mental health challenges faced by Ukrainian children to help them adapt and recover from difficult circumstances.

Helge Kool

This education technology company, founded in 2019, focuses on improving student well-being and supporting school psychologists and young people through innovative tools. The initiative provides school support specialists with science-based analytical tools available via web and mobile applications, based on a structured questionnaire. The application enables both students and professionals to access real-time data that can be analysed over time, as well as across different classes and schools. In addition to educational quality, it also allows for the measurement and evaluation of students’ well-being and satisfaction with their learning environment.

helge.app

This project, mainly led by Scandinavian supporters, aims to provide professional and research-based mental and physical health services to all children and families in Ukraine. A virtual hospital will be set up in the first stage of the project to provide access to quality mental health services. The next bigger step is to establish a research centre, which focuses on rehabilitation and studying the impact of trauma and conflict on children’s health, well-being, and epigenetics.

projectnadiya.com

The CDL is a research-intensive business growth programme that was established at the University of Toronto and expanded to 13 top universities around the world. We brought this programme to Estonia in cooperation with the University of Tartu and Vabamu. The third season of the programme in Estonia started last year.

The programme focuses on early-stage entrepreneurs with high ambition and a strong research basis. The goal of the Estonian programme is to help address challenges in the areas of digital governance, cybersecurity, public health and national defence. The programme offers participants the opportunity to develop and test their business models and connect with a global network of mentors and investors.

creativedestructionlab.com

Nucleate is a platform for natural sciences entrepreneurship that originated at the top US universities Harvard and MIT. The organisation was launched in 2018 and in six years the communities have expanded to nearly thirty regions around the world. The organisation reached the Baltics in 2023.

The structure of Nucleate is unique, because it is led by students themselves – they are the ones who know more than anyone else about the activities in labs, the latest discoveries and innovations. Nucleate offers young scientists the opportunity to change the world with their scientific achievements and grows the international biotech business community.

nucleate.org

Levila is a media lab, and a free media channel created in late 2019 to combat marginalisation and fragmentation in Estonia by covering sharp topics to people in an understandable and constructive way. After publishing stories, Levila often follows up with talks, interventions, brainstorming sessions or seminars, resulting in greater impact on issues that polarise society. Young people aged 18–35 have become the main target group of Levila.

In 2024, Levila reached people 2.7 million times, which marks more than a twofold increase compared to the previous year. This year, Levila continued its investigative journalism projects, with the most prominent story being “Don’t Tell Your Parents: The Dark Side of JJ-Street” (“Ära vanematele räägi: JJ-Streeti tume pool”), which exposed the poor management of a popular dance school. The story also highlighted the significant influence of coaches and teachers on students, many of whom were considered to be at risk. The piece reached over 100,000 people and sparked discussions on youth education.

levila.ee

The objective of SALK (Liberal Citizen Foundation) is to support liberal democracy by helping its partners to make better data-driven decisions during and between election campaigns. Last year, SALK expanded its activities to seven other European countries in addition to Estonia, cooperating with various political parties, consultants, NGOs, universities and research institutions in analysing and modelling survey data. To support the expansion of activities, two team members who had previously been working part-time joined full-time in 2024.

salk.ee

Vabamu is Estonia’s largest operating non-profit, privately funded museum dedicated to educating locals and visitors about Estonia’s past and the freedoms we have striven for and won. The museum shows how fragile freedom can be and tells the personal stories of people who have stood up for justice and the rule of law.

The museum is active in three areas: Vabamu museums (the main museum on the Toompea hillside and KGB Prison Cells on Pagari Street), the NoVa youth engagement programme, and Global Conversations, which focuses on international cooperation projects.

Vabamu’s day-to-day activities contribute to ensuring that Estonia’s strong global networks always support our freedom. In this way, Vabamu plays an important role in introducing Estonia to the outside world and in making us greater.

vabamu.ee