Martin believes that every child deserves a good education and by improving our education system, we can improve our whole society. By teaching each subjects with connection to real life and explaining common values we can avoid problems related to health, personal relations, financial management, ethics, crimes ...

school years

Martin studied in two different primary schools, then Kuressaare Gymnasium and Estonian Business School (EBS). As some of the lessons felt boring, because the teacher was not able to explain the subject related to real life, then Martin often found additional activities besides official curriculum.

He was active member of student council, organized disco parties and even published his private newspaper to compete school's official newspaper.

In high-school Martin had lectures of organizational behavior by his school director, which was truly inspirational. Martin learned about good values & trust, independence & taking responsibility, team work & solving conflicts - important life skills.

Estonian Education Foundation

Estonia's education system is the best in Europe by recent PISA test results from 2018. So we have pretty good foundations, but also multiple challenges:
  • Estonian teachers are among the oldest within OECD countries
  • Quality of school leadership (recruitment, goals, culture, community engagement etc)
  • High drop-out rates of youth after the mandatory primary school (9 years); not graduating the next education level due to lack of motivation and getting bored from traditional lessons
  • The low levels of STEAM skills acquired from school.
Martin and Taavet (co-founder of Transferwise) started a philanthropy fund in late 2018. The fund aims to kick-start 10-15 innovative education initiatives in Estonia over the next 3 years. I am truly grateful that 30 other startup founders joined us with their donations and we finally raised over 1 million Euros. During first year of 2019 Education Foundation received 100+ projects and we funded 5 of them.

We run the fund as a startup, we learn and improve every day. We have shared our vision and fund-raise experience with other countries considering similar initiatives.

Jõhvi Coding School

Jõhvi Coding School is based on the internationally acclaimed 01 Edu platform and will open its doors in the fall of 2021. The school is aimed at students above the age of 18 who want to obtain a practical command in up-to-date software development. The capacity of the school will be 200 students per year.

Martin is one of 7 co-founders of the school, together with 20 plus entrepreneurs who have funded the school on top of Estonian government support. Opening the school will cost ca 2.5M Euros.