The //kood organization was founded as a non-profit association in 2020 by group of Estonian entrepreneurs to fill the IT skills shortage gap in Estonia. The first school kood/Jõhvi in Ida-Viru County has taught over 700 students in the last three years.
The group is now seeking to expand internationally, and its first overseas school, “Kood/Sisu”, will be in Kuopio, Finland. 150 students enrolled in March, the organization said.
Taavet Hinrikus, one of the co-founders of kood/Jõhvi, said both schools have been launched outside of capital cities to bring new career opportunities to the local populations and to improve regional economies. “The cooperation potential, even in Europe, is tremendous,” he said.
Laura Nykänen, head of kood/Sisu, said the //kood community offers “concrete benefits” to Finnish students, such as a modern learning platform, student exchanges and projects, and maybe even internships. “We are genuinely building a community greater than an individual school, where members and students support each other in various ways,” she said.
The school has a self-study and peer-to-peer learning curriculum. It also seeks to increase diversity within the software industry. Some of the students come straight from school, but others were working professionals in medicine, hospitality, education, or maritime sectors, the organization said. Nykänen said this means “richer and more impactful digital services and products” can be produced in the future.
“Coding is a language like any other; Finnish and English are constantly diversifying and evolving, and anyone can learn to speak them,” she said.
This article was first published by ERR News.
