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Estonia’s Smartlab and other educational projects

Stumbled across this interesting TechCrunch news post about some investments and policy decisions regarding tech education in Estonia. Estonia invests heavily in IT and related education (from primary school on) and I suspect this will pay off in the long run. Not only for the primary fact that we will need programmers for a while ahead, but the possibilities it gives to enhance the educational process: it gives individual learners and teachers a tool that allows them to do their own projects, challenges, and make their own stuff, while connecting online and sharing code (or other stuff). And of course: a global job market.

Today, it announced Smartlab, a public/private partnership with companies including Skype’s now-owner Microsoft, which will see the creation of hobby groups for 10-19 year olds to get instruction in robotics, programming and mobile app and web design. Initially, Smartlab is starting out with €140,000 ($182,000) of funding to cover 36 groups and 500 students nationwide, with the after-school program running during the academic year.
This follows on from another program announced in September, in which the Estonian government said that it would start teaching students to code from first grade (aged seven).