NORDIC, BUT STILL EXCITING


Tartu University combines a truly modern hands-on take on software engineering in a program embedded in one of the fastest growing IT sectors in Europe. This means graduates are all but guaranteed further career opportunities.


It’s impossible to not notice how proud Estonians are of their IT sector. The small Northern European nation is home to Skype, boasts a government that seeks to be paper-free and has been on the forefront of online and mobile services for a decade. Furthermore, the 1,3 million residents of Estonia have given more than 100 million electronic signatures – equal to putting a pen to paper – with the government- issued ID-cards.


“Even the buses from the capital Tallinn to the university-city of Tartu have touchscreens built into the backs of seats, ” points Raimundas Matulevicius, a Lithuanian-born, Norwegian- educated computer scientist, now an associate professor at the Institute of Computer Science of University of Tartu.


This dynamism is highlighted in the master's program in software engineering jointly offered by University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology. This


INTERNATIONAL MEN IN ESTONIA: (from right) professor Marlon Dumas has studied or taught at Paris, Grenoble and Queensland, Australia to now lead the efforts at the software engineering program at University of Tartu; Austrian Georg Singer teaches entrepreneurship, having earned his PhD from Tartu; associate professor Raimundas Matulevicius is a Lithuanian-born and Norwegian-educated computer scientist. (photo credit: University of Tartu, www.ut.ee)


unique collaboration allows graduate students unrivaled combination of generalist software knowledge and deep specializations in fast-growing areas such as embedded systems or information security.


Afraid of Nothing


“Our students are afraid of nothing,” explains Georg Singer, an Austrian teaching entrepreneurship to software engineers in Tartu. “If Skype can be made in Estonia, they can do anything here,” explains Singer why he himself chose to defend a PhD on web search engines in Tartu.


Professor Jaak Vilo, the newest member of the Estonian Academy


of Sciences and the head of the Computer Science Institute in Tartu, says that IT is important for Estonians. “Our technology sector is rather entrepreneurial and gigacorporatsions do not dominate. This means new ventures can be set up from scratch.”


“In many other places you have to have a really good reason to change, which hinders innovation,” says professor Marlon Dumas, head of the software engineering program in Tartu. He should know, having been born in Honduras, educated at Paris and Grenoble and worked in Queensland, Australia. “In Estonia, young people can have


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