kood/Alumni Night

On Monday, we brought the kood/Jõhvi alumni community together for the annual Alumni Night – and it reminded us why we started this journey in the first place.

Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of kood/Jõhvi, shared a reflection from his tech journey: “Back then, the idea of building a global product from Estonia felt almost crazy. But we did it. Not because we had fancy degrees, but because we were curious, hands-on, and moved fast. And yes, sometimes we failed. So what? You pick yourself up and continue the next day.”

That mindset still lives on in our alumni — hundreds of them now working in tech, building real products and solving real problems. And Taavet’s vision for the future? – One million coders.

The future of tech is iteration and collaborating with AI. And it was demonstrated by the LHV AI team, who also joined us on stage.

Here’s what we learned from LHV’s real-world experience with AI:

• About 900 employees use ChatGPT daily – from developers to lawyers to fraud analysts.
• They’re building AI tools that help ease the work: generate forms, summarize contracts, draft emails etc. 
• They’re testing, failing, tweaking. And most importantly, asking: “Does this actually help the customer?”

Their message was clear:

• Don’t use AI for the sake of it.
• Use it where it creates real value.And even then, understand the fundamentals — because if you don’t know how it works, you won’t know when it breaks.

Thank you to LHV for hosting! To our alumni: You’re the reason we’re here. You’re already shaping what comes next. And to the rest of the world: we’re just getting started.