K\u00e4bi, 26,<\/strong> holds a master\u2019s degree in civil engineering and currently works in sports management in a non-profit organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anastassia, 33<\/strong>, has a bachelor\u2019s degree in early childhood education. Her career spans international corporate logistics, team coordination, entrepreneurship, and now sports infrastructure management in Kohtla-J\u00e4rve. In 2025, she completed a 64-hour course in AI and business automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though their paths are different, all three were already working with systems long before writing a single line of code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Susanna, coding wasn\u2019t entirely new. She had taken a course at university, but it hadn\u2019t fascinated her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was difficult to understand the coding language and I couldn\u2019t really ever debug my code.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, when she heard about the kood\/Garage48 project, she decided to try again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSince all my work is in a computer, I thought it\u2019s a necessary everyday skill.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n K\u00e4bi joined because she enjoys learning difficult things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have always liked learning new and difficult things and coding seemed to be the next difficult field I hadn\u2019t had any experience in\u2026 yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Anastassia, it felt inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve been building systems for years: processes, financial models, logistics chains, customer journeys. At some point I realized: I keep managing systems without fully understanding how they\u2019re built underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She explains clearly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCoding isn\u2019t about switching to IT for me. It\u2019s about sharpening strategic thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you can organize a team or design an operational process, you already think in algorithms. You just don\u2019t use curly braces yet<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In just four days, participants moved from zero to learning to code and building working prototypes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Susanna and K\u00e4bi, the biggest surprise was vibe coding and the connection between coding and AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t heard about it before and when we tried it in the bootcamp I was genuinely surprised. It\u2019s almost too easy to create an app. Of course you need the skills to develop it more but making a prototype requires only basic knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n K\u00e4bi adds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe connection between coding and AI for a regular user wasn\u2019t so obvious before, but now, seeing how vibe coding works and how little you actually have to know to already make up a prototype with it is surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Anastassia, the biggest surprise was something else entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow honest programming is. In logistics, sometimes you can negotiate with reality. In life, too. In code you can\u2019t<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf something is wrong, it simply doesn\u2019t work. No pretending. No \u2018almost correct. There\u2019s something refreshing about that. It\u2019s very disciplining. Almost like sports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n All three encourage women to try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susanna says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCoding is a very eye-opening activity because it makes you understand how systems work<\/strong>, what to do to fix them. You have to use a lot of logical thinking and I am not too good at it, so if I could do it, then you definitely can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n K\u00e4bi keeps it simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAI helps! \ud83d\ude42 But in all seriousness, you only need a little bit of logical thinking and persistence to not give up when something doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anastassia connects it to everyday life:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you have managed people, launched projects, coordinated chaos, raised a child – you\u2019ve already handled complex systems with unpredictable interfaces. Coding isn\u2019t about genius-level IQ. It\u2019s about patience and structured thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd honestly, many women already have strong systems thinking, we just don\u2019t label it as a technical skill. We call it \u2018just life.<\/strong>\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bootcamp is only the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susanna and K\u00e4bi are planning to join the Garage48 Empowering Women Hackathon with an idea inspired by their daily work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now we\u2019re doing all grant management manually using Excel and it\u2019s not very convenient so we want to connect all these steps and make one system to administrate everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They plan to create a grant management website and develop it further during the hackathon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anastassia is also joining. She\u2019s interested in practical challenges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m interested in practical challenges: automation for municipal organizations, analytics for sports infrastructure usage, AI assistants for organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen too many decisions made purely on intuition. I\u2019m interested in systems where data also gets a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n All Ida-Viru women are welcome to join the hackathon, even if you don\u2019t have a specific idea yet, you can refine it or find a totally new one during the event. The hackathon takes place from 20\u201322 March at kood\/J\u00f5hvi.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kood.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/KoodJ6hvi26_web_EgonLigi-107-1160x773.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nDriven by curiosity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kood.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/KoodJ6hvi26_web_EgonLigi-12-1160x773.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSurprises during the bootcamp<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kood.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/KoodJ6hvi26_web_EgonLigi-53-1160x773.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cWhat would you say to someone unsure about trying?\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
From bootcamp to hackathon<\/h3>\n\n\n\n