Meet the Sprinters!

The second Selection Sprint of 2022 is reaching its end, so let’s get to know our Sprinters! 

The Selection Sprint is truly an awesome event for us – we get to see motivated people making their first steps in IT. The applicants work hard, laugh loads – a lot of emotions during the 3 week period. And people come from all over the world, from all sorts of backgrounds! 

Let’s get to know some of them by their own words:

Anni
“Anni, 30 year-old from Estonia. I have studied Architecture in Edinburgh and I am currently doing a PhD in Health and Wellbeing.
About a year ago I discovered that a lot of my old high school classmates have started coding so I decided to try it and so far the online courses and exercises that I have coded along with have been fun
As hobbies, I like podcasts, board games and hiking. Other than that I occasionally pick up hobbies for the short term.”

Vlad
“My name is Vlad. Originally I am from Kazakhstan. For the last 7 years I have been living in Lithuania. 
I came to Lithuania to study in University and did not plan to stay here after graduation, but life is life. I met my wife here and decided to stick around for a while. Now we live in Klaipėda, nice small town by the seaside and have a beautiful 2-year-old daughter.

In Uni I studied business, but always had an interest in programming. I like cycling, running, hiking and active leisure in general. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks quite a lot. Overall, I love studying and learning new stuff.”

Olha
“My name is Olha and I am from Ukraine.
Despite the fact that 3 months ago I lost my favorite job and a wonderful life in my beloved Kyiv, I try to stay positive and believe that I will have an even better job and new dreams in the future.

Most of all in my life I like to travel and study. That’s why studying in kood/Jõhvi is an incredibly cool opportunity for me to learn something new and discover a new country. So, I’m waiting for new exciting challenges!”

Ott
“My name is Ott, I was born and raised in Tallinn, Estonia. I’m 41, married and I have two children. I have never programmed, but I’m sure I wish to start a career in tech.
I have 16+ years of experience as a Marketing Project Manager. 2005-2017 I worked in different marketing agencies, and from 2017-2019 I was running my own training company. Since November 2019 I have worked in an ed-tech start-up where I built an e-learning service from scratch for private consumers (the only employee in the company, thus wearing lots of different hats).
My hobbies are personal development, computers, electronic music (I produce my own too), DJing, productivity and efficiency techniques, and methodologies. My values are home and family, health, financial security, relationships and friendship, self-fulfilment, education, learning and development, creativity, and community service.”

Julia
“I’m Julia from Estonia. I’m a journalist, working on the ETV+ channel (Estonian public broadcasting) and nauka.err.ee – it is a journal about science and technology.

I’m interested in coding, but my experience is poor: half a year in IT-university and some online courses.”

Alexander
“My name is Alex. I’m 23 years old and I’m from Austria. I recently moved to Estonia, built a house here and have been planning my future in this beautiful country.
I’ve got interested in programming a long time ago, but only managed to make small HTML/CSS pages at that time. I’m most interested in game development and game art and now I finally want to step into the IT-sector to get the best knowledge and experience. I used to work as a Graphic Designer/Animator and also studied media design abroad.

Some facts about me: Hobbies are gaming, digital art and food. I enjoy any kind of sports (ex youth biathlon champion).”

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Last week to go until the selection of the Sprinters who get to the school program will be made. They will be assessed by how they showcased their skills, motivation and other important qualities within the 3-week period. After that they have the opportunity to start their 2-year journey in the 2nd batch of kood/Jõhvi from October.