Codesters.club

codesters.club: year complete! 🎉

What a year it’s been! We built cool stuff and had a lot of fun doing it.

Huge shoutout to Pipedrive , Wise , Thorgate , and CM Games welcoming our students into your world and showing them what real tech looks like — and to our amazing mentors for guiding them along the way. You’ve truly inspired the next generation. 🙌

Big thanks as well to our partner schools — Kadrioru Saksa Gümnaasium , Tallinna Mustamäe Gümnaasium , Tallinna Ühisgümnaasium , Tartu Jaan Poska Gümnaasium, Lasnamäe Gümnaasium, Narva Gümnaasium Tallinna Tehnikagümnaasium for making us part of your community.

Enjoy your summer break!
See you next year!

Our 11th graders got the chance to visit the brand-new Wise office in Tallinn — and let’s just say, it was awesome.

Huge thanks to Holly for making it all happen, and to Elizaveta, Shawani, Ekaterina, Ekke, Marta, Olha, Artur, and Ashutosh for sharing your professional journeys and inspiring the next generation of tech minds.

Our 12th graders pitched their projects in front of a panel at the Thorgate office! It was a bit stressful, but they handled it — great energy, solid ideas, and lots of learning.

Huge thanks to our panelists for their thoughtful questions and feedback:
→ Grete from Thorgate
→ Bora from Waybiller

💡 Fun fact: Did you know that the student project Skeeter (a smart statistics app to support your performance at the shooting range) and Waybiller (a complete tool for managing bulk transportation from start to finish) both realized that pen and paper aren’t always the best solution — and that automation helps people focus on what truly matters?

Sessions like this are such a valuable part of the journey and a crucial step in deciding which projects will move forward to the final graduation event (which has already taken place — check out our previous posts!).

Big thanks to Grete and our Jose for making it all happen!

Showcasing the top 5 projects by our 4th-generation students!

🟢 Best Design — ARC, Kadrioru Saksa Gümnaasium
An app built to break barriers and make anxiety management simple, effective, and accessible anytime, anywhere.

Mentor: Nikita Podkopaev

🟢 Best Code — Flave, Tallinna Mustamäe Gümnaasium
A platform for sharing recipes and creating meals that bring people together.

Mentor: Kristiina Keelmann

🟢 Best Product — Recccomend, Tallinna Tehnikagümnaasium
AI-powered outfit recommendations tailored just for you.

Mentor: Ilya Vasilyev

🟢 Best Pitch — RepLab, Tallinna Ühisgümnaasium
Customize your workouts, track your progress, monitor calories, and more — all in one app.

Mentor: Nikita Podkopaev

🟢 Thorgate Favorite — Skeeter*, Kadrioru Saksa Gümnaasium
A smart statistics app to support your performance at the shooting range.

Mentor: Nikita Podkopaev

*Chosen during pre-pitch event

🙌 Huge shoutout to all the students & mentors who made these projects shine!

A truly special moment for the very first generation of graduates from Tartu! 🎓 Our 12th graders from Tartu Jaan Poska Gümnaasium are back from Tallinn, where they took part in pitching sessions and the graduation event.

For the past three years Mykhailo Dorokhov, Senior Engineering Learning & Development lead at Pipedrive, has been there to inspire and guide these pupils on their digital creation journey. As Tartu Jaan Poska Gümnaasium puts it, he’s the one easy to spot in the school corridors — usually surrounded by a curious, chatty crowd of pupils. And the pupils? They've had nothing but good things to say. One line sums it very well: “I will definitely miss Mykhailo after graduation.”

Huge thanks to Mykhailo for all the heart he’s put into this — and to Pipedrive for making this possible! 💚

The 4th generation of codesters is officially graduating and we are feeling ALL the feels - proud, grateful, a little sentimental, and incredibly inspired.

Thank you for three years of coding chaos and creativity sparks - all the way from ideation struggle to debugging marathons. It was a pleasure smiling and growing with you, dear 12th graders from Tallinna Ühisgümnaasium , Kadrioru Saksa Gümnaasium , Tallinna Tehnikagümnaasium , Tartu Jaan Poska Gümnaasium and Tallinna Mustamäe Gümnaasium !

📸 Graduation event photos incoming — find your face, tag your crew, and share the joy.

And a heartfelt thank you to Pipedrive for helping us make the event happen as well as Thorgate for all the work behind the scenes.

Our 4th generation of students is all grown up!

We’re excited to invite you to the 12th grade pitching event – a celebration of creativity, teamwork, and tech talent.

🗓 Thursday, April 10th
🕕 18:00
📍 Palo Alto Club (Telliskivi 57, Tallinn)

Come see our 12th-grade students showcase their final team projects and share what they’ve accomplished. It's a great chance to:

✨ Support your fellow pupils
🤝 Meet our amazing mentors and partners
🍵 Enjoy some tea, snacks, and good company

Let us know you’re coming – register here 👉 https://tally.so/r/wzL128

10th grade codesters.club visit to Pipedrive in Tartu

Our 10th-grade codesters.club students from Tartu Jaan Poska Gümnaasium recently had the opportunity to visit the Pipedrive office in Tartu. Thanks to Mykhailo, who organized everything in advance, we were given a tour by his colleague, who walked us through the company and its work.

The students were engaged and curious, asking questions throughout the visit. It was a great chance for them to see how a tech company operates and learn more about the industry.

Thanks to Pipedrive for hosting us!

Codesters Club 10th graders had an inspiring day at Thorgate!

Students from Tallinna Mustamäe Gümnaasium, Tallinna Tehnikagümnaasium, and Tallinna Ühisgümnaasium got an exciting behind-the-scenes look at Thorgate's office and company culture.

They discovered what makes Thorgate a unique place to work:
🔸 Flexibility to work remotely, with a few office days each week to keep social skills sharp.
🔸 Endless career opportunities in IT — not just for developers but also for HR, marketing, sales, and more!
🔸 A culture of independence — no micromanaging, just trust and ownership.
🔸 Strong, clear values as a team that create a welcoming and productive work environment.
🔸 A mid-sized team with a diverse set of products and services in the market. From GateMe to Waybiller, Thorgate continues to build success stories, with Waybiller emerging as a market leader.
🔸 Early investments and support for SaaS startups, showcasing Thorgate’s forward-thinking approach.

Students talked with the founder Raido Pikkar and learnt that: “Not everyone needs to be — or is suited to being — an entrepreneur or a manager, and that’s perfectly okay!”

Kert Kaspar Tammaru shared an inspiring journey of building a SaaS product through the story of Waybiller — from market research and MVP to launching, growing a company, and scaling up.

The day wrapped up with a hands-on workshop where students brainstormed creative ideas and presented them in front of an awesome jury!

In addition, Thorgate's involvement in the broader tech community, such as organizing the upcoming PyCon Conference.

Big thanks to Grete Kungla for the warm welcome, Johan Viirok and Kreete Mi Rand for being fantastic jury members, José Prieto for making this event happen and Yana Delyukina, Marten Vooro for helping.

Our students left with fresh ideas, new skills, and tons of inspiration!

This week, we had the incredible opportunity to meet with educators from Japan as part of the Next innovation initiative. Their mission? To create new opportunities between Estonia and Japan by connecting people and cultures through learning from each other.

As part of their visit, they attended Codesters.club lessons to see firsthand how we introduce coding and technology to young minds. Our mentor and curriculum lead José Prieto had a great discussion with the Next Innovation team, presenting our program, curriculum, and teaching methods. It’s inspiring to see such global interest in IT education, and we’re always happy to share our expertise to help bring these opportunities to more students worldwide!

The future of education is built on collaboration, and we’re excited to be part of it!

Last week our curriculum lead and mentor José Prieto attended the Informaatika õpetamise konverents 2025 organized by the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science in the Delta building.

He joined three workshops:

- A Very Good Teacher 2.0 by Mirjam Paales ((University of Tartu)) – Focused on key teaching competencies like empathy, openness, and grading based on development.
- KOIT by Kevin Akkermann – Explored a new self-learning programming platform with automated feedback.
- Student Digital Competence by Iiris Tuvi, Margus Pedaste, and Tauno Palts ((Tartu Ülikool)) – Discussed crucial digital skills like wellbeing, AI-driven learning, and digital awareness.

The conference offered valuable insights, tools, and inspiring discussions with fellow educators 👏