Hüppelaud is a Summer School for 14-19-year-old students from all over the world who take an interest in entrepreneurship and technology. In 2024 Hüppelaud will take place in Viljandi on August 5th-9th.

The purpose of the week-long hackathon is to provide teenagers with an opportunity to get firsthand experience on how to build a functional prototype. Working in teams of 4-6 people, all participants will obtain experience in building their ideas into functional products, covering the topics from ideation to design, programming, testing and marketing.

The teams will be assisted by highly skilled mentors who will facilitate the progress of the participants, direct them towards useful resources and build an overall positive atmosphere. 

Hüppelaud is free for all participants!

Weekly schedule

Monday, August 5th:

• 8:00 – a bus from G. Otsa street in Tallinn leaves for Viljandi, please bring your own snacks
• 10:30 – Greetings from Hüppelaud, introduction of VIKK
• 11:00 – Pitching the ideas
• 12:00 – Team formation, getting to know the mentors
• 13:00 – Lunch
• 14:00 – Workshop: “How to build a product in a week: practical tools for web development no-code vs pro-code”, Kaarel Reinvars, Mihkel Jesse
• 15:00 – Building
• 18:00 – Dinner
• 19:00 – Evening activities: getting to know the surroundings at VIKK

Tuesday, August 6th:

• 8:00 – Early bird catches the form
• 9:00 – Having breakfast together, teams discuss their plans for the following day(s), mentors meetup
• 10:00 – Workshop: Introduction to Devsprint, Mihkel Jesse / Building hardware products
• 13:00 – Lunch
• 14:00 – Speaker: Laima Šusta, Nucleate Baltics: “How does AI help us develop new medical technologies”
• Continue DevSprint / Building in teams
• 18:00 – evening activities: we’ll go to the woods near Ennuksemäe Forest Brother’s shelter, Martin Tammejuur of Vestman Energia will tell us how to sustainably maintain forests. We’ll have a picnic in the woods.

Wednesday, August 7th:

• 8:00 – Early bird catches the form
• 9:00 – Having breakfast together, teams discuss their plans for the following day(s), mentors meetup
• 10:00 – Workshop: “How to build an online store”, Joosep Sibul, Hertwill
• Building in teams
• 13:00 – Lunch
• 14:00 – Workshop: “Product Design Basics”, Mikk Olli
• Building in teams
• 18:00 – Dinner
• 20:00 – Evening activities: visiting Clevon factory in Viljandi, our tour guide will be Arno Kütt

Thursday, August 8th:

• 8:00 – Early bird catches the form
• 9:00 – Having breakfast together, teams discuss their plans for the following day(s), mentors meetup
• 10:00 – Workshop: Denys Kovalenko/Kristjan Korjus/Silver Keskküla: “Practical solutions of AI”
• Building in teams
• 13:00 – Lunch
• 14:00 – Speaker:
• Building in teams
• 18:00 – Dinner
• 19:00 – Evening activities: in case of bad weather Peeter Mõtsküla: “How to protect your intellectual property”/

Friday, August 9th:

• 8:00 – Early bird catches the form
• 9:00 – Having breakfast together, teams discuss their plans for the following day(s)
• 10:00 – Speaker: “How to impress possible investors”, Sten Tamkivi, Plural
• Finalizing products
• 13:00 – Lunch
• 14:00 – Final presentations
• 17:00 – Closing dinner, bus back to Tallinn

Mentors

Lauri Väin

Lauri is an engineer and a technical lead who loves all sorts of practical solutions. For ten years he worked at Skype building large cloud-based systems, payment and security solutions. He then moved on to Starship where he’s been building human teams and robots. His spare time is also spent on building things: autonomous robots for a NASA competition or plane for an Australian challenge. As a hobby he has also obtained licences of both small planes as well as boats.

Hanna Britt Soots

Hanna Britt is a doctoral student at Tartu University and a programming teacher at Tallinn Secondary School of Science. She is curious to apply mathematical methods in other fields of science and uses programming as a way to solve daily maths problems. In her teaching Hanna Britt is eager to shoe her students that programming is so much more than solving complex tasks and in order to be successful one needs to cooperate with others. In her spare time Hanna Britt is an active student representative at her university.

Juri Volodin
Juri participated at the very first Hüppelaud in 2017, building a shoe polisher on magnets. In 2018-2021 he studied chemistry, physics and material sciences at Tartu University and since last year he’s on a Electric Power Systems track for a MSc degree at the European Wind Energy Master (EWEM). Juri has created educational materials on metal 3D printing, topology optimization techniques, and utilization of computational models for quality improvement of printed details as well as predicting optimal operational parameters for 3D printing.

Cece Grace La Puma

Cece is a student at Stanfordi University where she majors in international relations and music. Having passed her internship in international relations in Turkey, she now interns at Vabamu. Cece plays cello and bass in Stanford Symphony Orchestra and she really enjoys singing. At Hüppelaud Summer School she’s eager to help participants with their pitching/public speaking skills and creating websites.

Denys Kovalenko

Denys is passionate about applying data and machine learning to real-world problems. He’s currently leading ML Platform & Experimentation teams at Bolt. He has cofounded two IT-projects and loves to make valuable products. He has more than ten hackathons under his belt with a lot of useful products being built across hardware and software. He’s also into extreme sports – from cycling and snowboarding to volcano hiking.

Hana Geara

Hana is a biologist and a physicist who has graduated from Tartu University and Amsterdam University. Her past year’s research has been mainly about fungal networks and how to integrate these into electronics. Hana is a passionate environmentalist who also takes pleasure in music, photography and literature. To Hüppelaud Hana bings along her passion for science and diverse problem solving skills.

Isidora Boadicea Davis

Isidora is an undergraduate student at Stanford University where she majors in international relations, political science, history, and international humanitarian law. She’s also a research assistant for the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University. This summer she’s an intern at Vabamu. Having previously worked as a camp counsellor and an interpretation intern at Yosemite National Park Isidora brings along knowledge how to stimulate interpersonal communication skills, foster a safe environment and worked with youngsters to overcome various anxieties and fears. 

Karl-Ander Kasuk

Karl-Ander studied chemistry at Imperial College London and has continued his academic journey as a doctoral student at Tartu University. His mission is to use chemistry and electricity in order to reach the goal of zero emissions in Estonia and the rest of the world. As a student he tested reusing batteries and now he works on hydrogen technologies. Besides his scientific endeavours Karl-Ander helps bringing academic entrepreneurship communities together at Nucleate Estonia and records podcasts on renewable energies.

Laima Šusta

Laima earned her biochemistry degree at Imperial College London and has just started her doctoral studies in biotechnology. Laima participated at Hüppelaud and Wise hackathon in 2019, building platforms that unite Estonian student companies and medical doctors. Since then her passion to build communities has grown and now she helps to diversify Estonian biotechnology and entrepreneurship fields with team Nucleate. During spare hours Laima tinkers on trial automatisation, biology of syntheses and the structures of human languages.

Kaarel Kaarelson

Kaarel is an informatics student at Tartu University who has also attended a semester at Copenhagen University. He’s very much into future technologies and has started quantum computing, machine learning and bioinformatics. He’s also participated in and won prizes from various hackathons around the world, including Harvard University. He’s built up his skills as a full-stack developer for fintech as well as regular startup scene. Currently Kaarel is focusing on academic work as he’s finishing his thesis on AI. In his spare time he popularises science at team Nucleate Estonia.

Maja Soomägi

Maja has graduated from Glasgow University and continues her academic work on Central and Eastern European studies at Uppsala University. This summer she interns at Vabamu as part of the co-patriate programme at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She also has experience working as a voluntary editor for an international relations online magazine as Maja’s main focus of interest lies in international relations and social and cultural history. At Hüppelaud she’s eager to help with marketing and communication skills.

Aleks Tammiksaar

Aleks has studied aeronautics and astronautics at Southampton University. He’s worked as a software developer for BMW and GScan and for the past six years has been running his own video production and live streaming agency Sinisilm Films. One might also encounter Aleks taking pictures, playing tennis or trying out new ways to make coffee. At Hüppelaud Aleks can help out with all sorts of hardware issues as well as creating audiovisual content.

Mihkel Annus

Mihkel has been a participant at Hüppelaud a few times and recently graduated from Delft Technical University in Holland as a product designer. He has also studied business managament and electrotechnics at Munich University in Germany and built his own startup that designs bicycle bells. Mihkel’s main focus is on applying service design in the field of medical services and developing secure AI that stems from the user’s needs.

Margaret Pütsepp

Margaret is the second year bioengineering student at Tartu University who loves the outlook of combining clever biological solutions with modern technology. She has been an entrepreneur since the age of 15 and is currently pursuing a career in digital art. Margaret’s hobbies vary from debating to sailing and organising events and festivals for Student Days at Tartu. Her most influential activity is creating partnerships for Nucleate Estonia.

Mihkel Jesse

Mihkel has been at Hüppelaud several times both as a participant as well as a mentor. Mihkel just finished his second year of maths studies at Tartu University and has been a technical assistant during the first sprint at kood /Jõhvi and an intern at LHV bank. He recently founded Investonian, a platform that simplifies fundamental analysis and educates its users by providing high-quality investment research tools for retail investors to compete with professionals. Mihkel is also into photography and organising events.

Signe Parts

Signe is a junior researcher and a doctorate student at Tartu University Medical School and has previously studied gene technology and biomedicine. Complementary to her studies Signe has a project manager assistant as well as communications coordinator. Signe likes to approach academic research from various different angles encompassing lab research, academic communication, teaching and writing EU grant proposals. Signe is also in charge of developing entrepreneurial mindset in biomedicine.

Tiit Liivik

Tiit is an engineer who just knows how to build things. Having graduated from IT College, now part of TalTech, and Tartu University, he has been involved in various big engineering projects in Estonia. He was one of the founders at creating solar-powered Solaride cars as well as building Starship courier robots. Estonian TV viewers might also recognize his face as one of the referees at Rakett69 science show.

Vivian Väin

Vivian has worked in marketing and has been running an online store. She has studied fashion, graphic design and design thinking at Estonian Academy of Arts and pshycology at Tartu University. The past year she has dedicated herself to studying UX/UI design and creating apps in Figma. Her spare time is spent on creating environmentally viable solutions and figuring out what makes people happy.

Märten Mikk

Märten graduated from Southampton University as a mechanical engineer and will continue his studies at Tartu University in computer science and robotics. He has interned at Corporate Risk Associates office in London and recently joined unmanned aircraft systems builders at Threod Systems, being in charge of software development and simulations. Märten takes avid interest in machine learning (mostly machine vision), control systems and other difficult technical problems. He’s also been into sailing.

Ellina Gedrojets

Ellina is pursuing her degree at TalTech business IT and has graduated from informatics. She has vast knowledge in software development, managing technical projects and tutoring students. Ellina currently works as a software engineer at Swedbank and has interned at cloud-based customer engagement company Twilio. She has been a teaching assistant at TalTech programming courses, assisting with Python and Java languages. To Hüppelaud Ellina will bring her knowledge how to turn technical issues into successful projects.

Raivo Riiel

Raivo is a senior software engineer at Starship Technologies having started eight years ago as a robot tester and working his way up to production technician, production engineer and mechatronics engineer. Raivo has graduated from TalTech where he also joined the robotics club that infected him with a desire to invent and build robots. He’s also a tutor at TalTech and conducts courses on CAD-prototying. In his spare time Raivo plays the classical violin and goes on long hikes.

Andrew Klevtsov

Andrew took part of Hüppelaud in 2018 and has since then become quite an autodidact with an impressive design skill set. For the past three years he has been working for House of van Schneider creating amazing designs and 3D visuals for big institutions like NASA. In his spare time Andrew enjoys long walks, riding his bicycle, playing games and creating coffee art as a barista.

Kadri Muuga

Kadri is also a seasoned Hüppelaud participant having taken part in 2017 and 2018. After that she went on to study natural sciences at Cambridge University and will start her studies at Uppsala University theoretical chemistry this fall. Kadri has been part of several academic research groups, working on the interconnections of science and entrepreurship and she has also interned at CERN. Kadri spends her free time on martial arts and being an volunteer at Nucleate.

Ruudi Silmann

Ruudi works at VIKK since 2009 and also conducts after school classes at Viljandi Hobby School. Ruudi takes special interest in working with metal, electronics and cars, always keeping in mind the basics of recycling. He has taken several courses in fixing up electric cars which he also sees as a hobby in itself. Every year he helps his students at Viljandi Hobby School to build small-scale electric vehicles and he also leads the group of students at VIKK building an electric all terrain vehicle.

Mikk Olli

Mikk is a digital product designer who has been one of the most popular mentors throughout the years at Hüppelaud. This year he’ll also conduct a workshop on product design. Currently Mikk works as a freelancer since working for a startup Whatifi, building an app that offers new kind of cinematographic experiences. He’s been the head of design team at GrabCAD, building a network for more than five million mechanic engineers all around the world as well as designing software for industrial 3D printers at Stratasys in Boston. Mikk also enjoys being a street photographer and an illustrator.

Andrius Matšenas

Andrius participated at Hüppelaud in 2018-19 and has returned as a mentor. He currently works at Cachet as a Data Product Manager building person-centric insurance. He has previous experience as a Product Analyst at NFTPort building infrastructure for person-centric web. Andrius has graduated mathematics at University of Southampton, focusing on insurance and risk modelling. He loves participating in hackathons to quickly test mini-project ideas and also travelling, swimming and socialising with people from different backgrounds.

Kaarel Reinvars

Kaarel started studying programming on his own when he was ten and has by now mastered several languages. Now he works as a full-stack developer at Modash, a platform for social networks influencers. As a hobby he still occasionally tinkers with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. Kaarel has also experienced a skydive pitch aka introduced his business plan to investors while dropping from a plane with a parachute.

Ede Schank Tamkivi

Ede has been the main organiser of Hüppelaud since its start at 2017. She is a Product Manager at NoVa and has been running several other education projects aimed at empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs, being also the cofounder of kood/Jõhvi. Ede started her career as a journalist in press, radio and TV, occasionally conducts research as an applied anthropologist and has published a few books.