What are your main goals in your new vice-rector role?

Endowment Capital. TalTech seeks bold expansion within the broad, interdisciplinary engineering domain. However, not all plans can be realised through state funding alone. We need additional leverage and stronger partnerships with the private sector, and we’re also pursuing potential international funding. While this is a long-term endeavour with results that don’t arrive overnight, we strive to make them as swift as possible. In parallel, we continue our efforts to grow the University’s Development Fund scholarship endowment.

Future Talent Pipeline. Fewer than 5% of teachers in general education schools are TalTech alumni. To address this, we must make ourselves more visible in schools. Over the past five years, we have built excellent cooperation with nearly 30 schools, offering more than 70 elective courses. This collaboration is set to expand further as opportunities allow.

Student Engagement. Quality teaching must be accompanied by enriching extracurricular life—these are the ingredients that make student years the best years of life. TalTech supports over 40 student organisations, and ideally each programme should have a corresponding activity. We will continue the Rector’s Cup tradition that unites the university community.

Looking ahead, a bold idea is to establish a forward-looking student corporation focused on charity and fandom—akin to those in US universities. Why not have a corporation house (there’s an empty building, after all!), complete with a student pub, where the menu might feature the “Rector Burger” and the “Lecturer Burger”?

Alumni Engagement. With over 80,000 alumni, our network is strong. As shown by the university derby — the basketball semifinals — new and engaging events can reconnect thousands of alumni with TalTech. The potential is immense.

University Sports. We will continue hosting university derbies to provide entertainment for the TalTech community, bring alumni back to campus, and cultivate fan culture from a young age—fans who proudly wear university-logo attire and may eventually return as students.

Where would you like your area to be in ten years at TalTech?

The endowment’s principal—our core capital—should be sufficient to generate investment income that supports the university’s ambitions to expand into new fields.

Which past experience gives you confidence for the next four years?
I am the longest-serving member of the Rectorate. With eight years as Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, I know the nuances of Estonia’s higher education landscape and employers’ expectations of TalTech.

I spent one term leading student engagement. Though successful, I believe there is even more we can achieve—from the growth of student organisations and the Rector’s Cup, to summer games selling out within minutes and labyrinth runs attracting hundreds and derbies drawing tens of thousands.

Will you also continue teaching or engaging in research?

I teach a 6-credit interdisciplinary course on “Energy Efficiency and Indoor Climate in Building Design,” with nearly 100 students enrolled.

What inspires you professionally, and what about in your private life?

TalTech is as large as a city and as exciting as a street—full of varied challenges and the added mission of supporting Estonia’s development.

I am a father of three, and I dedicate most of my free time to them. Recently, I completed an individual IRONMAN 70.3 on 24 August—a two-year journey culminating in that achievement. Now I rest—but knowing myself, I’m already seeking the next mountain to conquer.