Entrepreneur Kuldar Leis started work at the UT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The UT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has recruited Kuldar Leis, a renowned entrepreneur, to develop entrepreneurship studies.
The entrepreneur with a strong sense of mission decided to come to work for the university to encourage business people to share their experiences with higher secondary school and university students. He says that it is also beneficial for the managers of companies if pupils and students understand the business world before they enter the job market.
As the new development manager of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Leis’s one task will be to further develop the entrepreneurship competitions and programmes so that they would become as popular as the idea competition Ajujaht.
“The entire pre-incubation system must be launched in a new form. Another part of my job is to inspire. The university’s idea is to engage business people who would support the process from their side. The aim is to have not only the members of the teaching staff who speak to students, but also entrepreneurs. I want to be one of these people who can pass on their vision to the UT students,” said Leis.
One of his goals is that all higher secondary schools take the entrepreneurship programme into their curriculum and that all students, irrelevant of their specialisation, come in contact with entrepreneurship during their university studies. To do that, Leis will participate in compiling the study materials related to entrepreneurship studies and in the university’s efforts to train entrepreneurship teachers.
“Here, an interesting example is the Viljandi Culture Academy, where all students must set up their student company. Thanks to this, many musicians and artists learn how to make money and where it comes from,” said Leis.
Leis is most interested in linking the development of entrepreneurship studies to practitioners – bringing business people to schools and universities to encourage them to do more intensive cooperation with schools and help young people develop their business ideas into products and services ready for the market.
Previously, Leis has been a senior executive of Hoiupank and the Director of Sales and Marketing of Ösel Foods and the CEO of Premia Foods, but he is also the owner of the first passive house in Estonia and the chair of the Passive House Association of Estonia.
On 5 June, Leis will host the prime minister at the Idea Lab, to discuss how the Estonian government could further support the efforts to enhance the entrepreneurial attitudes of young Estonians.
Source: Universitas Tartuensis magazine