As befits a business school, the focus of the Impact Fund is on education and business, including the globalisation of the Estonian education market. The Impact Fund focuses on three areas: educational innovation and needs-based scholarships, research-based proposals for a smarter and more efficient state, and the new EBS infrastructure, the Eedu Campus between Lauteri and Lennuki streets, which will be completed in 2026.
“There are a lot of enthusiastic education entrepreneurs in Estonia who are very good at creating new products and initiatives – until they reach the phase of entering the market. Unfortunately, only selected service providers are currently subsidised in the education market. As a result, good ideas from education entrepreneurs often end up nowhere,” says Mart Habakuk, explaining the reasons for setting up the fund. The plan now is to support educational innovation initiatives that are the result of private-public partnerships, relying on the support and expertise of the EBS community. “By using the knowledge, skills and money of EBS’ students, lecturers, staff and alumni, as well as education enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, we could make quality education even more accessible and globally competitive,” believes Mart Habakuk.
The chosen course is all the more important as it reflects the vision of Madis Habakuk, founder of EBS, part of which he included in the credo of EBS: “we must never forget that we are dealing with people’s destinies that we can influence in one way or another through education”.