Welcome to the Opinion Festival!

Sander Nõmmik
Author Sander Nõmmik
Categories

You are now in Estonia and would like to experience all of Estonian society in one single place? The Opinion Festival is an event you do not want to miss!

The Opinion Festival will take place in Paide on the 11th and 12th of August, 2017. This will be the fifth time the already Estonian famous festival will be taking place, where people from all over Estonia will be meeting to exchange views on different topics, share ideas and propose solutions to a wide arrange of topics, which you can check here.

While many of the discussions are in Estonian, there are enough opportunities for non-Estonian speakers to participate and exchange their opinions, as the amount of discussions in English has been growing in the past Opinion Festivals. This is the perfect opportunity to have your voice heard, get an insight or two about how things work in Estonia and make new friends and connections.

A couple of interesting discussions in English can be the following:

Diversity in the Estonian workplace: The good, the bad and the ugly’ (Education area 12th August, 2017 11:30-13:00)

Estonian workplaces are becoming more and more diverse, with many positive impacts to Estonian society, but also some challenges that need to work out. The aim of this discussion is to increase the awareness towards foreigners and people from different cultural backgrounds working and living in Estonia as an already existing part of society. We wish to encourage a lively discussion where we exchange views on the benefits and challenges of cultural diversity at the workplace and what it means to society in broader terms, hopefully resulting in new ideas and proposals for the discussed issues. All this with the help of a diverse audience.

‘‘The pain and glory of the PhD degree: do you and the society need it?’ (Science area 12th August, 2017 14:00-15:20)

The movement March For Science started in 2017 indicates that science aims for more impact in society. Is the role of PhD degree also changing? What are the risks and gains of PhD degree in Estonia? These questions will be discussed with the professionals representing different views. We will inform the audience about PhD studies, possible carrier choices and the current drawbacks of science funding system aiming. We aim to come up with the new ideas improving perspectives of the doctorates.

And for those that have advanced skills in Estonian, we also highly recommend Välistööjõu kaasamine Eestis: mis on tehtud ja mida on veel vaja teha? (Tööala, 11th August 2017 16:00-17:30)

Vastavalt viimasele Eesti inimarengu aruandele on sisserände suurendamine üks kolmest tegurist, mis peaks lahendama Eesti demograafilise kestlikkuse. Arutleme, kuidas saaks välistööjõu kaasamise abil lahendada ühte Eesti suurimat probleemi – kvalifitseeritud tööjõu vähesust. Alustame sellega, mida riik on seni teinud välistööjõu kaasamise suunas ning mil viisil võiks jätkata. Juttu tuleb alates migratsioonipoliitikast kuni Eesti kui töötamise sihtkoha turundamiseni. Kuuleme ka erasektori esindajate arvamusi, millised on välismaalaste palkamise vajadused, eraalgatused ja kuidas näeb välismaalase palkamine praktikas välja. Arutelul osalejad saavad pakkuda oma võimalikke lahendusi välistööjõu kaasamise teemal.