Birgit Lao is appointed as the first Estonia’s diplomatic representative for education. The main objectives of the representative are promoting Estonia’s successful education solutions in the world, representing Estonia in education matters internationally, supporting the export of educational technology companies and attract investments to Estonia.
“Estonia’s education is a fine example, our success stories are widely known and other countries are interested in our smart solutions. Using our advantages to promote Estonia as an education nation is the main task of the diplomatic representative for education,” said Liina Kersna, the minister of education and research of Estonia.
“I find the greatest challenge to be in promoting our strengths of the public and private sector companies in a way that exporting our solutions to other countries would benefit every single person working in and for Estonian education,” said Birgit Lao, the newly-appointed diplomatic representative for the education of Estonia. “Successful solutions are created on cross-sectoral cooperation and Estonia aims to showcase these in the up-coming EXPO in Dubai this year. Although Estonia is already well-known for being an education nation, our aim is to find ways how to monetize these advantages and develop a business model: supporting export, entering into new markets, attract investments into Estonia’s education or sell our experiences, know-how and skills,” Lao said.
Being a spokesperson for Estonian education, international networking and promoting Estonian success stories are the tasks of the diplomatic representative for education. The main goal is to develop Estonian’s education export and marketing strategically in a cooperation with the Education and Youth Board, the Education Estonia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Birgit Lao has a long experience in education. From 2014 she has been a chariman of the foundation Innove. From 2006 to 2014 she worked at the Ministry of Education and Research of Estonia. Until 2006, she was working at the Estonian adult education association ANDRAS. She as a bachelor degree in law from the University of Tartu and master’s degree in European studies from the University of Tartu. Currently, she is obtaining a master’s degree in educational entrepreneurship from the Oulu University.
