Edukontor is a creative coworking space in the heart of Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. This coworking space is a place where freelancers, teleworkers and small businesses share office space and exchange ideas and contacts, filling a gap on the rather traditional island.
The office space was opened inMay 2017 and is run as a non-profit organisation. The space was named after a former grocery store called “Edu” (“success” in Estonian) that operated in the building years ago. Creating the office was initiated by a group of people who had moved (back) to the island and were working from a distance or starting their small businesses and were in need for a small working space from time to time.
Today, it’s possible to rent a desk or a room from an hour to a month or become a renter for a longer term. Its great location and a friendly and diverse coworkers’ community make Edukontor a pleasant place to work. Edukontor enables locals to leave their homeoffices, digital nomads to make a longer stop here and anybody outside Saaremaa to open a temporary office in Kuressaare. The organization also arranges events to promote remote and flexible work.
Currently, Edukontor brings together researchers, film distributers, photographers, make-up artists, drafters, drink producers, journalists, IT specialists, trainers, a craftsman, bookkeeper, fire safety specialist, cook, draughtsman, captain, marketer, translator and a designer. Working side-by-side and interacting with people of different backgrounds creates synergy and cooperation. The people with a wide variety of knowhow and experience willingly share their skills by giving lectures or hosting discussion workshops. These events are open-access and thus provide true added value to the people of Saaremaa.
Source: saaremaavald.ee
Example of strategy 3C:
Facilitate the Establishment of Living Labs and Competence Centers
Islands are excellent places to establish living labs. Living labs can mean an environment for experimentation and testing; a methodology/approach, and a system for innovation for generating and testing innovative products, concepts, and services in a real-life environment. Living labs enable people, users/ consumers of services and product, to take active roles as contributors and co-creators in the research, development, and innovation process. The starting point for any living lab is to, in close cooperation with involved stakeholders, develop product and services from the basis of what users really want and need. The main role of the living lab is to engage and empower users to participate in the creation of valuable and viable assets.
Living labs on islands can be central meeting places, often with only simple technical facilities, serving as idea generators and project builders for innovation. The island setting -certain isolation- can serve as an additional factor for experimenting in a contained, real-life environment. Local and regional governments can help initiatives in this area, for instance, in connection with the many arts, crafts, (pop-)music, cultural-, tech-, etc. festivals and events that are commonly organized on islands. Since these festivals attract a lot of young talented people from both on-island and the mainland, an outstanding opportunity emerges to turn festival projects into longer-term programs for living labs on islands.
