Why aren’t we involving the 20-year-olds in future planning?
Instead keeping the average age of participants in such events around 55+, resulting in a dull discussion that leads to nowhere…
Yesterday, the government hosted a roundtable to discuss the strategies for Estonia 2035.
The idea was great!
However, the discussions were more or less pointless.
There was a short presentation saying the current strategies for Estonia are about to reach to their end with the year 2020 in close sight. And that we need to make a new plan extending to 2035, duh.
But the following keynotes, panels and discussions just let us know that people want more sun and kids. There was literally no other point made.
Okay, there was one!
Sandor Liive said that Estonia needs one strong dream or direction where we want to end up before we can start generating long strategy documents. A few years ago, we wanted to enter the EU and the NATO, and we did just that. But now? Now, there are no long-term goals…
However, I think no one really heard that point because we went right back to the question of how to double the population of Estonia. Why? Mostly because of the survival instinct.
No other good reason there, unless we find a goal taking the whole country further!
But what disturbed me, even more, was the fact that the average age of this group, discussing the future of Estonia, was around 55+.
Moreover, I only glimpsed three other people whose age was around the late 20s/early 30s (Kaspar Korjus from eResidency, Marek Mühlberg from StarterIdea and Märt Aro from Nordic EdTech Forum — “N8”) which cannot be the correct way to plan the future. Especially as most people in the room won’t even be actively working by the time 2035 arrives…
Is it really that no person in their 20s who thinks about the future? Or do we just distrust most of them?
Whatever the problem, this is not the way forward…
We need to start involving the young, educated and forward-thinking people to plan the future. Because they are willing to take the 10/20-year risks which will actually help Estonia become a super nation we so much want to become (and market ourselves to already be).
Anyway, the event was a disappointment and made us, the young people feel like there is no safety in the future, as long as our voices are not going to be heard!
