#33: Before startups: Building an entrepreneurial mindset in children. A talk with Olesja Rotar (Avatud Kool, Estonia)

What does entrepreneurship look like before startups even enter the picture?In this episode of the ScreenMe Podcast, Ulrike Rohn speaks with Olesja Rotar to explore how an entrepreneurial mindset begins to form in childhood. Moving away from the usual focus on startups, universities, and ecosystems, this conversation goes back to the very beginning: curiosity, initiative, and the ability to notice problems in everyday life.Drawing on her experience running a business club for school kids at Avatud Kool (starting from first grade) in Tallinn, Estonia, Olesja challenges the idea that entrepreneurship is about money or scaling ventures. Instead, she shows how children can develop entrepreneurial thinking through small, real-life actions. Asking “why”, taking initiative, managing time, and learning from failure are at the core of this early mindset.The episode also reflects on the realities of raising and teaching children today: constant entertainment, reduced intrinsic motivation, and the role of parents and teachers in either enabling or limiting independence. Through examples ranging from Lego case studies to student-led projects, Olesja illustrates how meaningful, hands-on experiences can help children connect ideas to the real world.This episode reframes entrepreneurship not as a career path, but as a way of thinking and acting long before any startup is founded.Key quotes“If you see a problem and do something about it, that’s already entrepreneurship.” “Entrepreneurship is not always about big money and fame.”BioOlesja Rotar is an educator and project manager specialising in entrepreneurship education and knowledge transfer. She studied public administration and political science at Tallinn University, with a focus on economics, advertising, and imagology. She began her career as an investigative journalist at Äripäev’s Russian-language edition, Delovye Vedomosti, before joining Tallinn University, where she spent over a decade working at the intersection of academia, industry, and public sector collaboration.As part of her work, Olesja contributed to numerous international initiatives, including the INTERREG project Startup Passion in the Baltic Sea Region, where she managed trainings and hackathons for students across Estonia, Latvia, and Finland.For the past seven years, she has led extracurricular commercial activities at Avatud Kool in Tallinn (grades 1 - 9), developing and managing after-school programmes. Motivated by a gap in the school curriculum, she founded a student business club, giving young learners hands-on experience in entrepreneurship through real-life projects such as student-run coffee shops.Keywordsentrepreneurship education, children, entrepreneurial mindset, project-based learning, curiosity, initiative, problem-solving, early education, business skills, startups vs entrepreneurship, motivation, learning by doing, creativity, failure and resilience, real-world learning, youth developmentHost: Ulrike RohnSound: Tanel Kadalipp (episode 1-14), Sangam Panta (episode 15 -https://bfmentrepreneurhub.tlu.ee/screenme-podcast/