TALLINN - A massive brainstorming session is set to kick off throughout Estonia in an effort to get people to come up with ways to improve the country.
More than 650,000 people are expected to take part in 400 workshops that will be set up for the May 1 event, which has been titled "Minu Eesti" (My Estonia).
Participants will be asked to join think tanks that have been set up throughout the country 's with different ones operating in Estonian, Russian and English 's where they will ponder specific questions on how to improve life in the country.
Organizers of the event hope that the ideas generated will draw investment and be acted upon by volunteers. According to Anneli Ohvril, Communications Team Leader of My Estonia, they expect many different kinds of productive ideas coming out of the brainstorming session.
"We believe that in all brainstorming chambers, two kinds of ideas will be generated. Many feasible ideas are generated so that the people who came up with them can instantly start executing them with a small initiative group."
"More comprehensive ideas will need more social contemplation, debates and planning. The carry-through of these ideas will require the collaboration, agreement and cooperation of different social groups," she said.
The organization is prepared to help find people willing to follow through with the ideas if no candidates come forward.
If these ideas are either feasible and are only waiting for active and capable people to execute them  then the My Estonia team will help the initiators find people to carry the idea through. Or some ideas are too raw or too broad, and then experts will analyze them and come up with new ideas around the initial idea," Ohvril told The Baltic Times.
The idea for the event was prompted by the success of last year's "Teeme ara" event, which saw 50,000 people help clean up the country. Primary organizer Rainer Nolvak decided to expand on the idea this year by creating My Estonia.