Estonia launches smart city project with Finland

Business news | December 20, 2019

By Nick Flaherty

The Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) is working with Aalto University and innovation company Forum Virium Helsinki in Finland on a €32m smart city project over the next seven years.

TalTech’s Smart City Centre of Excellence will be exploring and testing new technologies in five areas: energy, transport, construction, data, and governance.

“The first major Smart City solutions will be prepared next year and then tested in Estonian cities from 2021 onward. No specific pilots have been selected yet, but our firm goal is to bring the brightest ideas, in terms of scientific potential, innovation level, and economic benefits, to the Estonian urban environments,’ said Ralf-Martin Soe, the Founding Director of the Centre of Excellence and Senior Research Fellow at TalTech.

Next year, the researchers of the Centre of Excellence will also start building a Smart City environment on the TalTech campus, which includes equipment, new technologies, as well as custom solutions.

“Whereas the launch of the Centre of Excellence involves dozens of top-level scientists from TalTech and Aalto University right now, they will be joined by 40 highly qualified research and development professionals over the next five years,” said Soe. “Our overall vision is to match Estonia’s flagship status in the field of e-governance with the same level in Smart City research and development in five years. This means that researchers and cities around the world would see Estonia as the flagship of Smart Cities. The goal of our Smart City Centre of Excellence is to further the success of the Estonian e-state, both locally and in close cooperation with Finnish partners.”

The Finest Twins project will be funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and by the Estonian government.

www.ttu.ee