Cameras monitoring rivers record hours of footage, and finding fish in those recordings can be time-consuming. Artificial intelligence developed through a partnership between TalTech and German company I AM HYDRO is helping to speed up the task. Next, the researchers want to better understand why fish prefer some waterways and avoid others.
Business
Keeping the electricity system in balance does not always mean generating more power – sometimes it is enough to reduce or increase consumption at the right moment. This was the idea behind Fusebox, founded more than a decade ago by TalTech alumnus Tarvo Õng. The company’s software is now used in almost ten countries, and Õng believes the next step should be to give businesses and ordinary people more control over their own energy use.
TalTech alumnus and DeltaE Inseneribüroo owner Marti Arak has turned energy efficiency into a successful business. He says that technical solutions alone are not enough to achieve energy savings: skilled engineers, practical experience and the ability to see the bigger picture are also essential.
Narfe World, a company founded by TalTech alumnus Abdul Salam Mohammed and his team, aims to transform how people plan their travels. The platform, currently being developed in the Tehnopol AI Accelerator, uses artificial intelligence to turn travel content produced by online creators into personalised itineraries.
Joonas Parre entered TalTech’s Igniter programme with a blank page. No idea, no team, no company. A few months later, he was helping build Vivia – a WhatsApp-based healthtech startup designed to remind older adults to take their medicine, reduce loneliness and give families peace of mind.
DCR Technologies, a company spun out of TalTech, is developing technology that helps prepare today’s electrical devices for the arrival of direct-current networks. The company aims to reduce energy losses and prevent costly retrofits in the future.
Tallinn University of Technology-supported Estonian natural cosmetics brand tilk! is patenting a method for producing a black garlic-based extract that originated nearly five years ago through collaboration with TalTech researchers. To protect the innovation developed in Estonia, the company has registered a utility model and also submitted an international patent application.
Many scientific ideas stall not because of technology, but because there are no people to bring them to market. Tallinn University of Technology is now seeking to consciously bridge the gap between science and business by looking for external co-founders for more than ten research projects.
When people talk about drones, the focus tends to fall on technology – autonomy, artificial intelligence, and swarms. Tõnis Voitka, CEO of the Estonian defense company KrattWorks and a TalTech alumnus, instead turns a serious eye to manufacturing and business models. In his view, the course of drone warfare is determined not only by the sophistication of the systems, but also by the speed and scale of drone production and the sustainability of the company producing them.
When Anna Dementjeva looks back on her childhood, she doesn’t remember a single moment that pushed her toward engineering – she remembers many. She was the child who constantly asked why, who found comfort in logic, and who treated geometry problems as small creative puzzles waiting to be solved.