Estonia cannot compete with the United States or China in the AI race in terms of either funding or computing power. Experts discussing the issue at the autumn seminar of TalTech’s AI Focus Centre recommend looking for Estonia’s strengths elsewhere: a strong digital state, cybersecurity, good education and cooperation. A small country’s success depends on finding the right niches.
Society
Despite her young age, TalTech alumna Marie-Mädli Kivimäe has built an impressive engineering career in the international automotive industry. Her willingness to keep stepping outside her comfort zone has helped her move forward.
States are making increasingly deliberate use of cyberspace to put pressure on others, gather information and achieve their foreign and security policy objectives. According to Estonia’s Ambassador at Large for Cyber Diplomacy Helen Popp, technological capability has become an important part of states’ economic, military and political power.
Technology in Estonia’s road construction sector has advanced rapidly over the past decade, but TalTech road and traffic expert Ain Kendra says unstable funding, rigid procurement and limited research and development funding are holding the sector back.
August Komendant, from the Estonian village of Nurmsi, became one of the twentieth century’s most influential structural engineers and architect Louis Kahn’s closest collaborator. His work extended from the grandstand at Kadriorg Stadium to Philadelphia and Fort Worth, where he helped create some of Kahn’s best-known buildings.
In a public lecture to students and researchers at TalTech, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that Estonia sets an example for the entire Alliance through its defence investment, support for Ukraine, technological innovation and whole-of-society crisis preparedness. He identified the development of drone and counter-drone technology, as well as more effective air defence, as some of the most urgent tasks for future engineers and researchers.
Estonia’s maritime sector will increasingly need people with IT, data, legal and other specialist skills alongside seafarers. Yet it is still widely seen as a traditional industry centred on ships and sailing. Participants at WISTA Estonia’s annual seminar concluded that universities, businesses, the state and local authorities must work more closely together to bridge this gap.
Estonia is establishing a nuclear regulator and looking for a potential plant site, although no decision to build a nuclear power plant has been made. A Trialoog debate highlighted several questions that must be answered first: how much small reactors will cost, the price of their electricity, the risk the state would assume, and whether Estonia has enough expertise and people to operate and oversee a plant safely.
Liisi Särglep did not dream of becoming an engineer as a child. Her first plan was to study medicine, but when she was not admitted to the University of Tartu on her first attempt, her next choice took her to Tallinn University of Technology to study product development and production engineering.
Universities can give young people sound IT knowledge, but that may not be enough to find work. A collaboration between ESTDEV and TalTech examined experiences in Estonia, Kenya, Nigeria and Armenia to identify what helps IT graduates enter their profession. Success depends on more than the curriculum: practical experience, initiative, entrepreneurial skills and connections with employers are at least as important.