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.
alumni
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.
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.
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.
Enefit Green CEO and TalTech alumnus Juhan Aguraiuja told the Energy Technology Institute’s Department Day that true leadership is achieved not only through education, but also through life experience. “No job is beneath you – everything must be done with complete seriousness and respect,” he said, emphasising that a good leader understands both the system and the people.
The Estonian startup KindelAI, co-founded by TalTech alumnus Andrei Aksjonov, believes the era of mechanics fumbling in the dark under the hood is coming to an end. KindelAI is developing a car diagnostics solution where decisions are no longer based on gut feeling but on data-driven artificial intelligence.
The Estonian startup R8 Technologies has created a virtual colleague who keeps buildings warm, wallets full, and energy consumption under control.