The knowledge accumulated within a construction company is often scattered across people’s memories, emails and project folders. Kristin Kivimäe, Innovation and Technology Manager at Mapri Ehitus, believes artificial intelligence could help bring this knowledge together and make it accessible, so that lessons from earlier projects can inform decisions on the next ones.
Artificial Intelligence
Over a quarter of a century, the Estonian Centre for Engineering Pedagogy has helped establish an understanding that engineering education is, at its heart, much more than passing on knowledge. The question is no longer how many formulae or technologies learners know. What matters is how they think, which problems they can solve and what impact their work has on society.
Estonia is well placed in e-health development and has a strong foundation for making better use of health data and technology. Paulin Jürjens, Head of HealthTech at Tehnopol, believes technology can help prevent disease, reduce healthcare professionals’ routine tasks and make care delivery smoother.
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.
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.
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.
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.
AI agents deployed without sufficient thought can create serious cybersecurity risks and make accountability even more complicated.
An AI agent can be a company’s most diligent employee. The trouble starts when it is given more permissions than judgement.
Estonia’s e-health system is an international model, but its next leap forward requires higher-quality health data, greater involvement of doctors and evidence of the real benefits of digital solutions, say three European health informatics experts.