Life in Estonia. Winter 2019

No50 1 /2019

Robotic solutions save time Cleveron unveils new courier robot Estonia revolutionises world agriculture Icefire creates fine art in financial technology Datel saves lives by satellite

#EstonianWay – the inspiring and affordable essence of Estonia Roberta Einer – Estonian designer in London

Modern buildings at Rotermann City / photo by Taaniel Malleus

cover photo by Atko Januson

Are we ready for the future?

Automation is coming. Soon we’ll have robots and various other autonomous systems surrounding us at every turn. It might not happen in the next 5 or 10 years, but there will be a morning when we wake up and realise that the world around us has changed. Will we adapt? What will be our function by then? Estonia has a crucial role in forming the answers to all of that.

On one hand, we’ll be the ones generating many of the solutions for that era. For example, our companies, such as Starship Technologies and Cleveron, are already developing the robots, while Taxify and Shipitwise are building the platforms that will control them. And that’s just a small part of the companies looking to bring innovation to the logistics sector. There are many other sectors – from manufacturing to catering – that will soon see a lot of automation, thanks to companies started in Estonia. executive publisher Positive Projects Pärnu mnt 69, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia lifeinestonia@positive.ee editor Reet Grosberg reetgrosberg@positive.ee

translations Ingrid Hübscher language editor Daniel Warren design & layout Positive Design

On the other hand, we’re also the country enabling foreign teams to live-test their solutions, giving an extra boost towards making this future a reality. Fortunately, our government has been very much forward-looking with the latest legislative changes, such as allowing self-driving vehicles to drive around the cities. Meanwhile, we’ve also done right by not regulating things too fast – first collecting enough data and then deciding whether we need to limit anything or not. Together with Startup Visa and the e-Residency program, we’re now looking to attract a lot of innovators here, creating this future.

What will become of the people whose work changes due to all of this? Will the machines built be used only for the benefit of humanity? And how will our species look in 3100? These are just some of the questions we need to think about – now. We already know some of the answers – e.g. universal basic income, cybersecurity and synthetic biology – but we need to educate more people to actually study and implement them in order to create the pathway needed to adapt the future.

That said, I’m happy that Estonia has helped set up so many wonderful initiatives that will educate innovators and prepare us for the future. We welcome you to implement those initiatives across the planet!

Sander Gansen Chairman of Robotex — the global robotics ecosystem Estonian Investment Agency supports companies investing and expanding in Estonia.

World-class human capital, unique digital capabilities and a competitive business environment make Estonia a smart, agile location for businesses with global ambitions. investinestonia.com

Printed on 100% recycled paper, inspired by green technology.

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News & events

Maarja Kruusmaa – transforming nature’s design into high tech

Stora Enso brings its finances to Tallinn

Professor Maarja Kruusmaa is the founder and director of the Centre for Biorobotics at TalTech – one of the best-known and most acknowledged research centres in Estonia and worldwide. The unique niche of Kruusmaa’s research are robots inspired by fish and marine mammals. She and her team look at nature as a huge patent database and her dream is to see that the technology her team develops will help solve real problems.

Stora Enso is the leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions and paper on global markets.

Worldwide, the company employs some 26 000 people and is publicly listed in Helsinki and Stockholm. But for the jobs requiring the most precision, the company comes to Tallinn.

Why is that?

10 The 18th Robotex International Thousands of pupils, university students, families and robotics enthusiasts gathered in Tallinn to build robots, compete and learn about the most innovative technological developments. The conference brought together more than 80 of the most influential players in the industry. Life in Estonia had a chat with two keynote speakers: David Woessner from Local Motors and David Delgado from NASA.

17 sTARTUp Day 2019 “From Zero to Hero” sTARTUp Day 2019, taking place from the 23rd to 25th of January 2019 in Tartu, is the biggest business festival in the Baltic region, bringing together 100 world-class speakers and 4000 attendees. Topics vary from Startup and Corporate collaboration, Smart City, and Growth Hacking to Space technologies, Biotechnology, and Fashion. Two speakers, Martin Vares and David Helgason, agreed to share their platforms with us.

CONTENT

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28 Cleveron gives people the gift of more time Cleveron is implementing its mission of freeing up the valuable time of hundreds of millions of people all around the world at incredible speed.

In autumn 2018, the automated parcel producer Cleveron opened its new factory extension in Viljandi and launched its new self-driving robot courier.

34 Thermory takes the traditional timber industry to a new level The merger of two Estonian companies, which had been competitors for over twenty years, has created the world’s largest specialist manufacturer of thermally modified hardwood and sauna products: Thermory AS.

40 Sille is monitoring infrastructure from space Datel, one of the oldest privately owned Estonian IT companies, expanded its core business this spring by stepping into space – figuratively speaking of course. With the help of the European Space Agency (ESA), Datel is providing high accuracy space-based infrastructure deformation monitoring.

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The fine art of financial technology

Robin Saluoks – Estonian lad revolutionising world agriculture

Rotermann Quarter – life is finally pouring in

Financial institutions affect each and every one of us. Despite some differences in origin, regulations, markets, products and clients, they often share similar challenges when it comes to technical solutions. Icefire has been witnessing all of this and building their know-how on it for the past 16 years. If you own a bank account in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia there is a good chance you have already used services developed by them.

Robin Saluoks, the founder and CEO of eAgronom, a company which offers European farmers digital solutions, is a young man with a vision. Having just won the Estonian Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, he talks to us about his road to success.

Tallinn is constantly changing and growing, and new dwelling areas emerge in the outskirts. Yet, there is one older area next to the Old Harbour and the Old Town – the Rotermann Quarter – that has changed dramatically over the past years, from a deserted old industrial area into a posh, new centre. Life in Estonia took a stroll in the quarter together with Andrus Kõresaar, an architect whose office KOKO Architects has contributed to the quarter with several buildings.

51 PORTFOLIO: Freedom in the 21st century.

Jaak Visnap – the man with the bigger picture

44 The electric race from Tallinn to Monte-Carlo Following the tradition of the Tallinn to Monte-Carlo road rallies of the 1930s, 35 electric cars started for a race from Tallinn to Monaco last September in order to promote environmentally friendly transportation and road safety.

In the midst of the shops in Tallinn’s new, ambitious and congested shopping centre T1, a view opens to a refreshing art gallery offering an unexpected contrast to the surrounding retail area. In talking to Jaak Visnap, gallery owner, it becomes clear that this is the entire point – to promote art by bringing it closer to people.

64 Roberta Einer – one of the hottest young designers in London The internationally acclaimed Estonian fashion designer Roberta Einer created her first fashion show and collection as an eleven-year-old. Today her designs are sold by luxury department stores and boutiques all over the world.

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74 #EstonianWay, the inspiring and affordable essence of Estonia The Estonian Tourist Board is running an ad campaign targeted at people outside Estonia and featuring celebrities from all around the world who promote Estonia as an exciting travel destination to their fellow citizens. Each trip covers a unique experience that introduces the way some normal activity is done in Estonia. This is where the name of the campaign comes from: the special way it is done in Estonia or #EstonianWay.

80 Events calendar: Highlights from January to March

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German logistics company HHLA acquired Estonia’s biggest terminal operator Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) bought Estonian container terminal operator Transiidikeskuse AS from businessman Anatoli Kanajev.

The contract was signed in March 2018 and a smooth transition process, which was supported by the previous owner, was completed in only 6 months.

‘I’m glad to hand over responsibility for Transiidikeskuse AS to HHLA. HHLA has extensive experience and expertise as a container terminal operator. This will ensure that Transiidikeskuse AS is successful in the future, and it will also see sustainable development,’ said Anatoli Kanajev, who will remain on the supervisory board of the company in the future.

There were many aspects that made HHLA’s decision to come to Estonia easy: the political climate in Estonia is positive – the relationships with key authorities are very good, uncomplicated and forward-looking. Another aspect is the ease of doing business – there is little bureaucracy and the taxation system is simple and advantageous. ‘One of HHLA's targets is to grow internationally. Estonia is one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe and a pioneer when it comes to digitalisation. We are therefore pleased to integrate Transiidikeskuse AS, already a profitable and high-performing company, into the HHLA family,’ CEO of HHLA, Angela Titzrath said.

HHLA aims to be a gateway to the future by offering its customers the best way to trans-

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Photos © HHLA/ Ozdoba

port their goods safely, quickly and efficiently.

HHLA Group is one of the leading port logistics providers in Europe, using state-of-the-art handling technology, innovative IT systems and a high level of automation, as well as providing a very dense rail network linking major European ports to CEE, operating highly-efficient shuttle trains and inland terminals, and connecting transport and data streams.

Their vision is to become a hub of logistical and digital innovation during the new Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

‘The acquisition enables us to enter a promising regional market that offers growth potential as a result of its geographic position and its link to the ‘New Silk Road’. As Hanseatic cities, Hamburg and Tallinn share a long history, to which HHLA is now adding a new chapter,’ commented Titzrath.

According to Titzrath, HHLA chose Transiidikeskuse AS because it had solid fundamentals and it fit with the HHLA strategy. Transiidikeskuse AS has a strong base in Estonia as the market leader in container handling with a strong presence in bulk activities. At

Kadri Simson, Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure, Angela Titzrath, CEO of HHLA and Vladimir Popov, former CEO of TK at the festive ceremony of the transition

the same time, its size and position allow Transiidikeskuse AS to grow on a solid basis and profit from HHLA’s know-how and strengths.

Anatoli Kanajev, founder of Transiidikeskuse AS, and Valdo Kalm, head of the Port of Tallinn

Muuga, which is just a few kilometres out of Tallinn, is Estonia’s main commercial port and an important freight handling point in the Baltic region. The container terminal at the port of Muuga is currently experiencing high utilisation of its capacity of around 300 000 twenty-foot equivalent units (also called TEU, a measure for container capacity), which can be increased to approximately 800 000. Contrary to many other neighbouring ports, there is the possibility to develop logistical activities in the vicinity and turn it into a multimodal hub due to its ideal connection between container and bulk shipping, Ro/Ro services, and railways (both Russian and European gauge). Close geographic proximity to the markets in the Baltics, Scandinavia, Russia and CIS countries helps to create a logistical platform.

HHLA is in the process of implementing its new strategy, focused on building logistically and digitally innovative hubs. The acquisition

of Transiidikeskuse AS in Estonia was the first step abroad to implement this strategy.

‘These types of strategic investments are very welcome in Estonia. I´m sure that HHLA will give a significant boost to the development of trade and the growth of container traffic in the region. The port of Muuga has the potential to become one of the hubs as a logistical centre between the east, the west and the north.

And this is just the beginning: the new ‘Silk Road’ and the potential of Rail Baltica are key components for future cooperation. In addition, Estonia’s expertise in digitalisation in all aspects, in line with the aspirations of HHLA, provides a good opportunity to ´test´ new ideas in a digitally-minded and positive environment prior to being implemented in other terminals.

I am glad to see this synergy between Hamburg and Tallinn with regard to our historical, cultural and economic connections. It is clear that we share the same core values when doing business,’ said Riina Leminsky, Director of Business Development in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the Estonian Investment Agency.

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International House of Estonia opened its doors to the public

Enterprise Estonia in cooperation with Mainor AS opened a service centre in Ülemiste City – International House of Estonia – where foreign specialists can get all the information about the services provided by the city and state from one place.

International House of Estonia is a service centre for internationals in Estonia (one-stopshop) to communicate with the state, to receive counselling and to create a network. Its purpose is to create a common service centre for internationals, (mainly specialists) who have relocated to Estonia and the companies that hire international specialists, in order to provide information and services in one place, to support a smoother relocation process for the whole family and to help the international specialist adapt better in the society.

‘There is a shortage of senior specialists everywhere and Estonia is competing with all the other European states in attracting talents to the country. The establishment of the International House will help to further cement the notion of Estonia as a country where procedures are easy and it may tip the scales in our favour in the decision-making process of the foreign talent,’ says Chairman of the Board of Enterprise Estonia, Alo Ivask.

Photos by Ardo Kaljuvee

The opening of the International House of Estonia was led by the Enterprise Estonia programme Work in Estonia and is done in cooperation with Mainor AS and the Ministry of the Interior, the Tax and Customs Board, the Integration Foundation, the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the Police and Border Guard Board and the city of Tallinn. All of the above-mentioned services are provided by these organisations.

All of these services have always been provided but International House of Estonia puts them under the same roof. The International House will also assist clients with finding information about housing, schools, doctors etc. Estonian enterprises that have questions about hiring a talent abroad are also welcome to come.

Mainor AS, who develops Ülemiste City, where over a thousand foreigners go to work every day, has felt the need for the International House for a long time and was one of the initiators of the idea. ‘Foreign specialists who come to work here are no longer required to run between different institutions across the city, instead, they get all their required services and advice from one place. This is certainly a big deal for many Estonian enterprises with high added value, whose success depends on the smooth hiring of a foreign workforce. We believe that simple procedures help to make the working and living environment of Estonia so desirable that increasingly more senior specialists wish to move to Estonia,’ says Chairman of the Management Board of Mainor, Kadi Pärnits. ‘The establishment of the International House is an excellent example of the cooperation between the state and private enterprise,’ Pärnits added.

Offering public services is the main task of International House, but supporting professional networking has a very important role to play.

‘International House is in progress. We want to act based on our target group’s needs to provide the best solutions. We have started by offering the services that have been asked for the most, but we need our clients’ feedback to modify the services,’ said manager of the International House of Estonia, Annely Tank.

‘On the 19th of November we hosted a grand opening and from the 27th of November we welcomed our first clients. During the first weeks we have seen that all the services we are currently offering have received good feedback from the clients,’ explained Tank. ‘With this in mind, next year we plan to offer several other services, such as consultations for starting a business and career consultation.’ workinestonia.com/internationalhouse

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Career Hunt 2018: 23 tech specialists from around the world hunting for a job in Tallinn In November 2018, the Work in Estonia programme hosted 23 tech specialists from 4 different continents and 15 different countries in Tallinn as part of its Career Hunt 2018 campaign. The candidates had 4 days to spend in Tallinn to attend final round job interviews and have fun.

What is Career Hunt all about?

‘Enne töö, pärast lõbu’ – first work, then play

Career Hunt 2018 began in August 2018 when mid- and senior level tech specialists from all around the world were invited to apply for jobs at 12 innovative companies in Tallinn. Within a month, the campaign received more than 5500 applications. Out of these 5500 candidates, 23 were selected to participate in the exclusive Career Hunt Week in Tallinn.

After the long and demanding job interviews, the candidates were able to see the awesome Tallinn Old Town, hike in a bog and have the best sauna experience in town at Rangi saun.

Some people in the group saw snow and visited a sauna both for the first time in their lives.

‘This was a life-changing experience. I knew little about Estonia and I let the size of the ‘The idea was to give people who are interested country fool me. But now I can say it exceedin accelerating their career and moving to Esto- ed my expectations. A highly developed and nia, a chance to visit the country to experience IT-based country makes a modern society in the endless possibilities that Estonian tech scene Estonia. The companies I met convinced me offers, before deciding to relocate,’ says head of Estonia was the place I was looking for and it the project, Kaisa-Triin Kosenkranius. The Work would be a great pleasure to work there,’ said in Estonia programme partnered with 12 leading Luiz from Brazil. companies including Skype, Taxify, Swedbank, Global Gaming Group, Proekspert, Topia, Veriff, ‘Talent attraction is becoming more and more Nortal, Helmes, Axinom, Finestmedia and Twilio. important to countries and this for sure is one of the most exciting ways of attracting talent to On November 28th, after a preselection process, a region. The reality is that traditional job ads are not enough and we need to be smarter in 23 IT specialists finally arrived in Tallinn. During their stay, they experienced both the techy, busi- attracting highly skilled IT specialists to Estonia,’ says Kaisa-Triin. ness and fun sides of Estonia.

They got acquainted with our vibrant startup ecosystem, visited the world’s biggest robotics festival Robotex as well as the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. And of course, the highlights of the whole trip were the final round job interviews at 12 leading companies in Estonia.

‘Most of the Career Hunt 2018 final candidates received job offers to come and work in Estonia. Estonia has a lot to offer with its innovative companies, advanced digital society and good working and living environment,’ adds Kosenkranius.

The number of international specialists moving to Estonia has more than doubled in the past 5 years.

Recently, www.dispatcheseurope.com listed Tallinn as the second best city in Europe for expats, just behind Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

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Photos by Jรถrgen Norkroos

All-time biggest Robotex brought together participants from 46 countries

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Photo by Egert Kamenik

Ahti Heinla

The robotics event Robotex International took place for the 18th time in Tallinn from November 30th to December 2nd. Thousands of competitors, students, university students, families and robotics enthusiasts came together to build robots, compete and learn about the most innovative technological developments.

This year’s festival boasted 26 competitions and 2406 competitors (603 of whom were from abroad). 46 countries were represented including Afghanistan, Cyprus, Colombia, Greece, Japan, India, Mali, USA, China and many others. The youngest competitor was 3 years old and the oldest 68. More than 20 000 people visited Robotex. The most exciting competitions were the Entrepreneurial Challenge, Starship Animal Rescue Challenge, Elisa AI Challenge, Taxify Challenge, Girls’ Firefighting Challenge, Tartu University Robots Basketball, TalTech Folkrace Challenge and Insplay challenges to children and youth.

‘It’s great to witness that we are only getting more international and that has brought about the growth in the quality of Robotex. Real talents were participating and every competition offered some challenges to the competitors and referees. We saw exciting moments, fiery debates, the joy of winning and pain of losing.

I’m proud that the Estonian robotics community is so solid that we are able to meet the expectations of our visitors and attract influential international media channels and platforms such as the BBC, Forbes Latvia, Arctic Startup, Computable, VentureBeat and RiseTech Media,’ concludes the CEO of Robotex Ave Laas.

The founder of Starship Ahti Heinla said: ‘It was great to see so many people being interested in the exciting things that are being done in Estonia and to see them building robots and competing. Starship once again had a challenge at Robotex, which was inspired by the essence of our package robots. It was delightful to witness more competitors advancing in it this year.’

Robotex hosted the world’s biggest startup challenge for kindergarteners and elementary school students; it was called “Our first startup”.

The challenge was organised by Insplay and its purpose was to spark interest in entrepreneurship and robotics. More than 1100 Estonian children and youth presented their startups to mentors through prototypes they had created.

‘Our wish is to inspire children and youth as well as support them on their journey from being technology users toward becoming its creators,’ said Insplay’s CEO Andres Sirel.

‘The children’s startup challenge offers a playful way to learn 21st century skills such as problem solving, teamwork, critical thinking and creativity. We believe that this challenge playfully provided children with their first practical entrepreneurship experience,’ he added.

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The 3-day festival in Fair Centre also hosted a technology exhibition in addition to the competitions. Cleveron, Starship, XPRIZE, Insplay and other companies demonstrated their newest technology products and services.

The National Institute for Health Development was present with the relational robot Abot, Milrem introduced a self-driving tank, TalTech showcased Iseauto (the first Estonian self-driving vehicle), the student satellite and student product development project PinBall was presented, Cleveron introduced their brand new courier robot, Formula Student showcased the student formula, KNM was present with holograms, at the University of Tartu stand visitors could see and try out ClearBot robots, the fastest camera and the coldest ice-cream.

Simultaneously, the Robotex International Conference “Generation R” took place at Tallinn Creative Hub, bringing together more than 80 speakers and 942 visitors.

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The head of the Robotex International Conference Angela Allik concluded: ‘This was the first Robotex International Conference on that scale.

Globally renowned opinion leaders shared their knowledge on exciting and relevant topics such as AI, Machine Learning, Data Science, Robots, Cyber Security, Industry 4.0, Logistics, Space Technologies, STEAM Education, Futurism, etc. Additionally, many talks, panel discussions and workshops on robotics, technology and entrepreneurship took place. We are planning to grow this initiative even bigger and, throughout the year, carry out a series of events focusing on robotics, cyber security and innovative technologies, which will be summed up at the next Robotex International Conference taking place on Nov 25th -27th 2019.

Robotex International 2018 was organised by NPO Robotex in cooperation with partners, including Starship, Cleveron, Elisa Eesti, Startup Estonia, City of Tallinn, EAS, the American Embassy, the Embassy of the Netherlands, Proekspert, CDP Technologies, the University of Tartu, Lift99, Workland and Modash.

Photos by Jörgen Norkroos

The Robotex International conference brought together more than 80 of the most influential players in the industry, talking about applied robotics, the future of tech and how future technologies would transform our businesses and everyday lives.

Life in Estonia had a chat with two keynote speakers: David Woessner, General Manager of Local Motors, and David Delgado from the Museum of Awe, NASA.

By Maris Hellrand

David C. Woessner is the General Manager of the Local Motors facility in National Harbor, MD, a technology company that designs, builds, and sells vehicles. He is responsible for the operations of the educational, sales and demonstration facility located just outside of Washington D.C. An expert in topics of globalisation, localisation and emerging technologies, David has written articles and white papers on mobility, connectivity and automotive technology hubs.

Photos by Egert Kamenik

David Woessner: The future is here

You are working on the disruption of mobility. What is the main obstacle? Is it that the new disruptive concept of mobility will actually result in less cars and the industry is hesitant to give up these market shares?

We, Local Motors, are working to change mobility and redefining “the Ride” so that there will be less vehicles on the road, such that we have reduced congestion and emissions. However, there are a few significant obstacles – mainly consumer education and confidence in the new technology and modernising regulatory frameworks to enable the deployment of new mobility vehicles.

What will it take for the government regulators to see this disruption through?

Autonomous vehicles on the roads will require quite a few legislative changes of traffic regulations etc. Is there a “legal lag”?

It depends. Certainly, in many places technology has outpaced legislation and governments at all levels have had a hard time keeping up with new mobility solutions entering the market. However, in certain instances, governments have moved too fast and put regulations in place before completely understanding the application and use cases of the technology, which in turn hindered the deployment and growth of the technology.

The technology of autonomous vehicles has been available for quite some time now and we have heard for almost a decade that autonomous cars will hit the road in the immediate future. Still, it’s not happening as fast as predicted. Why? What is the realistic foreseeable roll-out timeline?

Well, I am not going to make a bold prediction here, because those don’t age well. What I will say is that the Future is here, but it is not evenly distributed. Some of the applications of the technology are in the marketplace in certain areas, but mass market adoption is not going to happen anytime soon.

Estonia is keen to become the testing ground for autonomous vehicles (as are many other countries).

Do you see a competitive advantage here for this? Even though there is no local car industry? Or exactly because of that?

I really enjoyed my visit to Tallinn and interacted with many local stakeholders who are interested in this exact topic. I think Estonia, because of its relatively small size and willingness to embrace new technology and new methods to government regulation, has a competitive advantage.

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By Maris Hellrand

David Delgado is a Visual Strategist with The Studio at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and co-founder of the Museum of Awe. His background in anthropology, advertising, and art/ science learning helps to create experiences that activate people’s imaginations and invite them to think more deeply about the questions that drive science and technology forward.

NASA has just landed the InSight spacecraft on Mars. What is the role of visual strategy in these missions?

My work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab follows the path of creating experiences that hopefully make people more curious about the world, about nature, about science. I fell in love with the big ideas that people had at the lab and just wanted to be around those big ideas. Just the notion of doing things for the very first time in human history – like landing on other planets – makes you feel proud of being human. And it’s not about men or women or nationalities – it’s about our species being able to do these things now. I realised I could help to create experiences to make the scientific questions and the technology being used more human, more intuitive and more understandable; to get people to like science and technology a little bit more, so that we can do more. The other part of our work is helping people who create new space missions to express their ideas so that the process becomes clearer and the story of the missions is plausible.

Why are missions important?

Why do we need to land on Mars?

The engineers involved say on one level it’s almost performance art – we can do this now, the “proud to be human” moment. When a mission succeeds it lifts all of us up and it makes the problems that we have here on Earth feel a little bit more doable because we have just achieved something that’s seemingly impossible. So why can’t we fix something on Earth?

The other part of it is that we are in the process of expansion. In the foreseeable future we’ll have the capability to live off of Earth, to explore and find things, to bring them back to Earth.

That’s an endeavour that should be pursued to the extent possible, just to see what will happen.

Also, the technology that’s being invented for these missions is very applicable here on Earth.

It is a human endeavour for the process of

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Photos by Egert Kamenik

David Delgado − inspiring to explore

exploration, that is not restricted to big wealthy countries with huge budgets to spare. Actually, all countries can participate in it, like the Estonian EstCube. From a humanitarian position – we are all in this pursuit together.

It seems there is a contradiction between the need of human curiosity to drive exploration on one hand and the speed of that technology is racing ahead of humanity already. How to keep the curiosity while being overwhelmed by information?

Now we have access to information in a way we never had before. In some ways, it’s made us more curious, and in some ways, it’s made us lazier. It deconstructs the dream, the mystique of trying to understand. There’s an assumption that things are known already and you don’t have that pull, that call of the imagination to want to learn more. We are trying to bring that in and enhance the human drive to learn more and specifically trying to orient that towards science. Science is not just for scientists, we are all participating in this general quest of curiosity. There are all these things out there that are waiting to be discovered and we need to focus on that next step of exploration.

How can we make people more curious?

By giving them experiences that make them wonder. Creating experiences that don’t give you answers but questions. Experiences that are enticing, wrap you up in beauty, call you in but don’t give you the answers. The experiences we create with visual strategy are ‘sneaking up’ on learning. We want people to want to know more.

The stories that we tell ourselves are really important. Stories create a vision of a future and if repeated over and over this is more likely to happen. Therefore, we want to tell stories of the future that provide a sense of hope for humanity.

Photos by Edmond Mäll

TalTech student satellite will start its mission in summer 2019

By René Arvola Lecturer, TalTech School of Business and Governance, Supervisor and Marketing Manager for Mektory Space Programme

Estonia joined the countries that have invested in space technology five years ago. Back in 2013, the first Estonian nanosatellite, ESTCube was launched by the University of Tartu with Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) as a partner. Fast forward one year. In 2014, TalTech took the initiative to create its own student satellite, which also marked the start of the biggest interdisciplinary study project in Estonia.

Rector Jaak Aaviksoo, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) and Marco Mariani, CEO of SAB Aerospace, signed a cooperation agreement for integrating the TalTech nano-satellite to a space shuttle and sending it to the orbit

Today, we are proud to say that the nanosatellite, which was to be completed this year for the 100th anniversary of TalTech is ready. In the coming summer, it will start its mission: Earth observation. Over 200 students have been working hand in hand with their supervisors over the last four years to launch the most advanced space-craft created in Estonia. While many enthusiastic members of the TalTech Space Programme graduated before they could see the result of the five-year project, new students have joined in. Currently there are 50 students from different institutes involved with the project, covering various space-related study and research areas from space law to engineering and data communication.

The TalTech nanosatellite measures 10 cm on each side and its main focus is Earth observation. In addition, several important scientific tests have been planned that haven’t yet brought successful results for similarly sized space-crafts. The TalTech nanosatellite will use two cameras to capture images and video footage of the Earth’s surface. RGB and NIR cameras evaluate the environmental situation using both visible and invisible light.

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Photos by Edmond Mäll

The student satellite will communicate with its Ground Station, which will be built in the TalTech Campus in Tallinn. The most visible part of the station will be a 5-metre dish antenna on the roof of TalTech Mektory Innovation and Business Centre. This will be used to receive rapid X-band 10.5 GHz data drom the satellite during the minutes it passes over Estonia. It will be the first time ever that X-band is used in such a small space-craft. Additionally, the satellite will use traditional UHF to communicate with Ground Station.

The second important test is planned with optical communication and it will involve LED and laser diodes. While passing over Estonia, the satellite will turn itself towards the Ground Station at TalTech campus so that the sensors on the telescope can receive light signals.

Space is an incredibly difficult and hostile environment for common electronics as the radiation from the sun causes random bit changes in the processors and in the memory of the satellite. This further underlines the importance of testing fault tolerance, which the TalTech Space Programme team is aiming to accomplish. During the tests, the computer aims to detect and repair the random bit changes.

In addition, the satellite team also plans to experiment with photo and video editing, which will be a worldwide innovation should it be successful.

The most important technologies integrated into the TalTech Student Satellite: Radio communication on 435 MHz amateur frequency

Monitoring of satellite functions, uploading new commands and software

10.5 GHz x-band frequency communication

Downloading Earth Observation data – photos and live video stream

ADCS – attitude control system

Stops satellite’s preliminary random tumbling and directs the cameras towards the Earth

Main processor 2400 MIPS / 1800 MFLOPS

Fast DSP processor on the board of nanosatellite to analyse photos and select download priority

Secondary processor

A second processor that is able to replace main processor in case the latter stops working

FPGA processor

A processor with re-programmable hardware for fault-tolerance experiment and video compression

RGB and NIR cameras

RGB and near infrared cameras that will allow estimation of vegetation health.

Electric power system with solar panels

All satellite sides and wings are covered with solar panels of 29% efficiency to charge Li-ion batteries.

This allows the satellite to use communication while imaging the Earth or flying over Estonia at night.

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The TalTech Student satellite will be handed over to SAB Aerospace in March 2019. The company will integrate the system in its Vega rocket, which will launch from the European Space Port in French Guiana in summer 2019. The satellite will have a polar orbit – it will fly over the poles to allow observation of Earth from every angle.

The Space Programme has given TalTech students a variety of extracurricular knowledge and experience in the most important area of the space industry: Earth observation. The data received from the nanosatellite can be used by organisations in a variety of industries.

For example, such information is needed for environmental protection and prevention of natural disasters.

Rauno Gordon - Manager, TalTech Mektory Space Programme

sTARTUp Day is the biggest business festival in the Baltic region. Estonia’s most innovative festival brings together 100 world-class speakers and 4000 attendees. The festival will continue with the slogan “From Zero to Hero”, the goal of which is to inspire early stage startups on their “From Zero to Hero” journey.

Estonia is a country of innovation – e-Residency, unicorns like Taxify and TransferWise, the home of Skype – these are just a few projects that have put Estonia on the world map.

Estonia and especially Tartu are considered to be a mini version of Silicon Valley. ‘Tartu is a good place for business. It’s a great environment for starting and already operating companies because it’s much quieter than what’s happening inside the entrepreneur’s head,’ Martin Vares, CEO of the on-demand manufacturing platform Fractory.co tells us.

Tinder’s former Head of European communications and brand consultant Hermione Way also has good thoughts about Estonia: ‘It’s very impressive that a small country has had such a big influence in the technology industry.’

The key to this kind of success is communitybased cooperation – the business festival sTARTUp Day is organised in cooperation with the whole City of Tartu, including the University of Tartu, local companies and the startup community. The festival brings together startups, traditional entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, and students.

sTARTUp Day is the springboard of heroes and unicorns. The festival’s slogan “From Zero to Hero” refers to the goal to especially inspire early stage startups with a diverse program of keynotes and discussions, practical hands-on seminars with professionals, pitching competitions, and a large demo area for companies to showcase their products and innovations.

Topics vary from Startup and Corporate collaboration, Smart City, and Growth Hacking to Space technologies, Biotechnology, and Fashion. It’s a very unique combination because the program is born in collaboration with very different organisations.

The program includes over 100 world-class speakers, among them:

sTARTUp Day 2019 “From Zero to Hero” 23 - 25 January 2019 in Tartu

Hermione Way, brand consultant and Tinder’s former Head of European communications David Helgason, the founder & partner of Unity Technologies, which is the world’s most widely used real-time 3D development platform. Together with the Finnish mobile game developer (best known for Angry Birds) Peter Vesterbacka, they will have a fireside chat about angel investing.

And, of course, founders of Estonia’s top startups such as Kristel Kruustük (Testlio), Kaarel Kotkas (Veriff), Oliver Leisalu (Taxify), Alari Aho (Toggl) and many more.

See www.startupday.ee for more.

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Photo by Martin Kaljuorg

Fractory.co the digital industrial revolution from Tartu

By Saskia JĂľers and Andreas Velling

Martin Vares

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Martin Vares, the CEO and co-founder of Fractory.co, is a mechanical engineer by trade.

In 2011, he went on to study mechanical engineering at Tallinn University of Technology.

He started working in the industry after his second year of studies and worked for a few different companies where his main task was to develop products. This experience led him towards a problem we are solving today.

What is Fractory.co?

Fractory.co is an on-demand platform for engineers looking to manufacture their products. Customers can upload their sheet metal product drawings, get instant price quotations and lead times to order production. We have partnered with a number of manufacturers all over the Baltics and Nordic countries, so we know where to get the shortest lead times, best quality and suitable price.

How did your previous job experience lead you toward this?

One of my duties was also setting up manufacturing whenever we did not have the required machinery for the job. So I had to outsource it. This task was mind-numbing. It was long, involving back and forth e-mails and phone calls. All because I did not have the information about the manufacturers` availability and capabilities. The tube connecting companies was missing. So, I sat down with my co-founders Joosep and Rein and we discussed this problem. We decided to make a marketplace that connects the designers with the manufacturers to reduce the amount of wasted time. Now Fractory.co holds all the information about the manufacturers and we can do the outsourcing ourselves. Customers can see the value we add – they can get an order confirmed in less than a minute.

How many people have seen the value so far?

The number of unique clients is around 400.

We have had orders from all over the world – Australia, the US, the UK etc. We have firmly established ourselves in the Baltics and Nordic regions. Now we are setting our sights towards markets farther away – the UK and Germany. We want orders from those countries to make up at least 50% of all orders in 6 months-time. After that, we are going for the world.

Why is your office in Tartu, not Tallinn?

To be fair, it is mostly because the founding team is from Tartu. You could say it is easier to focus on real work here. Tartu is also a very efficient city to live in, it has everything in a tiny footprint.

What about finding new employees?

Are they willing to come and work in a small city?

We have put together an awesome team of 9 people. Half of them are engineers with manufacturing backgrounds and they really felt the problem. They didn’t need much convincing. Every one of them believes in what we do and really wants to be part of the impact. So that has been enough to convince them to move from the capital. In all honesty, I would say our location can also act as a filter.

We can find people who actually understand what we are trying to achieve. There are no superficial incentives to work here. We have a Brazilian working for us as well. He loved the idea from the first look and it did not really matter that he would have to come to cold and small Tartu.

Any words of advice for future entrepreneurs?

Do not be afraid of failing. We have failed with so many things, it is hard to keep count.

In the end, it does not matter, if you keep going and surround yourself with bright people.

You just have to learn from these mistakes. In the beginning, we were close to bankruptcy a few times. Things like that must not lower your head but turn it a little, to see a new angle. We always managed to find a way out.

This, of course, comes down to the team.

Our people are not focused on the monetary side in startups. We are oriented towards offering a good service. Everything else will just follow.

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David Helgason is a Danish entrepreneur and angel investor. He is best known as a founder of Unity, the world’s most widely used real-time 3D development platform. His background is in programming, creating companies, and helping entrepreneurs. He served as CEO of Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003 until October 2014, with an unflinching vision to democratise game development, and to develop technology and business models for the next phase of the games industry.

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Photo by Unity Technologies

David Helgason: Games are one of the primary forms of entertainment next to music and films

You already began advancing the gaming industry in 2004.

Why did you deem it best to build a game engine, rather than games themselves? Was that decision unanimous or were there long discussions, whether that would be the right path?

Honestly, back in the beginning of the 2000s we just wanted to build a game company. We didn’t know much about the games industry. Joachim Ante, Nicholas Francis and I – we were just three programmers who got together to work on an engine so that we could make our own games. We had too many ideas for games, so the engine had to be quite flexible.

We didn’t really have money to pay artists to work with us, so it had to be really user-friendly so they wouldn’t get frustrated and wander off to do more gainful work. The summer of 2004 is when we, after long discussions and much soul searching, decided to productise the engine – which by then was called Unity – and launch as a software company.

How were the early days of building a new kind of platform?

Was it easy to find supporters of shaking up the gaming industry?

How did the first reactions affect your developing process?

We pretty quickly decided that if we were going to work on such a big project as a game engine is, it had to mean something. We decided our mission would be to democratise game development, to make Unity as great as it could be and get it used by as many people as possible. To make game development easier, cheaper and more enjoyable, as well as bring into the game industry people who wouldn’t otherwise have a chance there.

Then we had to work on this for years without proper income to make it all work. Honestly, it was touch-and-go for several years and we got into a ton of debt, but it was worth it!

Your vision in Unity has been to democratise game development.

Has the impact been what you and Unity hoped for? Could you roughly estimate, how many games have been created with Unity?

No one honestly knows this. How would you define a “game” anyway?

My 11-year old niece made a game during a summer school Unity course. If you count games like that it has to be in the millions. If you only count actually released games, it’ll be in the tens of thousands! It feels crazy to say that but it’s true.

We see hundreds of crowdfunded games coming up every year. Are project-based games the future of gaming? Do you see crowdfunding as a powerful tool for a newcomer in gaming?

Crowdfunding is a great tool for the toolbox of the game entrepreneur. I honestly think this tool hasn’t quite become as successful as we hoped it

would be when Kickstarter started to be a thing, and a ton of good projects don’t easily fund there. But still, when it works it’s a thing of beauty.

What’s your personal take on games and what role do they play in today’s world? Is there something, that for you, defines a great game?

Games have truly become one of the primary forms of entertainment, taking their place next to film and music. That means they are being used to tell a lot of different stories, express a lot of different feelings, and soon we’ll have two full generations brought up on games. One of the original insights we had, or rather specifically my co-founder Nicholas Francis had it, was that as kids grow up, they want to express themselves in the media they consume as children. That’s created a whole generation of game creators who are incredibly at home in this medium and doing beautiful and exciting and fun work. Having been part of powering this is the greatest honour of my life.

Myself, I barely have time to play games properly. I play a lot of games a little bit and watch gameplay videos, but my guilty pleasure is complex RTSs like the Total War series.

What advice would you give to people dreaming of building a game? Where should they start and what should they figure out before even starting?

All the art and media are about telling stories, expressing ideas, and showing people the world in a different light. The games that have the greatest success, have a clarity of purpose, and they quickly tell the player what they’re about and why the player should play them.

I don’t think there’s one or even a couple of ways to get there. You need to learn your craft, to become excellent at something. This could be art, design, programming, or rather, one of several types of programming, audio, animation. Then you have to find great people to work with and make a lot of games. Don’t worry about the first or second being perfect. Just work hard and learn, learn, learn…

You are having a fireside chat with Peter Vesterbacka in Tartu at business festival sTARTUp Day in January to offer insight to the future of the gaming industry. What are you most excited about? What’s next for you?

The games industry is growing and growing in so many directions. And more and more, our methods and technologies and engines get used in all kinds of other products and sectors. Our design sensibilities and programming chops and business model innovation are all highly transferable, and the games industry is a net exporter of excellence. Oh, and I love Peter so I’m really looking forward to the conversation.

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Photo by Atko Januson

Maarja Kruusmaa – transforming nature’s design into high tech

By Maris Hellrand

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Maarja Kruusmaa Born 1970 2002 PhD from Chalmers University of Technology (Gothenburg, Sweden) Member of Estonian Academy of Sciences Research Vice-Dean of the School of Information Technology at TalTech Professor, founder and director of the Centre for Biorobotics at TalTech Visiting professor in Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology, Centre of Excellence in Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems Head of EXCITE – Estonian Centre of Excellence in ICT Research

‘Biorobotics is a cocktail of computer science, automation, signal-analysis, machine learning and physics’ Maarja Kruusmaa (48) founded the Centre of Biorobotics at the Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) in 2008. In 10 years, the centre has become one of the best known and most acknowledged research centres in Estonia and worldwide.

The unique niche of Kruusmaa’s research are robots inspired by fish and marine mammals. The cute robotic fish and a turtle lookalike robot U-CAT developed at the centre, which currently employs 16 scientists and engineers from 10 countries, are literally making waves. Kruusmaa, with a PhD from Chalmers University in Sweden, spends quite some time of her research life underwater, testing the robotic creatures in places from the fjords of Spitzbergen to the streams of Tokyo, often hands-on and wearing a diving suit herself.

‘Biorobotics is a cocktail of computer science, automation, signalanalysis, machine learning and physics. We look at nature as a huge patent database – evolution has developed solutions over a long time and it makes sense to study and copy these designs in robotics. Robots work in the same physical environment that animals inhabit, so if the design of animals for certain environments has been optimised, it’s reasonable to search for better solutions for robots following the same patterns. The specific challenge with underwater technology is to build things that work in water – to make electronics fault tolerant in this environment takes specific knowledge,’ says Kruusmaa.

The usual underwater technology has been propeller-driven, be it for autonomous or non-autonomous vehicles. This is where Kruusmaa’s approach makes all the difference – instead of noisy and disruptive propellers, her robots move like nature’s own creations. The U-CAT robot which is a turtle-like underwater autonomous vehicle, moves with gentle fin strokes just like a real turtle, the sensors use the technology inspired by the lateral line sensors of fish.

In her search for fields of practical use for the knowledge and skills of the biorobotics centre, Kruusmaa has talked to all kinds of people who use underwater technology: ‘A harbour master, biologist, fisher, archaeologist, oil- and gas specialist and shipbuilder all have completely different views of what kind of machines they need and how to use our technology.’

The sensors that have been developed, inspired by fish, are now in action in the port of Sillamäe. Kruusmaa explains the benefit: ‘When the pilot guides a vessel into the harbour, he gets lots of information from the port’s weather station, like wind direction and strength, so that he can decide how to direct the vessel to the pier. However, he has no information about currents, which can be strong and unpredictable. The currents in Sillamäe depend on the Narva power station – if the floodgates are open, the amount of water entering the Baltic Sea increases dramatically and ends up whirling in the port’s aquatorium. Nobody knows when the floodgates are opened, so a pilot has no way of taking this into account. We have installed many sensors along the quayside, so now the pilot gets data about wind and water currents and can take all this into account while driving the vessel to the pier. According to worldwide statistics, most marine accidents happen inside the port or upon entry – in terms of marine safety, this is the most dangerous manoeuvre. This is an excellent example for a fish-inspired technology to benefit safety.’

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The U-CAT turtle has had a number of global adventures from exploring sunken cities in the Mediterranean Sea to mingling with salmon in the Atlantic.

‘In spring 2018 we tested the U-CAT robot in a fish farm off the Norwegian coast. We wanted to observe the situation and behaviour of fish in the sea-cages – the huge nets that contain hundreds of thousands of fish. So far it is very difficult to know how the fish are actually doing inside these cages. Our robot is able to go inside the cage to observe the fish while minimizing interference. We wanted to find out if the fish are stressed out, if there are parasites, if the fish are fighting – salmon is a species with strong social hierarchies – there is one dominant fish and others who might not get enough food due to their social position.

A diver can’t research these issues – the entry of a diver disturbs the fish to such an extent that they are panicking from the observation itself.

Our idea was to create a robot that the fish would accept. While most researchers in robotics work on interactions of robots and humans, we have focused on robots and fish.’

The robot has been exploring an underwater building in the Rummu Quarry near Tallinn. After taking a dive, it explored the building inside out, took photos and videos and, based on these, the scientists created a 3D model of the building. ‘The idea is to use the robot in research of underwater objects like shipwrecks instead of a person. It can record a video, return it and this can be used to create a 3D model without the need to enter the wreck. The U-CAT is different from many other underwater autonomous vehicles as it moves with fins instead of propellers.

Fins are less invasive, create less noise and turbulence in the water. This is especially useful on the seabed with loose sediment where propellers are of no use – as soon as you switch the propellers on there is no more visibility for the camera.’

The small paddling turtle has to be rather smart to complete all the tasks underwater. ‘Guiding the robots underwater is almost impossible as high frequency signals don’t transmit, so there is no way to transfer lots of information. A video signal doesn’t pass water either, this would only work with a cable but that restricts the movement significantly.

Therefore, the robot must manage by itself – be autonomous and rather intelligent. It has to be able to process information and make decisions, plan its actions, understand when there is a problem and be able to return to base if needed. So far, our prototype has always returned from a mission.’

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‘The last decade has brought about a trend that robots move from the industrial sphere into the daily human environment’ How about developing the inventions into commercial products? There seem to be many areas of potential use.

‘We consider the robot a concept vehicle, it’s an open platform for everyone who wants to use the ideas that we have developed. Publicly funded science is here for everyone to use and pick out the achievements that can be developed into products. In the case of the sensors, commercial use seems more likely as we have already seen many practical use cases for those – one being the ports, another area of practical benefit are the fish farms. It would be very useful to find out how water is actually flowing through the sea-cages as this determines how much oxygen gets in if the flow of water flushes the parasites and dirt out – all these things have an immediate effect on the wellbeing of fish and as a result on the yield of the farm. It’s in the farmers’ interest that the fish are happy and therefore they are eager to invest in this kind of innovation and technology.’

In a fish farm off the Norwegian coast

While it seems that salmon are getting along with the turtle-robot well enough, what about the wider impact of robots on society?

‘The last decade has brought about a trend that robots move from the industrial sphere into the daily human environment. Ten years ago, only engineers in the car industry had daily interactions with robots, today even some grandmas have a robot vacuum cleaner at home. This sets completely new requirements for the user-friendliness of robots.

To handle AI, people have to agree on what is right and wrong, what is allowed and legal. Technology is developing at a pace that we might lag behind with shaping the regulations and norms needed i.e. there’s a legal lag. Tech is way ahead before we can even make sense of the meaning and impact of these changes. The main point with each technology is that it should not harm people. There is no need for special norms for robots – all safety rules that apply for cars or dishwashers should also apply for robots.

As a society, we are not able to adjust to very fast changes. The changes have to be managed wisely and carefully. In Estonia, we have already had a big adjustment with the e-government but I can’t recall anybody complaining that this was somehow difficult. My mom who is almost 80 years old uses e-voting because she can’t be bothered to walk to the polling station.’

‘Publicly funded science is here for everyone to use and pick out the achievements that can be developed into products’

But why are robots causing fears and questions unlike other technology before?

‘In the case of robots there is a lot of scaremongering – the robots will take away jobs, we will have to have sex with robots, we will lose our social competence when only interacting with machines, they are dangerous because we might lose control over them and what not. We have to consider all aspects. In the case of self-driving cars for example the first question is always “whose fault is it when something happens”. But actually, the technology will ensure that the overall number of accidents will decrease considerably, so to ask “whose fault” can’t be the main question. The main question is how to make sure that fewer people get hurt or killed. 95% of traffic accidents are caused by human errors.

When someone gets killed in a car accident on Tallinn-Tartu highway nobody suggests banning cars. It’s a question of fault tolerance more widely. In an average family car today, we already have 100 million lines of code. It’s such a complex system and all complex systems have faults.

The question of fault tolerance is so much wider than AI, it applies to all technical systems that are becoming more complex all the time.

We need to rethink how we build things on a wider scale. We need to design fault-proof systems. Engineers usually think along a path such as “let’s build something first and then start testing for faults”, at least this applies for software engineers. This would be quite unimaginable in old engineering disciplines like civil engineering – imagine a house being built and only then checked for faults to make sure it doesn’t fall apart.

A simple example – every now and again we receive notifications about software updates to fix bugs. Would you imagine living in a house where the builder shows up regularly to fix a screw or bits of insulation?’

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‘I don’t dream about technology. I don’t go home and think that I should invent a fancy gadget. The dream is rather to see that the technology we develop has a positive impact, that it helps solve real problems. Or that it has an impact in science – that we have found out about something new that nobody knew before.’

TalTech – a hub for cross-sector science

Conducting field tests in Svalbard

‘There is no need for special norms for robots – all safety rules that apply for cars or dishwashers should also apply for robots’

EXCITE Fault tolerance as an approach is one of the aims of EXCITE, the Centre of Excellence of Estonian ICT headed by Kruusmaa that brings together top researchers from TalTech, the University of Tartu and AS Cybernetica. She is visibly excited about the task of overcoming the splits and silos in ICT research so that the whole community can be connected and involved: ‘We focus on fault tolerant and attack resilient systems. It’s crucial to bring people together as, even within the IT world, the specialisation is quite narrow. Someone specialised in cryptography might not see an overlap with a specialist in microelectronics at first sight. Bringing the community together is an important ingredient for fostering innovation and better science. We have introduced financial motivation to bring people from different areas together.’

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In her role as Vice-Dean for Research at TalTech’s School of Information Technology, Kruusmaa is implementing the cooperation mindset of her own lab on a faculty-wide scale: ‘We really push for many forms of cooperation within our own faculty to make sure that people don’t stay in their own corners, so that the knowledge can move into the next room, the next hallway, the next floor. One practical scheme to achieve this are the joint supervisors of PhD students. For example, I have a PhD student who is researching the port sensors and my co-supervisor is a researcher of fault tolerance. The idea is to combine the competences and add the knowledge about building fault secure systems, which is very important in this case as it is extremely expensive to repair things underwater.’

Kruusmaa considers state funding for research crucial: ‘Otherwise, innovation becomes incremental and gets to us only via other countries.

Innovation happens in the heads of people moving from the universities to industry. We can’t innovate by simply implementing research from other countries. This would be like trying to cook according to the recipes of top chefs – you can take the same ingredients but, you will not achieve the same result. There’s always unpublished implicit knowledge that cannot be applied by following the descriptions in research publications alone.’

Kruusmaa has been successful in bringing international grants to her centre and is participating in several EU research projects. She considers the European research programmes one of the best schemes to enhance international knowledge exchange. ‘Estonia has benefitted immensely as all these are based on cooperation and often include industry partners. Estonia has been very successful at participating in these programmes and the important thing here is that it’s not just money that comes into research but more importantly it’s also networks, connections and visibility. Sometimes also a different attitude. This is one of the best things we have gained from the European Union.’

Photo by Atko Januson

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Photo by Rene Riisalu

Cleveron gives people the gift of more time

By Toivo Tänavsuu

Estonia’s “Company of the Year 2018”, “Innovator of the Year 2018” and “Design Applier of the Year 2018”

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School friends Arno Kütt (48) and Peep Kuld (46) are implementing their mission of freeing up the valuable time of hundreds of millions of people all around the world at incredible speed. By the end of this year, these men from the small Estonian town of Viljandi will have saved the time of 130 million Americans. In autumn 2018, the automated parcel producer Cleveron opened its new factory extension in Viljandi.

Smart post box at home for 14 euros a month Cleveron’s product selection includes various parcel robots for companies but also one smart product for private consumers – the parcel terminal CleverPod for private households. It looks like a post box, only larger.

Couriers can deliver any parcels (including food) in the smart post box, which is used together with a mobile app. ‘You will no longer wait for parcels; the parcels will wait for you! Right at your doorstep,’ says the CleverPod advertisement.

The smart post box costs 14 euro per month and the first twenty CleverPods have already been installed.

‘We have changed Estonia in ten years, now we are ready to change the world!’

Cleveron develops and produces automated parcel terminals and parcel robots, selling them in various countries around the world, thereby shaping the future of logistics.

Estonians are well-acquainted with these machines: Estonia is the land of parcel terminals. Most of us prefer to send and receive parcels via self-operating smart terminals, which we can see all over our shopping centres. These terminals were first introduced only a decade ago by Cleveron’s predecessor SmartPOST. Before that, we used to go get our parcels at the post office.

‘In Estonia, automated parcel terminals are just as common as ATMs. There is more or less an equal number of both,’ says Arno Kütt, Head of Cleveron and its biggest shareholder. ‘However, globally there are maybe a couple hundred thousand parcel terminals in comparison to three million ATMs. We have changed Estonia in ten years, now we are ready to change the world!’

Cleveron started out with basic parcel terminals: the same “made in Estonia” lockers, which are in use today in over ten countries, including Finland but also Brazil.

Those terminals are now “yesterday” for Cleveron. Their current main product is the five-metre tower PackRobot, which accommodates up to 500 parcels and issues them to customers through a small “oven opening”. This has made the receipt of products ordered online very user-friendly.

Peep Kuld, co-founder and Business Development Manager of Cleveron, says that PackRobot is in mass production and it is “as reliable as a Kalashnikov”. Whereas today the factory in Viljandi produces about 4-5 PackRobots per day, this number should at least double within a year.

The first towers were installed in stores of the US retail giant Walmart in the beginning of last year. Americans are so busy picking up their online purchases that by the end of this year the “parcel Kalashnikov” will be installed in more than 700 Walmart stores all over the USA. Considering that the cost of one machine is nearly 50 000 US dollars, this amazing deal with Walmart brings tens of millions of dollars for Cleveron. But the vision for the next seven years is to sell 15 000 parcel robots in America.

In addition to Walmart, Cleveron has also signed a deal with the world’s largest retailer Zara. Cleveron’s next generation parcel terminals are being installed in the largest Zara stores all over Europe. Those are no longer towers, but cuboid-shaped parcel units that are installed in stores in a similar way to integrated dishwashers. Except that these robots are the size of a house, they deliver up to one thousand parcels a day and the computer knows to exactly which “floor” and “storage unit” the right parcel needs to be delivered.

Peep and Arno explain that Zara customers tend to order online and then come pick up their products in the store. Online sales have really grown and people tend to come pick up their parcels at the same time, during the evening rush hour, which jams up the checkouts. Parcel delivery through personnel is annoying, expensive and time-consuming.

In contrast, a parcel robot enables people to easily receive their parcels by themselves.

‘Our robot works and the owner of Zara says that everything is perfect, regardless of the fact that this product is partly still in development, that sometimes we need to cross cultural barriers with communication and also put out some so-called fires,’ says Peep.

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Photo by Kenno Soo

‘Cleveron’s goal is not just to sell as many automated parcel terminals as possible, but to change the world by giving people the gift of time’

Rene Tammist Minister of Enterprise- and Information Technology: ‘Cleveron is a company that signals to society what it is that we value in Estonian business. It is exactly the kind of company we want to see in our economy. Cleveron’s strengths are their product development and -design solutions, targeted work, productivity and innovation. In addition, Cleveron is based on Estonian capital, produces outside the capital and significantly contributes in its staff. To summarize, it can be said that Cleveron is in every aspect worthy of the title “Estonian Enterprise of the Year.’

Cleveron invested millions of euros and extended its production facility in Viljandi in order to fulfil the increasing orders. In the new year, this factory will produce 10 large parcel robots per day

Consumers have received the Estonian robots so well that customers in Spain, Italy and Great Britain no longer call it a parcel terminal, but a cleveron. For example, they say: you can get your parcel from the cleveron. Hence Cleveron is producing cleverons.

product? In our lack of time preparing for the trade fair the installers created holes in the base frame in the wrong spot. We later created the holes in the right spot, but the Chinese have patented the robot with the wrong holes!’

Cleveron’s new products are receiving much attention globally. For example, when Cleveron’s courier drone delivered a beverage bottle flying over the Viljandi Lake last summer, it was broadcast by the news agency Reuters. The story was seen by 40 million pairs of eyes. But also, journalists from Thailand and Singapore come to Viljandi. ‘Our activities are really in focus. Responsibility and expectations are growing,’ comments Arno.

One Chinese company once sought to collaborate with Cleveron.

The company representatives expressed interest to represent Estonian products in China and they came to visit the production facility in Viljandi. The negotiations went on for a while.

It is not just the media investigating Cleveron’s activities, but also industrial spies. Arno explains that, for example, the Chinese take a photograph from the Cleveron homepage and upload in onto Alibaba, as if they are selling the same product. Cleveron has in such cases contacted Alibaba, asking for such offers to be removed and Alibaba has done so.

But the Chinese are still a headache for the company.

‘Apparently the point of all these negotiations was to get as much information as possible from us. One of the men who came to Viljandi had three buttons on his suit jacket, the middle one larger than the others. I really wanted to go and pull on that button, but I didn’t do it. Fortunately, we had put our biggest secrets out of sight,’ says Arno.

Up to this day they get requests from Asia asking to buy just one parcel robot. But Cleveron always refuses, knowing that this robot would be taken to pieces and copied.

Two Chinese companies have copied the Cleveron parcel robot and not only taken it onto the market, but also patented it in China, hence blocking Cleveron’s entry to the Chinese market. One of the Chinese “clones” of Cleveron is trying to develop cooperation with the national post company and the other with Alibaba.

Peep and Arno say that design cannot be protected in China. According to Chinese legislation, a copier can only be prosecuted when they admit to having copied a product. It is for this reason that Cleveron didn’t apply for patents in China. It would have immediately provided designs for the “pirates”.

‘We displayed our robot at a trade fair in Paris,’ says Arno. ‘It is likely that it was photographed or filmed. The Chinese copied our robot and they have taken out about twenty patents. How did we realise this was our

‘We predicted the fact that there would be copies. But we really didn’t foresee that the Chinese would patent our product and therefore lock the Chinese market for us,’ says Arno.

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‘Consumers have received the Estonian robots so well that customers no longer call it a parcel terminal, but a cleveron’

Cleveron is in the middle of Chinese court- and patent proceedings, and Arno and Peep believe that those will have positive outcomes for the company.

They also learned their lesson in Russia. It is there that Cleveron used to have one of its first paying customers, who bought over a hundred parcel terminals. The collaboration ended with the Russians dismantling the machine and copying it.

Cleveron remains one step ahead of “copiers” by really focusing on product development and bringing out new perfected robots onto the market. ‘We release a machine today but we have already worked on it for years,’ explains Arno.

Work is also underway on really innovative future solutions. Cleveron is developing a drone that will be able to land just above the smart post box and drop a parcel in it. The company is also focusing on robot couriers – special additional equipment for self-driving cars enabling a robot to do the work of a courier.

For some time, Cleveron was orbited by the giant Amazon. But in the end the Viljandi men refused the deal. They could not come to an agreement with the Americans. Amazon wanted all parcel robots to carry the Amazon name instead of Cleveron, asking the Estonians to give up their intellectual property with no obligation to actually buy from Cleveron.

‘Those were quite ridiculous conditions. They did not suit us at all,’ explains Peep.

The rapid growth in orders creates big challenges for the company. A parcel robot consists of approximately 6000 details, all of which need to reach Viljandi from Cleveron’s partners at the right time and without compromising on quality in order for the machines to be assembled and transported to the other side of the world on time. ‘Running the production side is a huge challenge,’ says Arno.

In October, Cleveron opened an extended production facility in Viljandi, thus multiplying their production space. The office staff, who were previously working in close quarters in their rapidly growing company, now have broader and more comfortable offices.

Cleveron’s goal is not just to sell as many automated parcel terminals as possible, but to change the world by giving people the gift of time.

Arno and Peep calculate that if 130 million Americans use Cleveron parcel terminals by the end of this year, each one of them wins at least 15 minutes of extra time. In total then, Estonians have saved Americans 3700 years.

Peep and Arno wish to make Cleveron the most valuable company in Estonia, but say that this is not a goal in itself but rather a result of global success

*This article was first published in the special journal “Best Estonian Companies 2018”.

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Cleveron launches self-driving robot courier

By Maris Hellrand

‘It’s like a Japanese hotel,’ was the reaction of the show host on the stage of Robotex 2018 in Tallinn as Cleveron launched its new selfdriving robot courier. The autonomous cargo car is the latest invention of the Viljandi-based company that has installed nearly 1000 robotic parcel stations for Walmart in the US and is piloting small parcel terminals for private homes across Estonia.

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Kütt says that 80% of Estonians prefer parcel stations to pick up their deliveries today and more than 80% wish the stations to be located as close to home as possible: ‘So that’s what we do – we bring the parcel stations to peoples’ homes. A client can receive the parcel at home without waiting for the courier. The courier – be it a person or a robot – can deliver the parcel any time, preferably during night time with little traffic.’

The pilot of parcel terminals for private homes is currently underway in Estonia. In the meantime, Cleveron has come up with the next phase and developed an autonomous vehicle that can deliver the parcels without any human interaction. Kütt says the original idea was to develop just the robotic arm that can actually lift and place the parcel in the terminal. Cleveron was looking for a self-driving electric car that would be able to carry more than its own weight. As this does not exist on the market, the engineers of Cleveron just developed the whole concept.

Cleveron hopes to start test-driving the robot couriers in Estonia by 2020. Interestingly, while one common topic in the discussion of self-driving cars is the ethical decision that the car might have to take when two peoples’ lives are at risk, this issue doesn’t arise with self-driving robot couriers – it’s always going to ditch the parcels rather than endanger a person. So, we might see the delivery robots on our streets much earlier than driverless cars for people.

Another issue that arises with driverless couriers is city planning – how to organise roads and pedestrian areas so that the robots can actually access the parcel terminals at the buildings?

Kütt: ‘We don’t know how all this will develop. But clearly there are new trends in urban development that will take the new technology into account. We are just testing to see where we get with it. But one thing is certain – these things will happen.’

Cleveron has been a step ahead for ten years. Now Kütt sees clearly, that time is the only non-renewable resource and wasting it is evil: ‘If technology helps us to save peoples’ time, then this is what we do. We have nearly 1000 robots – pick-up towers in Walmarts, each fitting 300 parcels. Before that the average pickup time for groceries was 17 minutes, now it takes just a few moments. If we add up all the time saved across the 1000 robots, then it reaches 10 years within just one day. That’s the benefit, that’s our product. We actually sell time, not robots.’

‘It’s a fantastic time right now when we have a chance to create the future and we are using this opportunity. We see problems, develop solutions and make them happen’ Photos by Egert Kamenik

Based on a very practical personal experience, Cleveron CEO Arno Kütt explains the idea: ‘I ordered groceries online and was very happy about saving 40 minutes of time. However, I really wanted to receive the groceries exactly at 5:15 pm after work but realised that the 2-hour delivery windows offered by the courier just didn’t work for me. If too early, I couldn’t be home to receive them, if too late, I’d be starving and angry already. There has to be a better, more flexible solution. With the individual parcel terminal, the delivery can be there just in time for me. It can arrive 1 minute or 2 hours before the requested time. This is the solution we’ve been working on.’ The biggest gain is to be expected from the combination of the home parcel terminal and the robotic courier. The client doesn’t actually need to care who will deliver the parcel or when.

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Thermory takes the traditional timber industry to a new level

By Ann-Marii Nergi

The merger of two Estonian companies, which had been competitors for over twenty years, has created the world’s largest specialist manufacturer of thermally modified hardwood and sauna products: Thermory AS.

Thermory’s ash floors at Noa Restaurant Chef’s Hall

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Photos by Thermory

Thermory's thermally modified ash decking in Malaysia

Thermory is not a traditional wood manufacturer. The company, which won the “Exporter of the Year” award this year at the Estonian Entrepreneurship Award competition, sells thermally modified architectural wood products. Their portfolio of wood types includes mainly white ash, Nordic pine, radiata pine (clear pine) and spruce – all thermally modified – plus some species traditionally used in sauna building like aspen, alder and magnolia. Most importantly, the company’s products are free from chemicals and are environmentally friendly. The company admits that due to its 20 years of targeted activity in foreign markets, it is relatively unknown in Estonia. This is why recognition from Estonia is especially valuable.

Thermory has simple reasons for its broad export activity: weather and seasonality. As the company mainly specialises in exterior products, it needs to take seasonality into account and make sure that the target markets balance each other out. If they were only focused on Northern Europe, the seasonal factor would significantly influence sales and profits. But when the terrace season in this region is over, it is just beginning in Australia and Asia, for example. Hence Thermory’s biggest markets are Finland, the United States and Germany. The furthest target countries are New Zealand, Japan, Chile and the Republic of South Africa.

Katrin Reinaste-Parve In the background thermally modified ash wall paneling

Thermory’s CCO Exteriors, Katrin Reinaste-Parve, says that as a wood modifier and exporter, the company needs to keep its focus on product sales as well as purchasing and processing raw material: ‘When it comes to raw material, then its price, suitability for the company’s products and quality are very important. Secondly, we are focused on increasing production efficiency. During the last couple of years, we have mapped the organisation and efficiency of several production lines and implemented necessary changes to increase efficiency. In order to keep the business profitable, we have to keep our hand on the pulse of various business functions simultaneously. Success and profitability are outcomes of focusing on customers and employees, not just business objectives. We have a great team, who are the biggest fans of our products and eager to offer our valued customers the best experience possible. It´s thanks to our team that we have managed to maintain and grow our reach globally.’

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Thermory produces and sells ready-made saunas under a brand Auroom. Auroom collection includes eight ready designed saunas to choose from. For the most demanding clients Auroom offers tailor-made options. Auroom saunas are made of the finest wood available. Thermal modification of wood raises the quality even higher and offers great visual effects: the charming brownish color can be lighter or darker depending on the wood type and hearting procedure. Auroom combines the centennial sauna tradition with the best design to give people the wealthiest sauna experience ever.

Tailor-made sauna by Auroom

Ceiling elements made of thermally modified pine at the Western Harbour terminal in Helsinki, Finland

Albeit Thermory’s name is relatively unknown in Estonia, many of us have seen their products here too. Thermory’s ash floors can be seen at Estonian top restaurants Noa and Noya, and the two eye-catching ceiling elements of the Western Harbour terminal in Helsinki have been made of thermally modified pine.

This autumn saw the completion of the merger between Thermory and another large Estonian thermal wood producer Ha Serv OÜ. The latter was mainly focused on producing sauna materials and custom-made saunas under the brand name Auroom. After the merger, Thermory has become the world’s largest thermally modified wood and sauna material producer with production units based in the Harju and Tartu counties in Estonia as well as in Teuva in western Finland. In addition, the company owns sawmills in Estonia, Belarus and in their subsidiary in the United States. Thermory employs over 500 people.

‘One important goal for the next few years is to achieve a synergy effect between the two merged companies. The total turnover of the new company reaches 70 million euros and the joint goals are to grow much further,’ confirms Reinaste-Parve.

Reinaste-Parve says that the company has set its targets high: above 10 percent growth per year. ‘In order to achieve that, we need to be actively focused on understanding and fulfilling customer requirements, product development and innovative solutions. In a constantly changing environment one needs to think and act faster than others, even in the traditional timber business. We also direct more resources into brand development. We are consciously emphasising the quality of our products and not the low prices. The strong brand awareness in our field creates additional sales opportunities and helps us to stand out from competitors.’

Meelis Kajandu, the founder and visionary of Thermory, and Kaido Veske, the largest shareholder of the merged company Ha Serv OÜ and representative of the Baltic Investment Fund, Livonia Partners, have seen the logic to merge for years already. The two equally successful companies which used to compete intensely for customers and suppliers now work toward the same goal. ‘Together we are able to think much bigger and to develop various business directions. It’s a win-win situation. 1+1 does not equal 2, but much more in our case,’ adds Meelis Kajandu.

Auroom ”Natura” sauna from the ready-designed collection. A perfect place to wholeheartedly enjoy the healing sauna, surrounded by luxurious ambiance

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Photos by Thermory

What is thermal modification?

Thermal modification is the innovative and eco-friendly technology of treating timber at high temperature.

The process is entirely chemical free, only heat and steam are used, which toughens the timber to achieve outstanding dimensional stability, ensures low moisture content, makes timber very durable and develops dark, luxurious colour. Ash for example has the same durability as teak or ipe, but it is much more stable than any of the tropical woods, it is easier to work with and install, and it has none of the red flags that come with using tropical woods from the disappearing rain forest.

The company admits that the market shows an increase in all kinds of producers of plastic- and composite products, but fortunately people’s awareness of the harmful effect of plastics is growing. ‘This is already demonstrated by EU regulations on banning plastic dishes, plastic bags and so on. This might look like small steps, but they are pivotal steps towards creating a healthy living environment,’ says Katrin Reinaste-Parve. At the same time, competitors of thermal wood products include coated wood products and products made of tropical wood. ‘We do not use tropical wood from rainforests. We work in the name of a healthy environment and that begins with the purchase of raw materials and applies to sales and installation as well. The thermal wood “recipe” we use has been developed by our own thermal specialists and it is unique to Thermory. Thermory’s technology has proved itself during our 21 years of activity in varying climatic conditions all around the world.’

Meelis Kajandu, the founder of the company also recalls that when Thermory (then called Brenstol OÜ) started to use thermal technology in 2001, the general public awareness of environmental issues was quite low. Kajandu saw the huge potential of the product.

Modern thermal wood technology was developed by Finns in the 1990s, making it quite a new and exciting technology back then. In the years that followed we have also contributed to the development of this technology on the basis of our own experience, by providing feedback and collaborating with leading producers in the field of thermal wood technology.

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Stora Enso brings its finances to Tallinn

By Ann-Marii Nergi

In Stora Enso’s finance centre people and robots work side by side This year Enterprise Estonia announced its support for the development of Stora Enso’s Tallinn Service Centre to the tune of 200 000 euros. Stora Enso is the leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions and paper on global markets. Worldwide the company employs some 26 000 people and is publicly listed in Helsinki and Stockholm. But for the jobs requiring the most precision, the company comes to Tallinn. Why is that?

Keyword: robots

‘The decision by the Stora Enso Group to establish its main and central Financial Services Centre in Tallinn is high praise for our development potential and the local economic environment,’ says Martin Leiger, Head of the Stora Enso Tallinn Service Centre. In addition to jobs linked directly to financial calculation, other posts in new areas are also being created in Tallinn.

‘We have also created a framework of processes and systematic routines which we call iWoW in-house, which stands for Improved Ways of Working. This is a framework that covers the entire service centre and provides a common roadmap to our processes and enables us to significantly improve management and communication through clearly structured activities.’

'When the decision was made to create our financial service hub in Estonia, we realised that it would offer us the valuable opportunity to evaluate our activities and efficiency to date, possibly finding areas for improvement in our processes, organisation and cooperation.

In addition to the more traditional shared finance- and accounting services, the Tallinn centre will include the continuous development, improvement and automation of processes, including the application of robotics, which will give people the opportunity to focus their energy on more value adding analytical and creative tasks. We are very pleased that Enterprise Estonia is actively supporting our efforts to promote Estonia as a service centre country in a really competitive global environment,’ says Leiger.

Leiger claims that the Tallinn office of Stora Enso has significantly raised its ability to manage the huge volume of data they administer – both in making management decisions and in offering added value to business units. ‘We are currently mapping the different data volumes we use and creating the framework to administer them. Hence it is development work in progress and we will hopefully reach our first goalposts and innovation achievements next year.’

A longer-term goal is to bring the work done in all the different finance service centres to Tallinn. This includes the sub-contracting service.

Leiger claims that the main innovation in the new centre will be its hybrid character – both people and software robots will work here side by side, covering work areas that suit one or the other better.

It is because of the robots that the jobs will not just be transferred to Tallinn one-to-one. Currently, 50 posts have been created in Tallinn.

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‘This is a significant example of our innovation capacity and the level of automation. Our new colleagues have taken study trips to other service centres with the aim to bring the “know-how” from those service centres to the organisation in Tallinn,’ says Leiger, thankful to the people who carried out this somewhat stressful task.

Stora Enso is a good example of a traditional sector like forestry, wood or the paper industry, where, like others, they are actively looking for and applying solutions creating higher added value. This is demonstrated by the fact that just a decade ago the next engine of the forestry and wood industry was considered to be bioenergetics, and today the main innovation in the sector is linked to biochemistry and totally new materials.

‘We definitely wish to be a pioneer in this field in the world. New products such as lignin open the door of the forest industry to a totally new field – that of biopolymers. The opportunities are really limitless and they also serve one of Stora Enso’s main promises to its customers – we believe that everything that is produced today using fossil fuels will be produced using renewable sources in the future. This is what we are working towards every day.’

Support from Enterprise Estonia helped to decide on location

Photo by Atko Januson

Although Martin Leiger says that Stora Enso would probably have implemented the project even without the support from Enterprise Estonia, it is thanks to the latter that they are now able to concentrate on development and automation and on creating more jobs, creating added value. Such posts have been traditionally located in the offices in Finland and Sweden.

‘The support allocated to us was an important signpost for us as well as Estonia on the whole. On one hand, it gives Stora Enso the security that we are operating in a secure economic environment that is open to foreign investment. On the other hand, this decision is a small working triumph for the organisation in Estonia because in these kinds of decisions there are more candidates than just one when it comes to deciding upon a location. We are of course very happy with that decision.’

Enterprise Estonia’s development centre support is aimed toward companies that operate in at least two countries and are part of a group with a revenue of at least 100 million euros over the past few years. As a result of the project, at least 20 new full-time jobs must be created, the average salary of which must be equal to at least one and a half times the Estonian average county-based salary according to the location of the centre to be established. The aim is to bring support and development centres with greater value added to Estonia. Enterprise Estonia has previously supported the development of ABB’s regional business service centre in Tallinn and the expansion of Arvato Financial Solutions’ innovation and development centre.

Martin Leiger

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Sille is monitoring infrastructure from space

By Ronald Liive

Datel, one of the oldest privately owned Estonian IT companies, expanded its core business this spring by stepping into space – figuratively speaking of course. With the help of the European Space Agency (ESA), Datel is providing high accuracy space-based infrastructure deformation monitoring.

To put it simply, Datel’s e-service Sille uses satellite data to detect displacement in bridges, pipelines, houses, and other infrastructure.

Thanks to that, the user of the service can get a fast, reliable and accurate measurement without the need to hire surveyors to do geodetics analysis, which can take a long time to finish. Sille uses information gathered by radars to detect shifts and subsidence of objects with the precision of up to one millimetre. The service helps prevent accidents caused by deterioration of infrastructure and contributes to general safety.

The service is intended for the global market and even allows users to look back in time 4 years (data collected from 2014); it can be implemented instantly anywhere around the world.

You don’t need a degree to use the service According to the CTO of Datel, Agu Leinfeld, the biggest difference with competitors is the simplicity of the service. He emphasises that you don’t need a degree to use Sille.

‘The user interface is simple: our service is built with the idea that the end user doesn’t need to know what technology is used in the background. The user needs to get an overview of whether everything is alright with the object or infrastructure they are monitoring or whether they need to react. The service is designed for people who do not know how the systems work,’ says Leinfeld.

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Even though the user sees data displayed on Google Maps like a map application, peeking into the system reveals that Sille actually sees the world through a radar and not a camera lens. The decision to use radar lies in the clouds above our heads. Cameras cannot see through them so a radar is needed to collect measurements. But for the user to understand the measurements, the team had to convert it into a map to make it simple to understand. The data is updated every six days.

At the moment, Sille uses data gathered by European Space Agency (ESA) operated satellites but the service is built in a way that it could use data from other sources as well. Leinfeld gets really excited when talking about their R&D cooperation agreement with ESA. It came as a surprise when ESA mentioned Sille on their website even before the service was live for public use.

International clients and 24/7 working conditions Alongside notable clients in Estonia, the service grabbed the attention of the US State of Maryland where the system is used to monitor bridges, landslides, sink holes, road surfaces, on-ramps, and other infrastructure across the State.

Even though Sille is not a startup, but rather a service from a company founded 28 years ago, at its core it is comparable to an agile startup.

The service is challenging current working habits and the traditional approach to infrastructure monitoring. New value chain creators are usually called startups, but the Estonian technology sector is known for its constantly innovative experienced companies.

The most interesting client and use case for Sille comes from the small West Indies island of Saint Lucia. Sille is used there not to monitor roads, bridges or houses but rather the whole island – to detect earthquakes, hurricanes and monitor the volcano.

Agu Leinfeld

According to Leinfeld, one of the proofs of this is their subscription-based service, which is very different from their competitors.

‘Instead of filling out forms, submitting requests, drafting projects and waiting for a bid, our approach is flexible. Just sign up, get access and start using it,’ says Leinfeld.

Sille’s sales pitch includes all-weather, 24/7 working conditions, and coverage of the whole Earth with systematic monitoring of preset areas.

The service went live around late spring this year, right now the company has over 10 paying customers but there is interest from many more potential customers. For the customers who cannot make up their minds, or for curious people wanting to try the service, Datel provides a free demo version of Sille. In the demo, you can use all of the same capabilities available in the full version.

One of the services that the development team has yet to activate, after spending 20 000 work-hours to finish it, is an automated notification system. According to Leinfeld, their service already has it built in but, at the moment, users prefer to check the gathered data and compare it with the old data themselves. Leinfeld is open to activating the notification system if a customer requests it.

In use by the Estonian road administration and monitoring nuclear power plants One of the earliest adopters of Sille was the Estonian Road Administration – they already got their hands on a pilot version three years ago.

The administration is a prime example of a client that can benefit from

the service. They are either owners or caretakers of many major infrastructural objects with the obligation to monitor all objects in their area of responsibility, which could be major work.

Still, remote sensing does not cut out the need for humans. It’s an ideal solution to notify the humans if an object needs to be checked. The decision of whether the object in question needs repair or maintenance still needs to be assessed by a human who visits the location and inspects it.

While the system can detect even the slightest movement of an object, it cannot detect, for example, rust. Thinking of bridges, rust can be a major source of danger that needs to be checked by engineers onsite.

The most intriguing cooperation is currently with an energy consortium called Tecnatom, which provides support for nuclear power plants around the world.

Leinfeld sees huge potential in an early warning system based on information gathered from satellites. He hopes that in the future it will be mandatory in Estonia to display the so-called ‘permanent markers’ in the structural hubs of buildings that reflect themselves into space so satellites can detect them easily. This would take supervision of buildings to a new level.

By the way, as of January 1st 2018 there were 488 women in Estonia named Sille. It’s the 310th most popular female name in Estonia. The average age of a female Sille is 35 years – so Datel’s e-service Sille has a long life ahead.

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Photo by Rasmus Jurkatam

The fine art of financial technology

By Ronald Liive

Vilve Vene, Icefire’s CEO, and Jan Lakspere, Icefire’s CTO (on the right) together with Head of Business Development Rivo Uibo

There are currently over 6000 financial institutions in Europe. The number has declined over the past few decades but these organisations still affect each and every one of us. Although their country of operations, regulatory space, markets, products, and clients vary, they often share similar problems and challenges. Especially when it comes to technical solutions. Estonian company Icefire has been witnessing all of this and building their know-how on it for the past 16 years. If you own a bank account in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia there is a good chance you have already used services developed by them.

Vilve Vene, the CEO of Icefire, explains the fundamentals of their business. ‘We avoid tasks where we’re ordered a simple puzzle piece missing from the big picture. We help our customers, mostly banks and financial institutions solve complex problems that in most cases include not only technical but also business and management related challenges,’ she explains.

Going for the core The list of clients under Icefire’s belt is, regionally speaking, all-inclusive.

On the international level, their collaborations include Swedbank Group, Skype and Arvato Financial Services as well as many smaller companies. When talking to the team, I get the feeling that some of their clients and solutions have been more technically challenging to them than others. One of these is their collaboration with Bigbank.

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Back at the end of 2015, Bigbank, a consumer loan oriented international banking group from Estonia, made the decision to discontinue its existing systems, started building a new information system called Nest and chose Icefire as the key partner supporting its delivery. The aim was a modern tailor-made banking system owned by Bigbank. The scope of the system ranged from time deposits to loan initiation, loan administration and debt collection all the way to financial accounting and reporting.

‘We are constantly monitoring our business and at that time we were painfully aware of the imperfect customer experience, missed business opportunities and low level of automation in our operations,’ explains Sven Raba, the CEO of Bigbank. ‘In practice, it meant constraints in customising existing products, longer time-to-market for new products, difficulties in integrating our services to external sources and providing them to our partners. I was not happy with the data quality, lack of real-time financial data and reporting. This all has changed now for the better.’

As a result, existing IT systems were fully replaced, starting from user interfaces down to the hosting platform, while replacing all bankingcritical core modules and doing a full data migration from old systems to the new solution.

‘The number of quarterly processed loan applications grew by 35%, several tasks were sped up 3-10 times and manual loan decisions were already decreased by 3 times in the first branch to migrate,’ Raba explains the first-hand results, adding that the operational cost decrease is significant but, most of all, the bank’s own IT teams reached a whole new level of competence and delivery during the cooperation.

Icefire’s CTO, Jan Lakspere elaborates that the uniqueness of the project lies in using a microservices pattern as its technical architecture and the organisational setup of the development teams. ‘Continuous integration, automated testing, frequent releases of independent microservices without downtime are the keywords that describe the work of Bigbank technology.’

Instead of the expected industry standard, i.e. years of development, it took only 16 months from planning to getting the new solution up and running. Today, if Bigbank decides to expand its business to a new country, the highly automated system can be deployed in a few months.

Back in December 2017, the project was shortlisted for the best tech overhaul project at the International Banking Technology Awards.

Right time for banking-as-a-service After 16 years in business, Icefire has launched its first product – a banking-as-a-service platform for existing as well as new banks and financial institutions. Vene explains that after building rather similar technical solutions for a large number of different clients, it only seemed like a logical next step. The platform, called Modularbank, enables both radical transformations of entire organizations, launching new products on the side of existing systems or starting from zero as well as making Modularbank the core of banking business. Depending on the scope of the project it takes around 4-12 weeks to get the new solution up and running.

Modularbank’s first customers include small retail lending focused bank as well as a Frankfurt stock exchange listed international banking group, there are a number of proofs-of-concept already done as well as in the pipeline.

Sven Raba

Moving further from the region Vilve Vene sees decades of experience, vast know-how and trust by the biggest banks of the region as Icefire’s key strengths. All of the development is done in-house by the 110 employees working at Icefire’s office in Tallinn. They have rather knowingly kept the number small and avoid hiring more than 10-15 people a year. Vene explains that their main source of new people is their own employees, who have numerous times been brought on board by their spouses, relatives and friends. We’ve also had several cases over the years where people who have left return to the company. ‘Instead of simply hiring more we believe in helping our people work smarter. Be it through constant sharing of know-how, encouraging cross-disciplinary skills, minimizing organizational bureaucracy or simply actively analysing our processes,’ she adds.

At the moment, Icefire is focusing on scaling Modularbank as well as generally increasing its export volumes, which have grown from a plain 0% to over 40% within the past few years. At any given moment the company has around 6-10 projects under development.

One of the biggest projects in process right now and eagerly anticipated by tech-savvy Estonians is the new e-Tax and e-Customs portal. Considering the state of online tax and customs solutions in other countries, the one used in Estonia right now is already light years ahead, but that does not seem to be good enough – there is obviously room for a better user experience. The completely new portal will have all of its new services up and running by 2020.

Although 2020 is almost around the corner, Icefire has not yet made any revolutionary plans for that time. ‘For us, it has always been about delivering the best solutions for our customers. That mindset has been the cornerstone of the company that my co-founders and I created and this is also something all our employees highly appreciate. In most cases, it has meant solid but not reckless growth, neither in the number of employees nor in the turnover. It really is about the journey,’ explains Vene.

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The electric race from Tallinn to Monte-Carlo

Photo by Pille Russi

By Andero Kaha

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Photo by Marko Välja

Successful cooperation between Estonian Investment Agency and Volkswagen Financial Services Estonian Investment Agency’s team took part in the electric rally in cooperation with Volkswagen Financial Services, who provided a Volkswagen e-Golf and Fuel&Charge card for the German stages of the rally. Head of Corporate Communications of Volkswagen Financial Services Dr. Frank Woesthoff commented: ‘After having received great support last year from Enterprise Estonia while establishing business contacts in the e-Business sector, we’re delighted that we were able to return the favor with an e-Golf and above all with our nationwide deployable Charge&Fuel card, which provides access to charging stations. Congratulations to the Enterprise Estonia team for making it to the winner’s podium several times during the rally! This partnership has been a resounding success and we are very much looking forward to future projects with Enterprise Estonia and Estonian businesses.’

Following the tradition of the Tallinn to Monte-Carlo road rallies of the 1930s, 35 electric cars started for a race from Tallinn to Monaco in order to promote environmentally friendly transportation and road safety.

As always, a rally begins with a ceremonial start September 18, 2018. We can say that, at least visually, everything is quite like it used to be 80 years ago when one of the fathers of Estonian film, Konstantin Märska recorded the start of one of the original Tallinn to Monte-Carlo races on video. Of course, back then there were no modern shopping malls next to the Estonian National Theatre and Prime Minister Jüri Ratas was definitely not there to wave the starting flag. But we must say that the cars gathered at exactly the same spot and their excited drivers make the general picture very similar.

In the 1930s, races were dominated by Renaults and Mercedes-Benzes with some – at least for us – exotic brands such as Hotchkiss in the mix. The 2018 starting line is a mix of Japanese, U.S and German electric cars including brands such as Nissan, Tesla and Volkswagen.

Among drivers of the 1930s starting the race from Tallinn were global racing stars such as Rudolf Caracciola – and of course the local elite. In 2018 the starting list is again very international, including Estonian politicians, ambassadors of different countries, businessmen and international student teams.

What of course has changed a lot compared to the 1930s, is Estonia’s infrastructure. In the beginning of the 1930s, the Berliner Tageblatt wrote that ‘the roads here were so bad that some ladies in the cars got seasick’ and that ‘there was no way they would ever return for a race beginning in this faraway port town in the north’.

The infrastructure for electric cars today is one of the most modern and well-managed in Europe and its (single service provider, easy to use, currently only CHAdeMO standard) charging network is one of the densest.

Charging still not as easy as fueling in the 1930s A random short break during the rally at a gas station in Germany.

‘What needs to be underlined was that when we drove to the Shell gas station to buy some gas, six guys stepped to the car without asking and started cleaning the car, opening the hood, adding oil – and did not charge anything for that – not even a tip,’ a local team that drove from Tallinn to Monte-Carlo wrote in the Estonian automotive magazine Auto back in 1935.

Driving an electric vehicle through Europe in 2019, you will most probably be negatively surprised – that is if your expectations are not incredibly low. In fact, there is still a lot of confusion about where to charge the vehicles and how to pay for it. The confusion caused by the several different charging standards in use and misleading information provided by some internet sources mean that it is possible to end up with an empty battery in some small European town in the middle of nowhere where there used to be a charger. Fortunately, there are already some effective roaming solutions such as the Charge&Fuel card and app in Germany that make the lives of electric vehicle owners a bit easier.

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Photos by Electric Marathon, Pille Russi, and Andero Kaha

Formula One World Champion Nico Rosberg: I know how hard it is to drive keeping to the speed limits At the finish of the Tallinn to Monte-Carlo rally in Monaco, the drivers and co-drivers were met by former Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg who said that participants of events such as these are role models to many young people around the world. ‘Having had a look at the route and talked to you, it was clear right away that it is not easy to drive through Europe in an electric car,’ he added.

‘I also know from my own experience how hard it is to drive following a zero-car and keeping to the speed limits.’

In the Open class, Avo Väliste and Kaido Sõmer (Tesla Model S) from Estonia won the rally. At the award ceremony in Monte-Carlo, the awards were presented by H.E. Minister Bernard Fautrier, and Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg

The everlasting problem of the right foot being too heavy ‘Such roads certainly tend to test the patience of drivers,’ an Estonian car magazine wrote about German roads in the 1930s. ‘Every driver is tempted by the speed. And it is not limited by the roads; harder and harder the foot presses on the accelerator pedal. If the speed gauge displays 80 or 110 km/h, there is no difference for the driver. Only the poor engine – what does she have to say…’

If you replace the word “engine” with “batteries”, this can equally describe what the drivers of modern electric cars feel on the Autobahns.

Fortunately, the rule of keeping the speed at 90 km/h or below helps the competitors maintain discipline.

Friendly atmosphere 80 years ago, the competition sometimes got really fierce during the races, with racing team members even physically attacking each other’s vehicles. For example, the Buick of Julius Johansson was pushed off the road by Caracciola’s team during the first ever Tallinn to Monte Carlo race in 1929. Magazine Auto described the incident: ‘Then the men who were clearing the road for Caracciola’s car – there were about twenty of them – rushed to our car and pushed the Buick with us into the ditch.’

In 2018, things were a lot friendlier; teams helping each other with information on chargers, sharing charging cards and spending time chatting while waiting for the cars to charge. And there was a lot of waiting…

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Robin arrives at the interview direct from Frankfurt. He will only be able to spend two days in Estonia before flying off again to meet Polish farmers

Robin Saluoks Estonian lad revolutionising world agriculture

Photo by Jaanus Lensment

By Matthias Kalev

Whilst most of his contemporaries are still at university trying to figure out what to do with their lives, Robin Saluoks (23), the founder and CEO of eAgronom, a company which offers European farmers digital solutions, is a young man with a vision. Having just won the Estonian Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, he talks to us about his road to success.

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Photo by Jaanus Lensment

During his school days, Robin focused mainly on football, playing for a team in Tartu. Whenever he had the chance he helped his grandad with farm work. ‘My first job was digging a ditch. Then my father promoted me and I started to dry grain in the drying facility. Sometimes I drove the tractor, too.’

One day Robin got Warren Buffett’s autobiography as a present. The legendary investor happens to have the same birthday as Robin. ‘When I read his biography, I decided I would also start to invest properly. I was about 12 or 13 years old back then.’ The first place he invested in was the stock of Estonian telecommunication firm Eesti Telekom. ‘For some time I could not sell my stock, because the legislation changed prohibiting under-age people from dealing with stocks.’ Fortunately for him, the company left the stock exchange and Robin even received a small profit.

In high school Robin founded his first company together with two classmates – the science theatre “Three Piglets” – which received the Best European Student Company title in 2014. It was just a school project, but it led to the understanding that one can change the world with business.

We worked on getting children interested in chemistry and physics. It was a great achievement that on the most important day of the year for them – their birthday – children invited scientists over to visit.’

The science theatre project took up more and more of Robin’s time and one day he decided to give up the idea of becoming a footballer.

The product needs to be adjusted for each country. In order to make the programme meet the needs of Slovakia, eAgronom would have needed to write code that coordinated bribes. This they did not want to do

It does not often happen that the youngest employee of a company happens to be its founder and CEO at the same time. Although Robin has grown a beard, which visually makes him look older, he is brimming with youthful vigour. The fact that this is not a man who has been around the business world for decades is also betrayed by his braces.

Coming from a family of farmers in the Tartu county, Robin has grown from a school pupil to businessman in the last two years. He currently runs an international company which employs over 40 people around Europe. ‘I did not predict that it would take off so fast. The aim was double the time. We definitely had set our goals high and we were going for them, but we did not think it would take off so rapidly,’ says Robin recalling the early days of the company.

But let us go back to the beginning – the time when a computer arrived at Robin’s home thanks to the Tiger Leap programme (a project undertaken by Republic of Estonia in 1996 to heavily invest in development and expansion of computer and network infrastructure in Estonia, with a particular emphasis on education). ‘It was my grandpa who got it.

Luckily for us we live in Estonia, because it is only in small countries that people in agriculture are using ICT.’ Access to the internet opened many doors for Robin. Already as a boy he got interested in the stock market. ‘I had 100 Estonian kroons once.

Then I checked out the stocks of Hansapank and hoped that the price would drop under 100 kroons. I think I wasn’t even going to school then!’ Although he was interested in the business world, his thoughts were somewhere else. ‘I always liked business but as a kid I wanted to become a footballer.’

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‘I realised I couldn’t do business and football together. I didn’t want to play badly and I focused on “Three Piglets” instead. The science theatre is still active. Last year, 1000 children came to their science club every week and 10 000 children saw their performances. But I am no longer involved in their everyday work.’

After graduating from high school, Robin studied IT at the University of Tartu. ‘My goal was not to become an IT guy, but to be able to understand those topics. I saw how much computers were affecting the world.

After a year in Tartu I went to the Estonian Business School in Tallinn for half a year, but I left there too.’ The company eAgronom, which he founded in the meantime was taking up so much of his time that it was no longer possible to attend university.

The business started from the wish to sort out his dad’s fields ‘It all began with my father’s company having about ten Excel spreadsheets and me being the guy who had to administer them. The moment dad got the idea to change something, I had to do it. Fortunately, I had already studied Java at university and I was able to start writing a programme for my dad’s company. Other farmers saw it and asked him where he got it from.’

Robin created the first programme for eAgronom himself. ‘This piece of code makes top programmers laugh today.’ Fortunately for him, Robin had friends for whom writing complicated code was a career. He brought along Stenver Jerkku, who back then worked for a US IT company as head of the Development Team, and Kristjan-Julius Jaak, who was educated in IT and psychology. The three of them began to work on the product of eAgronom.

Julius and Stenver got to work on programming and Robin visited farmers door to door. ‘We never saw it as a hobby. We were dedicated from the get-go. But in order to build an IT company you need investment and money. Investors told us that an idea costs nothing and we need to show a product and customers.’

What is eAgronom?

‘eAgronom simplifies the life of farmers. It keeps a field log, manages storage, organises logistics, runs complicated calculations and follows the regulations of PRIA funding’ The three young men took the seemingly impossible task of creating a programme and finding customers within twenty days, as just a small obstacle. ‘We never considered giving up. But there were difficult times.

In the beginning, we just had twenty days to create the product and find clients. We invested all the money we had. Perhaps there was enough to still buy food for one month. Fortunately, my father also helped. Within the first fifteen days we also employed the first people.’

The young men got lucky and their crazy plan worked. In twenty days, they finished the product and had their first customers. But most importantly they managed to convince investors to invest in them. ‘In the first meeting of shareholders where all our investors came, they presented us with a painting which said that a bold start is half the victory. This has been definitely important for us from the outset.’ eAgronom simplifies the life of farmers. It keeps a field log, manages storage, organises logistics, runs complicated calculations and follows the regulations of PRIA funding (the Estonian Agricultural Registers and Information Board).

From the outset, the number of people using the application started to increase rapidly.

eAgronom is a web-based programme, the functions of which include checking that funding regulations are followed, maintaining a field log, storage management and logistics. Farmers can use the real-time field log and storage management function to check which tasks are already completed and which still need to be done. In addition, eAgronom offers crop rotation cards and carries out complex calculations that help to select the right seeds and the right amount of fertilizer. Farmers pay eAgronom one euro per hectare annually.

Spreading abroad wasn’t an uncomplicated process. ‘It was easy to translate the programme, but the product has about a 5% component which varies from country to country, as national reports and some other elements differ.’

They began with Latvia, then Lithuania, then Poland. ‘We wanted to enter countries where it was likely that things would move fast and there would be less bureaucracy. There were countries where we didn’t go because of corruption. For example, Slovakia. The programme for them would have had to include a component to make it very easy to transfer money to all kinds of public officials who control them.’

Entering foreign markets has been the right thing for the company, says Robin, and a pleasant experience for himself as a person. ‘I like meeting farmers in other countries. Other people take holidays and go to the countryside to rest. But I do it during work. I visit farmers, have dinner with them and discuss how to make plans a reality.’

Currently almost two thirds of the company’s forty employees work in the office in Tartu. There is another representation in Poznan and Robin currently spends most of his time there.

Owning the Estonian market was not enough for eAgronom

‘Poland is the second largest grain producer in Europe. We are currently mainly focused on Estonia, Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic. We have clients elsewhere but those are test countries. In some countries we do not even have a staff member. Our customer support people from Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic who advise farmers by phone, are based in Tartu. For some people, eAgronom is the first computer programme they have used in their life. We have to be able to advise them in their native language immediately when they call us.’

In the spring of 2017, about half a year after establishing the company, Estonia became too small and they turned their focus outside. ‘We realised we needed to move fast. Once we made it work in Estonia, we started to focus outside. Our goal is to have all the farmers in the world use our product.’

Currently, eAgronom administers about 700 000 hectares of farmland.

It is about 15% of the territory of Estonia. There is massive interest in them everywhere they go. ‘Our current focus is the EU. And from there, the world. We are currently checking whether it would be wiser to move westward or eastward.’

Within six months, 60% of Estonian grain producers were already using the application. Recalling those times today, Robin says they could never have predicted such success. This was their longer-term plan. There is pride in his voice but he repeatedly says that the reason for the success of the company are his colleagues.

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Photo by Rene Riisalu

The co-founders of “Three Piglets” talk about Robin Maarja Liiv: A very charismatic and enchanting person ‘We attended the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium’s natural sciences class together. It was always fun. Robin liked the ladies and to joke around.

In the beginning of the 11th grade when we had to choose a subject for research, we heard that he wanted to establish his own company. It took seconds to decide. Once when our maths teacher told us to behave again, she said we are like three piglets and this is how our company name was born. It is admirable that we managed to have good grades whilst doing all the joking around. It is even more incredible that Robin could stand in front of an audience and enthral them without much preparation. Everybody was amazed at his improvisation skills. He is a very charismatic and enchanting person who is always full of energy and ideas. He used to read business books in lessons. Whenever we had a test or oral exam in literature, he asked the girls to tell him the content, remembered it all and then performed as if he knew everything, which always resulted in the top grade. He captivated teachers too, because how can you be angry when you are faced with such a happy and humorous person?

Robin never drank alcohol. He came to parties and was often the soul of the party, but he was also into sports and he took good care of his body.

His goal-setting, charm and ability to perform and readiness to do business are the keywords characterising him. Whenever he decides to do something, he is willing to do whatever it takes to reach his goal. Robin was our financial guru from the early days of the company.’

Robin Saluots won the award “Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2018” at the competition “Entrepreneurship Award 2018”

Taavet Kutsar: A bold dreamer ‘We were in the same year at Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu. We became closer friends working together in the student company “Three Piglets”. Thinking back to those days I have three key things which characterise Robin: it was very clear what interested him and what not.

In the fields he was interested in, he could really focus. In other fields he just got by somehow.

Secondly, he was a bold dreamer who was never fazed by seemingly too ambitious or unrealistic looking goals. For example, the problem “we don’t have enough resources” became for him “how to get enough resources?” Albeit sometimes moving towards our goals was not as smooth as we had hoped for, this mental approach was a good engine to keep going forward.

Thirdly, Robin was great with words. And of course not just words, he also said something of value. He was not afraid of public speaking and seemed to be like a fish in water. Of course we were all a bit vain. In the student company and later on also our main goal was not to just make money but to have a positive impact on society. We were not familiar with the term social enterprise back then. It seems that this idea also underpins his current activities.’

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Aksel Part: He taught us a dance from Malta at the Wembley stadium ‘We attended the European competition of student companies. On the last evening there was an entertainment and socialising programme in the rooms of the Wembley stadium. All competing student companies and judges were there. Everybody was talking politely and trying to be very proper. The competition wasn’t over and the winner had not been announced. There was a slight tension and feeling of discomfort in the air. It became especially tangible when a cover-band took to the stage and started to play songs that were popular at the time. The crowd stood on the sides of the room and nobody dared to dance. Robin had just come back from a trip to Malta where he had also learned some local dance moves. Hence when the band started to play, he dragged the members of our student company to the front of the stage and started to teach us the moves. Quite soon the next bold people joined us and in the end Robin taught his Malta dance on stage next to the band to all (no longer properly behaving) members of student companies and some instructors too. The party went on for a long time after the judges and instructors had gone to bed.’

This article was first published in the journal "Best Estonian Companies 2018".

FREEDOM IN THE 21st CENTURY

Jaan Toomik Me, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Leonhard Lapin One line, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Raul Meel Save our souls, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Maarit Murka Position ’81 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Ivar Kaasik The shadows on the water, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Kadri Alesmaa Objects in the mirror... / Freedom, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Jüri Arrak Freedom’s approach, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Peeter Allik Complete freedom, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

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Photo by Kalev Lilleorg

Jaak Visnap – the man with the bigger picture

By Anneliis Aunapuu

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Photos by Kalev Lilleorg

Lithography has been mentioned more and more in the media in recent years and not just with reference to an ancient printing technique or something enthusiastic art collectors would like to get their hands on.

On the contrary, it is seen as something with potential, something making a comeback. Strangely enough, this trend has nothing to do with arts policy, but with the dedicated and inspired activities of one family.

In the midst of the shops in Tallinn’s new, ambitious and congested shopping centre T1 Mall of Tallinn, a view opens to a refreshing art gallery, its spaciousness and visual serenity offering an unexpected contrast to the surrounding retail area. A blue carpet-path adds a festive touch, taking the viewer on a tour. The screens and art exhibits on the walls are positioned next to each other, equal in their size, not suffering from the typical diminutive character of graphic art or the voluptuousness of painting.

It quickly becomes clear that each row is presented in pairs: a lithographic piece of art by an artist and next to it on screen a video about the artist’s work and thoughts on the process of creating it under the

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tutelage of a lithography master. The exhibit is thoroughly thought through and the more you focus on it, the more evident this becomes.

From the first exhibition hall you enter a second space where you can buy pieces of art, with some paintings and photography included.

The third room is especially exciting, a dimly lit shrine to lithography – printing stones and equipment surrounded by a museum on the walls.

Here one can enjoy the beauty of lithographs dating back more than a century as well as a row of lithography stones of one picture, each stone meant for a different colour. It is exciting to imagine what the colourful lithography could have looked like.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Opposite the entrance, there is a pedestal supporting a larger-than-life blue folder with the writing “FREEDOM in the 21st century” and “Created in 2017-2018 by the Estonian Lithographic Centre as a gift to Estonia for its 100th birthday”.

This “birthday present idea” is a project that inspired many entrepreneurial minds to produce a remarkable cultural event, creating pieces of art to memorialise the Republic’s Anniversary.

The folder contains 21 lithography prints from works of art by Estonian artists in the exhibition hall. This folder can be bought by anyone but it wouldn’t be just another purchase like in the shopping centre.

This collection generates thoughts and induces the idea of becoming a patron, a supporter of art. In fact, it is a manifestation that emphasises the art gallery’s essential difference from its surrounding retail environment. Its price too is appropriate for a piece of art. ‘One could call it “A Starter Pack for a Friend of the Arts”,’ as the creator of the new gallery Jaak Visnap explains. In talking to the gallery owner it becomes clear that this is the entire point – to promote art by bringing it closer to people, to explain and help to understand the process in which a piece of art is born, the ideas behind it. And to connect a face and a name, the way of life and philosophy of the artist with the piece of art created by him or her.

In this sense, it is meaningful that the series was started by Jaan Toomik, the artist who two decades ago shook up the newly independent Estonian society with an exhibition people still talk about, some with a sense of repulsion and others with awe. The exhibition contained dated glass jars containing a few “products” or “pieces of work” by the starving artist.

This manifesto was meant to draw society’s attention to the fact that at the moment when our society was turned upside down, our relatively large number of artists found themselves in a vacuum, an impossible situation that undermined human dignity as well as made it financially impossible to create art or survive. In order to survive back then, one needed a successful business. Today, the business world has reached a point where it is appropriate to remind it of the costs that non-business circles had to pay. It is time to reclaim the dignified position of art and artists in society.

Liisa Kruusmägi Hello, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

Priit Pärn Freedom with an ordinary French baguette, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100

Urmas Viik Butterfly 2, 2018 Lithography, 70 x 100 LI F E I N ESTON IA N o 5 0

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The man behind this cause is Jaak Visnap, the reviver of lithography as a technique and the “slow” lifestyle in Estonia. His journey to becoming an artist differs from the average. Through his experience and ability to look further, he has come closer to art than many academically educated functionaries. He was first infected by the “lithography bug” in a workshop in Finland and subsequently studied it in various places around Europe, just like artists in the old days used to learn in art centres in order to become esteemed artists in their own rights.

The mission started by Jaak and Kadri has two sides. Firstly, to mark the connection between graphic art and its historical technique, which gives the work the value of originality. The flaw of today’s digital production techniques is that they dilute the value of the “original”, making the creator more and more anonymous. The second side of the mission is more social – to bring art out from its birthplace, the artist’s atelier, and to take it closer to people’s everyday surroundings, displaying it as an important human value. This side has a mental connection to the greater “Fair Trade” movement, which arose to return dignity to human beings whose work is so conveniently used in the well-fed world on a daily basis. ‘These are not museum pieces, this is living art of today which is created by humans and printed by hand,’ Visnap describes the importance of his mission.

Photos by Kalev Lilleorg

When he returned, he founded a lithography workshop and centre in Pärnu, then in Tallinn, and now the art gallery-museum Tallinn Art Space! He did that without official support or recognition by the arts scene. Together with his wife Kadri Alesmaa, they have been developing their cause over the years. They work with dedication, without losing their awe of the technique, the process of transferring the creation onto the stone surface and from there printing it onto the paper. It is rare that, in our relatively aggressive business and cultural environment, they have not lost a sense of the value of an artist’s profession but instead keep their sights high. At the same time, the danger to slip is there. Many artists around the world are keeping themselves alive by taking on small

assignments and tiny commissions, without hoping to influence the big picture. But Jaak and Kadri have managed to overcome this and convince, through personal connections, the leaders of the business world to back their undertaking, in return offering them a sense of participation in cultural life, the honour to carry some of the heavy weight of this anniversary gift to Estonia.

Photo by Peeter Langovits

More information and videos on "Freedom in the 21st century" webpage www.freedom100.ee/home

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T1 MALL OF TALLINN T1 Mall of Tallinn, Estonia’s first next-generation shopping and entertainment centre, a new landmark and an urban hub, was opened in November 2018. Designed by Italian architect Antonio Lavieri, T1 Mall of Tallinn is Estonia’s first meticulously styled mall for people looking to spend quality time in modern urban space, enjoy fine food and shop for new brands.

T1 offers the chance to walk through city streets and parks, make purchases, spend leisure time, enjoy fine food, meet up with friends, read a book, watch a movie at T1 Cinamon movie theatre or watch street performers.

T1’s carefully curated selection of shops has both old favourites as well as new brands and concepts unique in Estonia. Trendy Italian youth brands, global accessories hits, Scandinavian footwear makers and, of course, the crème de la crème of Estonian design.

Hardi Volmer The black hole practice, 2018 Lithography, 70 × 100

A tour in the art gallery reveals many artists of different ages and styles.

Their names are written large on the wall; it calls attention from a distance.

The selection itself seems quite democratic – there are so-called cult artists, graphic designers and architects but also creators with a more grotesque style, for example the singer and film director Hardi Volmer who has a degree in scenography, and Priit Pärn, the caricaturist and animated film guru with a degree in biology. It is no coincidence that the latter achieved iconic status with his caricature “Sitta kah!” (Shit, too! – ed.) in which a field fertilising specialist has used a piece of manure the shape of Estonia to fertilise Mother Russia. A caricature which was a turning point for life in Estonia too. It is even stranger that this message too has to do with fertiliser. Does this connection hide the Estonian’s deep ties with the land and nature, the country folk’s sense of the biological cycles of nature?

Taste of Tallinn, or TOT, is a community of restaurants and cafés, unique in Estonia both in scope and location. More than a half of the 32 restaurants are on the fourth floor of T1 Mall of Tallinn, above the shopping bustle and with a complimentary ‘million-dollar-view’ over the city. TOT features fine dining, street food from the world and a metropolitan café scene.

Super Skypark is the region’s largest indoor family entertainment centre. Europe’s largest trampoline centre, climbing courts almost 10 metres high, a 3600 4D cinema and a science centre are just some of our attractions that offer year-round entertainment to adults and kids alike.

In order to get there, you can even take a plane. Seriously. T1 is located at a crossing of Tallinn’s transport arteries, with access by tram, bus or train. The airport is a stone’s throw from it.

T1 Mall of Tallinn Peterburi tee 2, Tallinn t1tallinn.com/en

With this art phenomenon, a big step has been taken back from the edge of the fields. Standing in the Tallinn Art Space you can sense the strong bond between the ancient printing technique and today’s digital world – one is evident in the back room with the printing equipment and the second is presented with video clips running on screens in the first room. ‘I believe these videos help the viewer to understand the art’s birth process and to understand that the art is not just a picture of the wall but behind it there are fantasy and intellectual games of the artist. The world behind a piece of art is like a code in the IT world, but it does not consist of 1s and 0s. One does not need a special education to understand it – one only needs an open mind. Art takes us further, helping us understand the world through a different angle of cognition, and opens new channels for a different and more effective approach which can improve our achievements in totally different fields,’ states Jaak Visnap.

The display of the gallery and the giant folder of prints should make a materially-minded person think. ‘These are good times now,’ says the gallery owner with a suggestive certainty. ‘Support the art!’

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Photo by Jaanar Nikker

Roberta Einer – one of the hottest young designers in London

By Kristi Pärn-Valdoja / magazine Säde

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The internationally acclaimed Estonian fashion designer Roberta Einer created her first fashion show and collection as an eleven-year-old.

Today her designs are sold by luxury department stores and boutiques all over the world.

For the last two years, Roberta has lived in good old London; we kick off our interview talking about the city. ‘London is a city where everyone can come and find their place,’ says Roberta. ‘If you move to Paris, you need to adapt yourself to the city, but in London you can fit in whether you come from Estonia, India or South-Africa.’

Did that play a role in you deciding to study in London and not in Paris or New York, for example?

Not really, because I didn’t know that back then. I had actually never visited London before I went to study there! But I did know that I had to get into London Central Saint Martins. My sister, who I have always looked up to, said to me: if you want to study fashion, there is only one school in the world. Central Saint Martin. Before that, I graduated from secondary school and arts college in London. At first I thought I would go to London as an exchange student after 9th grade, but now I have lived here for twelve years. I did my first apprenticeship at Alexander McQueen, from then on Roksanda, Mary Katrantzou and others.

old fashion and this of course has its charm. But London is incredibly open to new things, almost too open. Every year many good designers graduate so there is a constant inflow of fresh blood. I already got used to being called the rising star and receiving attention everywhere, but when I did my fourth season, I was no longer new because there were fresh graduates. But if you are strong enough, it gives you the resources and the know-how to do your own thing. This is not possible in Paris, unless you have some mega finances to open your own studio.

How did you create your own brand?

When I graduated, I did not really find the kind of job I would have really wanted to do. And then I thought: I have to do something on my own.

Before my first real show, I went to a fourth round interview at H&M and I thought, ’if I don’t start to sell after my show, I will accept their offer’.

But my show was a success, the sales came and this is how it kicked off.

I am quite a pessimist in the sense that I think every season that if nobody wants to buy my stuff, I will stop with my own brand and go work in a fashion house somewhere.

And in between you lived in Paris?

Would you be willing to go work for H&M? Yes, I moved to Paris and lived there for two years, working at Balmain Fashion House together with Olivier Rousteing. In order to receive my degree, I went back to England where I designed my graduation collection.

Did you not want to stay in Paris?

It is near impossible to build up your own brand in Paris as it is not a city which is open to new things. In Paris, the dominating fashion is so-called

Of course they pay designers quite well in high street fashion houses and the working hours are less than in large fashion houses, but probably I would not. Living and working in London, my social network has really grown and, for example, the recruiting team of the luxury conglomerate LVMH is often coming to see my collections and shows, and every now and then they ask if I am looking for a job. Until now I have thanked them and said I have a full-time job. I have been really lucky that I have managed to survive and to be able to do my own designs.

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But if they invite you to come and be the head designer at Alexander McQueen?

Everything depends on the deal. If I had a contract like Virgil Ablohi with Louis Vuitton – being able to design for his own fashion house OffWhite as well… But often large fashion houses do not want their head designer to be actively working on their own brand. Today I probably would not accept such an offer, but in five or ten years I could think about it – where to develop or move to.

Where do you currently sell your designs?

I do not sell online or directly, although I do accept private orders. I do not have a warehouse and what I show at the fashion week exists in one sample. If a store orders, for example, ten items of something, I make them. But I sell, for example, at I.T in Hong Kong, which I consider to be not just a leading store in Asia but in the whole world. They are trendsetters. There are two buyers there with an incredible eye and if they buy something the entire Asian market follows. I have collaborated with them for eight years already and thanks to them my designs are sold in various department stores and boutiques in China and Korea. I also sell in Dubai, Kuwait, Riyadh and in Saks Fifth Avenue in the USA. Also in a couple of beautiful concept stores in Washington and Los Angeles.

What about Europe?

I have had quite a lot of pre-orders in Estonia. We sell well in Italy and there are a couple of cool stores in London. But on the whole, the European market is much more complicated. People are more price-sensitive

and those with money prefer to buy Gucci rather than the creations of a young fashion designer. The thing is that in Asia and the Near East, very many people are able to afford Gucci and most people have it, and this is why they are looking for something in the same price range that would be fresh and new and something their neighbour doesn’t have.

Are you planning to have an online store?

Perhaps in a couple of years. You need to really know your clients and what they want in order to do that. I have about 70 items in my collection which come in three different colours – I cannot sell it all online!

To only produce T-shirts and sweatshirts is boring, but I cannot create 2000-euro jackets to stay in storage somewhere! The more so as most fabrics I use are specially created for me, a process that starts with buying the thread. And I do not use the same fabric two seasons in a row. Hence this really needs to be thought through carefully. But putting together a business plan is more complicated for me than creating fashion. As a graduate of an arts school I first and foremost see myself as an artist! The fact that I have had to spend a lot of time staring at Excel tables in the last three years is not really in my nature.

Do you have advisers or do you primarily trust yourself?

Every now and then everyone wants to give some advice and that really complicates things. I can talk about all of this with my father who has a really good nose for business and his own logic. He only looks at figures and cannot comprehend how I can work without sales predictions. But it is quite impossible to make sales predictions. I have had seasons when the

Roberta Einer Spring/Summer 2019 Ready-To-Wear collection inspired by Morocco’s landscape and mountain ranges

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sales are up by 400 percent but this is impossible to predict. For example, something happens in the Near East and nobody buys anything. Or a celebrity wears my design and it changes everything! You have to constantly adapt. Of course, I have my sales agents and PR people and they also want different things. PR wants me to create clothes that could be photographed in magazines and worn by celebrities, but my sales agent wants something that sells easily. My boyfriend, who is not in the fashion field at all, gives me advice on the basis of what he thinks might make me happy. Sometimes the view of the bystander is of course the best.

How do your clothes come to be worn by international stars?

I do not give my designs away. The stars either borrow the clothes or buy them or I create a special design based on an order. It is a matter of principle; I presume that people wear my designs because they like them. And I do not create custom-made clothes for just anyone. I do not create clothes for Instagram stars who have the wrong image for me.

There are people who think that I pay stars in order for them to wear my designs but, honestly, I do not have that much of a cash flow (laughs).

How do you prepare your collections?

I never look at what other designers are doing, if – then just archives of a decade ago. I especially do not look at designers who I like, because subconsciously they might have an impact and I am trying to create a trend myself. And it needs to be exciting and funny and I need to have a reason to do it. This is also why I cannot imagine doing minimalistic designs my entire life or discovering something new in that field. Of course

I would be able to do it, I can construct and, for example, Roksanda was quite minimalist and I really liked working there. But it’s not a challenge for me. To be honest, I haven’t met many designers whose hearts beat faster because of minimalism. If it happens, then it is for other reasons like fabric, technology or something else.

It seems that your heart has always beaten for fashion, that it did not just arrive in your life by chance?

As a kid, fashion was the only thing that interested me. I ran my first fashion show when I was eleven. I saw a poster in town that advertised it and although I had never sewn anything in my life, I asked my dad to drive me.

To fabric shops?

No, not even to fabric shops as I did not think that much ahead, but I asked him to take me to several second-hand shops. I bought all kinds of stuff and then made them shorter or added some ribbons and created a top out of stockings. I lied to the organisers that I was 13 because younger kids could not participate. And I also won a special prize. When I was older I participated in another fashion competition called Roosad Käärid (Pink Scissors – ed.) and I won that.

I was really a bad pupil as I couldn’t be bothered to go to school. I was always working in a very target-oriented way. When I don’t understand why I need something, I just won’t do it. In order to go study in England I had to do all the exams in Estonia. I studied for ten days and then got top grades for all my exams.

Photos by Asia Werbel

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‘My grandma always told me to do whatever makes me happiest’

In England I also studied photography and at one point considered becoming a war documentary photographer. My parents were already shocked by me going to arts college, the photography thing would have been the end of the world. When I was weighing that option, they thought that fashion sounded pretty good. Because at first they tended to take the attitude of ‘she was such a smart girl and could have learned anything, but then she went to arts school’.

Do your parents support your fashion career?

I was a complicated child. Stubborn, dissatisfied and it always felt like I know exactly what I want to do but nobody understands me. I think my parents must have held their breath waiting to see how I would get by.

I was very independent – received scholarships and did not need anything else from them but emotional support and love. When I was able to show my first results, it restored their peace of mind and today they are my biggest fans and supporters.

Let’s ask the standard question too.

Who are your favourite designers?

Photo by Asia Werbel

Those change in time but definitely everyone I have worked for. And I also really like what Phoebe Philo did at Céline. I am really looking forward to finding out what she does next.

What is your aim for the next five years?

Are you the kind of person who thinks that far ahead?

I take each season as the last. Thinking of the future, I am not only thinking about work but about the kind of woman I would like to be in five years and the kind of life I would want to lead. I would like my studio to be a good environment, to spend time with the people I love… Today I am not really thinking about having children and creating a family, because I work on a very tightly structured schedule. All my friends know that about one and half months before the show, I am not there for anyone. But if my company grows and I could employ assistants, I could become more of the woman I want to be. And I hope that in five years I can also think about creating a family. Today my lifestyle depends on how good the sales of last season have been. But it would be great to create in a way that would not make me worry about the budget. So, stability and security are the two keywords I am aiming for in both my private life and my career.

What else is there in your life besides fashion?

I like to work out because I believe that there is a healthy mind in a healthy body. I travel a lot. In order for me to create a new collection, I need to exit the previous season and the best way to do that is to travel.

I cook a lot. I have always said that if I didn’t create fashion, I would run a restaurant. Since I was twelve, I have been making all the Christmas dishes in our family. And of course, I spend time with my friends, most of whom have been the same for 10-15 years and they have nothing to do with fashion design.

In the spring London Fashion Week, will you have your own official show again?

Yes, nobody can take it away from me now (laughs).

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Photo by Atko Januson

Rotermann Quarter – life is finally pouring in

By Maris Hellrand

Architect Andrus Kõresaar grabs a cappuccino at the RØST bakery in the Rotermann Quarter and off we go exploring the latest additions to the former industrial quarter from the 19th century in the heart of Tallinn – a slightly hidden area where the city’s trading heritage merges with cutting edge architecture into a contemporary lifestyle hub.

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The Stalker Street is the most recent part of the quarter completed. Kõresaar: ‘This street has been crucial in bringing the whole quarter to life. It happened literally over night that the Stalker Street started pulling people to the quarter. During the Soviet time this quarter was a closed and run-down industrial site, in such a desolate state that is was suitable for Andrei Tarkovski to shoot a scene for his cult film “Stalker” – the scene depicting a transfer into an unknown world, a horribly scary world. This gate was the border and point of crossing, where an old army jeep drove along a muddy track, and the main character and Stalker were trying to hide from the guards.’

The Rotermann Quarter has been open for ten years but has been kind of hidden from the main pedestrian routes. Kõresaar thinks the quarter will only open up fully once the “main street” project of Tallinn is completed and the flow of pedestrian traffic becomes more natural in the heart of town: ‘Even if it seems that crossing the road is simple, psychologically it is almost like a river or railway, a road separates and splits the city.’

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Photos by Tõnu Tunnel

Grain Elevator

The first building by KOKO in the Rotermann Quarter, the Carpenter’s Workshop (shortlisted for the European Union Architectural Award in 2009) was completed at the height of the economic crisis in 2009: ‘Within a few weeks of completion all the tenants had moved out. This was a very hard time for the developer. For heritage protection it was a philosophically difficult decision to allow putting the three towers on top of the old building. Our previous experience with Fahle House was not really relevant here. The reasoning for the towers was the height of the rest of the square – this corner was out of line with the other sides. A square needs a frame, otherwise it will lose energy and the feeling of an open space.

The towers are a reference to the cooling towers of the metal industry, so they carry the industrial heritage of the quarter within them. I’m glad that the developer finally went along with our proposal instead of just mock towers and had them built with lifts and interesting office spaces that work well today. The 360-degree view is definitely a bonus.’

Photos by Kaido Haagen

Kõresaar’s office KOKO has contributed to the quarter with several buildings, the latest being the historic grain elevator that stretches 100 metres along the Stalker Street. ‘The limestone building was used to dry grain. Christian Barthold Rotermann, the founder of the industrial complex, planned this to last forever. He was sure this industry would never disappear from the location right next to the port – people would need to dry grain for centuries to come. It’s characteristic that the building has no windows at all apart from the ground floor. These entries were used to get the grain out and because of that we now have all these shops and cafés here today. The heritage protection has been adamant from the start – no new openings or windows were allowed.’

The challenge for the developer and the architect was to find a purpose for a long, narrow building without windows. ‘The windowless floors are used as sports and dance halls – the walls are covered with mirrors, no windows needed. The two rooftop floors have been converted into office spaces with high panoramic windows that are actually invisible from anywhere else,’ explains the architect.

Stalker Street

’On the inside the building was like a container of wine bottles with many narrow tubes that have been removed, the only reminders are the hanging pyramids in the ceiling of the ground floor.’ There is just one passage through the building in the centre, a concession to the fact that otherwise getting to the other side would be extremely difficult. The elevator building was awarded the prize for the best renovated building in 2016 by the National Heritage Board.

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Architects Kosmos (Mihkel Tüür, Villem Tomiste, Ott Kadarik) KOKO Architects (Andrus Kõresaar, Raivo Kotov) Alver Architects (Andres Alver, Indrek Rünkla) Teigar Sova Arhitektid (Vahur Sova) HG Arhitektuur (Hanno Grossschmidt, Tomomi Hayashi) Emil Urbel Architectural Bureau

The final old building that remains to be restored in the quarter is the former bakery “Bread factory” – a 2-3-floor structure that will be converted into an office building. ‘This fits in well, as a good quarter has to have many functions during the day – there are many cafés, shops, residential spaces, so the offices help to keep the quarter lively and busy during daytime.’

‘What makes Rotermann quarter unique is that all buildings are very distinct as they have been built by different architects. This variety would not have been possible otherwise. The quarter is dense, apart from the main square there’s not much space between the buildings. It’s reminiscent of the density of the Old Town.’

The general plan of the quarter by Andres Alver has determined the structure and logic of the streets and thus also the volumes of new buildings and conversions. The density of the general plan is the foundation of the quarter that makes it great in the end. ‘An architect is useless if the street logic doesn’t add up. All new buildings had to be in harmony with the industrial past,’ says Kõresaar. ‘My favourites of the new buildings here are the New Flour Storage with its powerful square metal shapes and the Black House that uses pipes as quirky design elements throughout.’

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Black House

Restaurants and cafés Alter Ego BrewDog Carmen Café Flamm Noya Pagarini Purée R14 Platz Pull Ruby RØST Saku Castro Taptap Taqueria TOA Taste of Asia

Fashion

The landscape between the new-builds is a reference to the Old Town with its narrow and steep pathways, street access from the second floor and connection to the city and streets from all sides. One of Kõresaar’s favourite elements in the quarter is the “secret” public balcony of the Black House reaching over the street level and opening up a great view towards the main square – a great playful element with an optimistic feeling.

The latest additions on the north side of the quarter have moved on from the industrial past taking on a metallic and futuristic big city character. Kõresaar thinks the light elements add some fast-paced energy and the general impression is a bit angrier than the rest of the quarter with the old houses.

It seems that the stamina of the developer is finally paying off. During the long years of development, the possibility of life suddenly pouring in was at times almost unimaginable and has now been a welcome surprise. The beginning years prompted the question of whether people would ever like this place at all as a destination or rather just keep passing through. The latest development has definitely turned Rotermann Quarter into a destination – a hub of contemporary lifestyle with a touch of Tallinn’s industrial and trading past.

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Beauty and health Savannah Hairline Rosen Dental Clinic Rotermanni Kliinik Si Style Beauty Salon The Sigma Beauty Salon KehaPood SkinMed

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#EstonianWay – the inspiring and affordable essence of Estonia

By Piret Malv, Visit Estonia

The Estonian Tourist Board is running an ad campaign targeted at people outside Estonia and featuring celebrities from all around the world who promote Estonia as an exciting travel destination to their fellow citizens.

Within two years, the #EstonianWay social media and digital marketing campaign will turn a hundred foreigners into Estonian ambassadors, so to speak. The Estonian Tourist Board has succeeded in attracting various athletes, musicians, entrepreneurs, journalists and popular social media opinion leaders from all around the world to join #EstonianWay.

The aim of the “Visit Estonia” videos is to spark the desire to travel to Estonia and also to promote local tourist destinations like hotels, restaurants, attractions, beautiful locations and everything else the country has to offer. To date, the campaign has reached over 63 million people and the videos have been watched more than half a million times. The travel experiences of the visitors have received over 200 000 reactions on social media.

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Photos by Mariann Liimal

Each trip covers a unique experience that introduces the way some normal activity is done in Estonia. This is where the name of the campaign comes from: the special way it is done in Estonia or #EstonianWay. The journey of each participant in the campaign is filmed, providing video content. In addition to the “Visit Estonia” channels, this content will be promoted by the participating celebrities who have large followings. In this way, people interested in travel will find the campaign page which includes the travel programmes of the celebrities. It is hoped that these will in turn provide inspiration for people to make their own trips to Estonia.

The campaign page with constantly updated content of #EstonianWay can be found at estonianway.com.

Fairy-tale in the forEST Just imagine being a journalist. You travel to Estonia to cover an entire film festival. The Black Nights Film Festival PÖFF is one of the largest in northern Europe and one of the fifteen A-level competitive film festivals in the world, which has been recognised by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).

It’s a new country; a festival programme with 500 films, most of which you won’t manage to see; many new acquaintances and impressions. And then there’s the food. Where to find something quickly that is more or less edible and nourishing? Oh ok, there is a bus of journalists leaving for lunch somewhere. You hop on and off it goes… … and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a film. The rush is over. There is silence.

Deafening, reinvigorating silence. Gentle snowflakes falling. You’re in a strange landscape – perfectly shaped pine trees, but they are the size of pygmies, all wearing snow caps.

So this is what a bog looks like! A fascinating landscape in a country that is known for beauty and its number of bogs.

Behind the trees you start to distinguish some strange shapes. They have a human body but the face of a tree. Spirits of nature. Such stillness with faith in the force of nature dates back to times long gone. In Estonia it all suddenly takes place. The spirits lurking behind the trees are melting into them. From somewhere the

beat of an ancient drum starts and then you are offered a delicious meal inspired by this same nature: caramelised moss that tastes like the finest truffle mousse.

Recipes inspired by nature continue. The food is fresh, organic and, in the open air, it tastes like something out of a Michelin-star restaurant. The spirits guide you further. The meal is followed by a performance about the essence of Estonian nature. About survival. About focusing on what matters. The blue light of the Nordic, dogs accompanying on the hike, and the blue reflection of the bog lake in the background. Lanterns in the hands of the hikers create a light mood. Food cooked on a bonfire in the middle of a snowy forest offers a perfect contrast to the dark cinema screenings.

A group photograph is taken in the end to capture the experience. Everyone has gathered strength from nature and from one another, also finding out a thing or two about themselves. The importance of silence ad pure nature to recharge. It has also become clear that Estonia, with its even landscape where one does not need to fight with precipices, canyons and summits or other dramatic landscapes is a perfect place to calm down in nature and to let new thoughts and energy flow.

This is the story captured in those photographs that you can retell your friends and business partners.

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However, if calm is not what you’re looking for, your mind is clear and you need to find an exciting outlet for your energy, what is there on offer in Estonia?

Each year Estonia organises the Simple Session, the largest extreme sports competition in Europe. The event has made Estonia known among internationally famous BMX riders, skaters and their fans. Those courageous sports artistes have not just stayed in the well-equipped indoor arena; they have also ventured outside elsewhere in Estonia to put their skills to the test.

As part of #EstonianWay, three BMX-riders and YouTubers from the USA – Austin Augie, Anthony Panza and Billy Perry – came to Estonia in search of adrenaline. To start their athletic adventure, they first rode fatbikes in the Rummu quarry, near Tallinn. This former quarry and prison landscape has been shaped into an exciting collaboration between humans and nature. Narrow and winding trails offer technical excitement and one can enjoy panoramas that seem to come straight out of science fiction films.

Albeit in a special location, riding bikes was nothing out-of-the-ordinary for the riders.

What followed offered them the kind of adrenaline kick that the audiences get out of watching them do life-endangering tricks at the sports arena. Namely the visitors went to …. the smoke sauna. It is no wonder that this phenomenon in Estonia is listed as part of

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UNESCO cultural heritage. A smoke sauna is a “slow” phenomenon. It is heated up for half a day and then one needs to take the time to enjoy it properly. Modern-day shower gels have no place here, neither do angry or tense conversations. In the smoke sauna, one sweats oneself into a purer body and soul.

Ok, let’s face it – the smoke sauna itself would not have been a complete adrenaline kick.

This dot on the i was created by following the Estonian custom of running out of the sauna and jumping into a hole in the ice. The joyful shouts which followed really can be compared to the triumphant shouts made by Simple Session winners. This demonstrates an Estonian attitude: next to outward achievements, it is equally important to have a tough spirit and to conquer oneself.

The adrenaline kick was completed with an ice hockey match on the Harju Hill in Tallinn.

Spectators enjoyed watching the extreme athletes do extreme sports that they do not professionalise in. The special charm and spark of this match came from the fact that it took place in a spot that organically melts into the cityscape. Not in some indoor arena at the edge of the city, but in the middle of the UNESCO-heritage listed old town on a beloved public skating ground.

Come and enjoy the pleasures winter has to offer! A smoke sauna in Võru county! By the way, in Rummu quarry one can also go diving and rafting in the summer.

Photos by Liina Lotta

Extreme ESTonia

Climate change has already impacted the length of the season in which ice roads can be used in Estonia. There have been times when they were opened for several months. For years now the roads have not opened before Christmas. But in February, during the coldest days of the year, excited visitors from all over Europe come to drive on our seas. In order for an ice road to open the thickness of the ice needs to be at least 20 centimetres.

In a cold and long winter with thick ice, when all Estonia’s ice roads are opened, the length in total reaches over 80 kilometres! It is a unique experience to drive on the ice road to the second largest Estonian island of Hiiumaa because the road is 25 kilometres in length –

Europe’s longest ice road!

Hugo’s experience of the ice road was calm and reserved. It is right to have a cautious approach and Estonia has various regulations regarding traffic on ice roads. For example, the recommended speed of driving is up to 25 km/h or 40-70 km/h, because at the speed of 25-40 km/h the vehicle can create resonance waves that can damage the ice.

The ice road is the only road where it is compulsory to keep your seatbelt open. It is also forbidden to stop the vehicle in the middle of the ice road.

On official ice roads in Estonia there has never been a serious traffic accident or a car sinking through the ice.

Testing out the push sledge after driving on the ice road was an exciting change. Hugo would have loved driving to his university lectures in that.

Photos by Juhani Särglep

Yes, Estonia has the coolest ice roads in Europe. The ice road is the trademark of Estonian winter. It was tested out and introduced to his fellow citizens by the French YouTuber Hugo Décrypte.

CoolEST ice roads in Europe

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In March of the Estonian centenary year, such deep jumps were made at the Tallinn Admiralty Pool by everyone who arrived here for the World Winter Swimming Championships.

This international event brought together over 1500 participants from more than 40 countries. For five days, the visitors enjoyed sports, culture and the charms of Tallinn.

One of the participants was Jon Cardwell, a journalist from the UK, who took part in the action. Doing an interview in swimming shorts with the snowy city in the background was probably not as daunting as the jump into the wintry water which followed. Afterwards, Jon visited Estonia’s transportable saunas, which are quite special and which had been brought next to the competition pool.

The best Nordic swimming experience can be had between November and March when the water temperature is around 1°C, the water bodies have an ice cover and there is snow on the ground. A long-time winter swimming enthusiast Kristel Kärner from Visit Estonia has said that winter swimming is not like a winter jump into the water. The latter is something quick and impulsive, like jumping from a steamy sauna into the cold water and then back to sauna again. It has its own charm and is related to our sauna traditions. But winter swimming is an endurance sport which first and foremost strengthens the spirit. Each time you walk through the snow towards the water which has been cleared of ice, each time you have calmly and silently stepped into the water and reminded your body that calm breathing is essential, you become a champion. Triumphing over yourself!

After the jump into the freezing water and a cold splash over his entire body, Jon was not entirely sure whether he preferred winter swimming to indoor pools. However, in Estonia, winter swimming is gaining popularity. It has become a social phenomenon, a kind of a new marathon used by people to stay healthy and also remain spiritually vigorous and socially active.

DeepEST plunge

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Photos by Sergei Zjuganov

What is the deepest jump into the water? No, it is not in the Mariana Trench. The deepest jump is in a place which is special for the person, which mobilises the entire body’s stamina and requires a real effort to rise back onto the surface, which makes it that much more valuable.

Photos by Ingmar Muusikus

Frode ESTil – Estonia-Norway friendship Whereas the sauna, ice holes and winter swimming are the so-called rapid national sports of Estonians, we have demonstrated our strength and endurance for decades in the more classical fields as well. Skiing is a sport where Estonian athletes have brought home world championship medals and Olympic medals. For the athletes themselves it is a strenuous achievement, for the audience a great feeling and many recall the last metres and deciding minutes for years and years after new champions emerge.

These competitions are dramatic journeys for the athletes, who often stay in touch with those they meet there their entire lives. Who would understand the enormous self-triumph required better than another athlete! After all, they have eaten a lot of salt together, as we say.

Estonian skiing legends Jaak Mae and Andrus Veerpalu chilled out and recalled their competitive days together with the Norwegian skiing celebrity Frode Estil. They spent some typical Estonian time in between the hills of our international ski resort Otepää.

As is common for winter athletes, they spent the entire day outside, which is wonderful in the wintry southern Estonian nature. In southern Estonia, the weather conditions often bring down a beautiful white snow layer when the rest of the country has to make do with mud.

They started with a peaceful hike in a snowy forest with binoculars and cameras, capturing a deer and many birds. After their warm-up, they went skiing and of course, the champions could not do without competing amongst themselves. The adrenaline kicked in and recalling their past competitions when everything was in play, including the shiniest of medals, all three had red cheeks enjoying this fun competition.

And of course, the day came to a relaxing end in the sauna, discussing world matters in a steamy tub in the midst of the beautiful snowy landscape.

You too can have all these experiences. Grab your friends and find your own #EstonianWay! More information at: estonianway.com.

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Events calendar: Highlights from January to March Life in Estonia recommends

COOP FIS Cross Country World Cup 19 – 20 January @ Otepää

sTARTUp Day 23 – 25 January @ Tartu

The biggest winter sports competition, the Otepää World Cup, is back in Estonia. Come for two days to see the world best skiers, keep your fingers crossed for Estonian athletes and enjoy the winter. The diverse program offers something for the entire family.

Startups have taken over the business world, but only one in ten startups is successful. Most of them operate thanks to investor contributions and when the investments stop, the business model is unable to carry on independently. sTARTUp Day is the biggest business festival in Estonia and these problems are discussed there. The central theme is ‘How to Make Money Without Spending It?’.

www.owc.ee owcup owcup

Exciting debates are held on various topics, such as virtual reality, space technology, and creative industries. Participants can visit different workshops alongside the biggest fair of student companies in Estonia. There is something interesting for everyone. www.startupday.ee startupdayfest startupdayfest startupdayfest

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MustonenFest Music Festival 1 – 9 February @ Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu and Jõhvi The series of Baroque music concerts, initiated

by Andres Mustonen and Hortus Musicus in 1989, has grown over the years into a major festival. The festival explores different eras and brings a number of reputable musicians from abroad to Estonia.

MustonenFest has changed a lot over time; however, it still focuses on the music that is performed and the musicians who perform it.

The anniversary festival returns to the roots of the festival – the programme includes plenty of early music programmes, extraordinary folk music, and much more. concert.ee/en/kontserdi-kategooria/ mustonenfest-en/

Tasty Tartu restaurant month 1 – 28 February @ Tartu

The European Sauna Marathon

Simple Session

The Tasty Tartu restaurant month (Maitsev Tartu) takes place for the fourth time this February, highlighting the most creative fare the city has to offer. Tartu has been dubbed the ‘culture capital’ of Estonia; it’s home to one of Northern Europe’s oldest universities and a flourishing art scene, but it is also filled with superb restaurants. Diners have the chance to order and judge limited-time menus at some of Estonia’s top restaurants while getting acquainted with the essence of Tartu. All meals include an appetiser, main course and dessert.

This sauna marathon sees registered teams attempting to experience as many of the saunas in and around Otepää as possible over a period of six hours. The start is at midday, with teams being given orienteering maps. All of the members of a team must be in each sauna for at least 3 minutes, with bonus points for dips in ice holes and cold water pools and use of other attractions provided by the sauna owners.

The team that visits all of the saunas in the shortest time wins, with awards presented to them with the sauna owners at Kääriku Sport Centre. Bring your friends and join in on the fun!

The annual Simple Session BMX & skateboarding contest – one of world‘s most anticipated action sports events – will take place on 2-3 February in Tallinn, Estonia. SS19 will be hosting over one hundred top athletes from around the world at Saku Arena, the largest indoor event hall in the Estonian capital. With 30+ countries represented, the Simple Session has grown into one of the most international extreme sports events out there. For years, Simple Session has been the highlight of the world’s BMX & skateboarding contest calendar, reaching a global audience through its massive media coverage and celebrating everything that is amazing about BMX/skate lifestyles.

The unforgettable contest will be followed by unstoppable after-parties that form together one awesome festival experience.

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2 February @ Otepää

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2 – 3 February @ Tallinn

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Events calendar

Tartu Marathon

World Film Festival 18 – 23 March @ Tartu

Tallinn Music Week 25 – 31 March @ Tallinn

The Tartu Marathon is the largest ski marathon in Eastern Europe, which brings together nearly 10 000 participants each year. The Tartu Marathon tracks are located in beautiful Southern Estonia; 63 and 31 km distances are on offer. Foreign visitors have said that this is one of the most beautiful and interesting trails in the world. The Tartu Marathon is part of the international Worldloppet cross-country skiing series. For the first time, there will be a Vintage Race at the marathon as well: covering the same distance as others with skis made before the year 2000 will be a totally new experience.

World Film Festival is an event dedicated to documentary cinema. The festival develops interest towards anthropological, analytical approach to cultures and societies, welcoming film entries from all over the world. The film program turns attention to cultural exchange as well as cultural representations of everyday life across the world. Around 50 films will be shown during the event that talk about cultures and daily lives from all around the world.

Tallinn Music Week (TMW) is the biggest indoor festival in the Nordic-Baltic region. The artist line-up presents over 200 Estonian and international acts from diverse musical genres, attracting an enthusiastic audience of nearly 25 000 music lovers from Estonia and abroad.

Beside the main frenzy taking place at the capital’s finest venues, there’s a way to discover a lesser-seen side of the city – free pop-up concerts, pub-quiz style chatter, culinary delights and art exhibits within TMW’s sub-programmes and fringe-events – City Stage, TMW Talks, TMW Tastes, TMW Creative Impact conference, as well as TMW Arts and Design Market.

17 February @ Otepää

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