Starting the 4th round, Külle Tärnov, Innovation Lead and pilot projects coordinator in the FinEst Centre shares her best recommendations.

Külle has coordinated the whole program and all pilot projects since the very first challenge in 2020. If the first two rounds involved only Estonian cities then starting from the 3rd round, we’ve gone across borders and aim is to have at least one Estonian and one city from another country in each pilot. This helps us to make sure we’re solving a wider problem, and developed solutions are scalable internationally.

It also gives cities around the world a wonderful opportunity to work together with a strong research team and a city from Estonia to create a new solution needed by many cities. 

Recommendations for cities, municipalities, and campuses for submitting challenges

Firstly, look at our already created smart solutions and if they might match your challenge. If yes, contact us!  

To present a challenge to participate, we recommend the following: 

• Register for the introductory webinar on April 3rd. 
• Investigate the main information, timelines and resources. Save the dates for future workshops to introduce your challenge. 
• Submit 1-3 challenges on “Proposing city challenge” template and send to the e-mail smartcity@taltech.ee by May 15. 
• Vote for challenges proposed by other cities that are relevant for your area by June 18.
• Cities are not expected to propose solutions. Researchers will do that by September 16.
• We will engage relevant people from partner cities to guarantee good quality contribution to the development of the pilot solution, carrying out the piloting in the city and preparation for long-term implementation. The costs of city experts and other needed direct costs for piloting are covered by us.
• Take a look at the submitted challenges and solution ideas in previous round, to get a glimpse into what kind of challenges to possibly work with.

The pilot projects are 100% financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.