As we prepare for the farewell of 2023, we reflect on a year of growth, collaboration, and strides toward smarter urban living.

The year-end provides a valuable moment to acknowledge key accomplishments, celebrate successes, and contemplate the goals still on the horizon.

Join us in revisiting the highlights, celebrating achievements, and anticipating a future where together, we create bridges between technology, sustainability, and human well-being.

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been part of our journey, and let’s continue the work to create better and smarter cities together.

Here’s a brief reflection on FinEst Centre’s journey in 2023.

Research and innovation

At the core of our work are our exceptional research and innovation teams from Estonia and Finland. In 2023, researchers working with the FinEst Centre have published 68 academic publications.

To coordinate and facilitate the research activities of FinEst Centre´s researchers, Dr. Kaija Veskioja has led a regular research seminar as of this year. The aim is to get an overview of the topics, provide opportunities for discussions, feedback, and networking.

It’s taking place as an informal and friendly roundtable chat with 1-2 presentations (per seminar) followed by discussion and feedback. Guest researchers are also highly welcomed, let us know if you’re interested!

One of the most recent publications was ‘Managing Smart City Governance’ playbook, that is primarily aimed at municipal governments and their political leaders, local administrators, and public officials who are involved in smart city initiatives.

This is an internationally collaborative effort, jointly developed by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, Edinburgh Napier University, and Tallinn University of Technology, including researchers working with the FinEst Centre.

Prof. Luca Mora presented the launch of this playbook at the Smart City Expo World Congress in November in Barcelona.

At the Smart City Expo, we had a few more remarkable opportunities to participate in discussions of the following topics:

• Data-driven urban innovation: Laura Mrosla showed the potential of data on the example of digital twins in the GreenTwins project.
• Energy evolution: Einari Kisel took part of a discussion on “Breakthroughs Driving the Clean Energy Transition,” showcasing Estonia’s experience of energy breakthroughs in buildings management and smart city solutions development with RESTO and DigiAudit.
• Economic vitality & talents roundtable: Külle Tärnov engaged in the discussion exploring the dynamics of cities in pursuit of talent and economic vitality. Külle brought practical examples of how to create and measure the well-being of citizens and creating a more attractive and inclusive living environment.

Besides the flagship event Expo, our team members took part of 40+ conferences and smart city related events during the year. Many had the opportunity to present their papers and participate in discussions with other professionals in the field.

This year brought a great opportunity for the founding director of the FinEst Centre, prof. Ralf-Martin Soe, who won the Global Digital Governance Fellowship at Stanford University.

Ralf-Martin visited Stanford first in the spring of 2023, and second time in autumn, with a goal to collaborate with smart city and cyber policy related researchers.

Thanks to the the great work within Stanford’s networks, FinEst Centre will host an intern from Stanford in the summer of 2024.

In addition, importantly about innovation, in 2023 two patent applications have been submitted:

1. “Method and device for evaluating individual’s stress” by Kristjan Pilt, Maie Bachmann, Ivo Fridolin, Marietta Gavriljuk, Deniss Karai.
2. “Method for internal and string stability of an observer-based controller for vehicle platooning with a leader of varying speed” by Wei Jiang, Elham Abolfazli, and Themistoklis Charalambous.

Looking ahead to 2024

Continuing the journey of Smart City Challenge 2023, we eagerly anticipate receiving pilot project proposals by February 29th.

While we wrap it up, it’s a good time to take a look at the numbers of participants (take a look at the key figures on the image added).

If you missed the ongoing round or require more time to engage partners, take a look at the Smart City Challenge 2024, with an introductory webinar scheduled for April 3.

From our research community we will expect to see a few PhD defenses this year. Stay tuned to our channels for detailed information!

Wrapping up 2023, we welcomed the addition of 5 new European projects to our portfolio. Although recent, they promise significant steps toward smarter cities across Europe.

Wrapping it up

On behalf of the FinEst Centre we extend our gratitude to every city representative, researcher, student, entrepreneur and partner dedicated to advancing smarter, more sustainable, and happier cities together.

We can foresee that the need for smart solutions is only growing in time and the sooner we start implementing new solutions in our cities, the sooner we could improve the quality of life.

One this is for sure, stepping into the new year, we will continue to focus on novel smart city solutions development, high-level research activities, building and strengthening our international team and last but not least – keep human-centric focus throughout all our activities.