In the summer of 2024, the FinEst Centre has the pleasure of hosting two interns from Stanford University. Interns are visiting Estonia through the Stanford Baltics Exchange Program that also enabled Assistant Professor Ralf-Martin Soe, the founding director of the FinEst Centre, to visit Stanford as a Global Digital Governance Fellow in 2023.

The internship in 2024 is part of an ongoing effort to build continuous collaboration between the smart cities’ community at Stanford and Estonia.

Now, get to know Taylor, one of our curious and ambitious interns spending her summer in Tallinn, Estonia.

What draws you to these topics?

I have always been interested in cities, especially European ones. My mother is from the Czech Republic. All my mother’s family still lives there, in the second largest city, Brno. Every summer that we could, my mom and I would go and visit them.

Spending time with my family and exploring the city together was always the highlight of my year. I have continued to visit Brno as I have grown up, and over time I have realized that this city that I love has many flaws.

The ghosts of the Soviet Union occupation of Czechoslovakia are evident in the Republic’s built form with its worn down, homogenous, paneled apartment complexes and its crumbling street infrastructure. Its history behind the Iron Curtain has an apparent influence on the contemporary culture and the disposition of Czechs as well, but that is a conversation for another day.

I have visited some other central/eastern European cities, like Vienna for example, and it often feels like you are stepping out of the past and into a whole new world, despite being just two hours from Brno. Comparatively, the cleanliness and the lack of quality public parks and spaces in Brno, amongst other things, is lacking. I still love the city dearly, imperfections and all, but I can clearly see the issues within Brno’s urban (and social) environment.

I believe it is ultimately the time that I have spent in Brno that has elicited my interest in urban life and design. I am curious in how historic European cities are implementing solutions to address the challenges they are actively facing (complicated histories, population growth, deindustrialization, work from home trends, climate protection, social issues, etc.) to increase the quality of urban spaces and life within them.

What value do you expect to gain for your studies and interests from your experience at the FinEst Centre?

I find the work that FinEst Centre is actively undertaking to be innovative and exciting, and I am thrilled to learn and develop from these projects and the people involved. I want to engage with larger-scale, and more dynamic and impactful research, and learn more about the creative projects and solutions that are being developed to tackle urban challenges and to approach climate neutrality targets within Europe.

You arrived at the end of June; what have you noticed about the Centre, the team, or Estonia in general?

The Centre has been a lovely place to work, and everyone was so welcoming. The people at FinEst Centre come from an array of different backgrounds and countries, and I have thoroughly enjoyed talking to everyone, hearing their stories, and learning about the projects they are working on.

I am currently working on the NetZeroCities project and writing articles about green/smart projects being implemented in certain EU Mission Cities. These Case Studies will then be made available to other cities as a reference for their own projects as they work toward their respective climate neutrality and sustainability targets. I have really enjoyed exploring the case studies so far and learning about the unique ways cities are utilizing resources to solve modern urban problems.