In the summer of 2024, we had the pleasure at the FinEst Centre to host two talented interns from Stanford University as part of the Stanford Baltics Exchange Program. This program not only brings Stanford students to the Baltics but also supported Assistant Professor Ralf-Martin Soe, founding director of the FinEst Centre, in his visit to Stanford as a Global Digital Governance Fellow in 2023. 

These exchanges are part of a growing collaboration between the smart city communities of Stanford and Tallinn, aimed at fostering innovation, research, and international dialogue on sustainable urban development. 

Now we’re happy to introduce Austin Kim, our summer intern of 2025! With a background in sustainable engineering and digital humanities, Austin brings a multidisciplinary perspective to the FinEst Centre’s work.

During his time in Estonia, he hopes to deepen his understanding of smart city innovation, learning how to scale projects, collaborate effectively, and gain insights from the centre’s ongoing initiatives. He’s also eager to apply his Stanford coursework in a real-world setting and take new skills and experiences back with him after the summer.

Who’s Austin and what brought him to Estonia? Find out in our short chat!

What are you majoring in at Stanford, and how does it relate to the topic of smart cities? 

I’m a rising junior majoring in Civil Engineering, with potential minors in Energy Science & Engineering and Digital Humanities. Most of my engineering coursework has covered technology-interfaces in the built environment, such as optimizing building systems with AI and energy efficiency.

Through digital humanities, I’ve explored local culture and aesthetics of cities through the arts, architecture, and urban studies. Overall, these engineering and humanistic fields allow me to appreciate cities from various perspectives! 

What inspired your interest in cities and smart city innovation?

Because I have family and friends spread across different communities throughout Los Angeles, I grew up admiring the city’s overlapping urban landscapes, architectural styles, and local cultures. I felt that I grew to be a part of these various communities and wanted to serve the spaces that have shaped me into who I am. 

I initially wanted to become an architect and came to Stanford eager to learn relevant technical skills. As I got deeper into coursework and research, I saw that there is so much to the technical side of the built environment. I became fascinated with the endless avenues to explore deeper and eventually learned about smart cities towards the end of my freshman year. 

From then on, I began taking relevant classes and keeping up with smart city efforts around the world! I became especially interested in clean energy and 3D modeling cities, as well as efforts to integrate these two disciplines. Thus, I’m excited to see how it will unfold in my hometown of Los Angeles, and hope that I can play a role in the smart city transition around the world! 

You arrived in June. What have you noticed about the work life, the team, culture, or Estonia in general? 

I love how everybody at the FinEst Centre is incredibly passionate about smart cities and eager to share more about their work with me over lunch, a coffee-run, or a walk around TalTech campus! It has been amazing learning just how many disciplines within smart cities are represented by FinEst staff as researchers, engineers, policymakers, and partners. 

It is also interesting to see that many people at the FinEst Centre are motivated by their personal experiences and where they come from around the world, evident in the diverse perspectives within their team dynamics. 

Since arriving in June, I have onboarded for an AI-based Digital Twin project and have begun preliminary research into integrating AI solutions. I’m also working with Forum Virium Helsinki on developing clean energy pilot programmes for cross-border collaboration between Finnish and Estonian start-ups. 

In between these projects, I also had the amazing opportunity to accompany a team of delegates visiting from South Korea based in Yonsei University and the Seoul Metropolitan Government. I got to sit-in on discussions between them and various branches of the Estonian national government regarding innovations happening in both countries and potential opportunities for collaborations! 

Overall, the opportunities that the FinEst Centre has included me in are once in a lifetime. I’m incredibly grateful for what’s occurred thus far, and incredibly excited for what’s to come! 

How did you find us all the way from across the pond?

I came across the FinEst Centre while looking at Stanford’s 2025 Global Studies Internship Program, which coordinates various job positions for students like me across the world.

I was intrigued by the FinEst Centre’s project description to make cities across Europe “climate-neutral and smart by 2030” and became eager to learn how their pilot approach would do so. In total, there are about 10 of us based in the Baltics, with events like field trips and tours coordinated by Kadri Paju, the Stanford Global Project Manager at Vabamu, as well as Liisi Esse, Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies at Stanford University Libraries. 

Overall, I’m very thankful for Kadri Paju’s and Ralf-Martin Soe’s efforts in establishing this internship opportunity with Stanford, I’ve learned so much thus far at the FinEst Centre and have had so much fun exploring Tallinn! 

If you have ideas to discuss with Austin, contact him austinjameskim@stanford.edu.