Expo’s Estonia Pavilion is the perfect sustainable smart city model

DUBAI: Technological innovations that could shape the cities of the future were the focus of a discussion at Expo’s Estonia Pavilion earlier this week, with business leaders and innovators from Estonian companies Telia, Datel, Mobi Lab, Auve Tech, Positium, Eyevi Technologies and Bercman Technologies debating smart solutions for everything from future living to sustainability.

The Baltic nation’s pavilion, known as e-Estonia, has put technology in the spotlight, showcasing smart and sustainable digital solutions across the living and business environments. In 2007, Estonia became the first country to allow online voting in a general election – and today, it prides itself on its e-governance and paperless operations across its public sector. The major Estonian cities, Tallinn, the capital, and Tartu, are leading the way in providing sustainable solutions for connectivity, seamless travel, smart built environments and education.

Speaking about how Tallinn aims to become the ‘green capital’ of Estonia, Mihhail Kolvart, the city mayor, said, “A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses digital technologies to improve the quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and its services while ensuring it meets the needs of present and future generations. Tallinn is constantly looking for solutions to make its urban environment smarter and increasingly sustainable. Tallinn’s way to become a smart city revolves around accessibility, interoperability, user-friendliness, and developing and adopting technologies that will contribute to a carbon-neutral city. It is here that you can find self-driving cars, delivery robots, solar-panelled pavements, smart crossings, self-service mini marts, and other futuristic products and services.”

Similarly, Tartu is implementing technology to deliver smart solutions to its own urban population. Urmas Klaas, Mayor of Tartu, said, “Tartu is known as a digital start-up hub, as well as a green and cultural city. As countries compete with each other for their cities to become ‘smart’, we believe that tech and innovation should first and foremost serve people. Tartu was the first city in the world to introduce mobile parking in 2000.”

Today, Estonia’s 1.3 million citizens pay for parking spaces through their mobile phones. Tartu and Tallinn are real-time cities powered by seamless solutions, and are proving that connectivity and new technologies are the way forward to future development.

Source: Expo 2020 Website