Tallinn offers testing opportunities for sustainable companies
During the year of the European Green Capital, Tallinn invites both domestic and foreign companies to come and test their sustainable products and services suitable for a smart city. Estonian businesses have had the opportunity to test their products in Tallinn as part of the Tallinnovation programme; however, this new programme is also offering the opportunity to conduct innovation projects in an urban environment for foreign businesses. At the beginning of June in Merivälja, innovation firm 10Lines tested car park marking with the help of a robot.
At Kesktee 38, the new car park was drawn by the firm’s clever new robot, which allows the marking of road surfaces to be carried out more accurately, efficiently and with a noticeably smaller ecological footprint. The marking of car parks is a task carried out primarily by hand, with nearly 70% of the time spent on measuring and pre-marking. The 10Lines automatic robots carry out this task up to seven times faster and do so with a significantly smaller team.
“The technology being developed by 10Lines allows us to achieve many of the goals set as part of Tallinn’s city planning strategy,” said 10Lines Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Janno Paas. “First of all, the robots will certainly help in creating smarter and more user-friendly urban spaces in the future. Second, road surface markings are one of the most important inputs for the navigation of self-driving cars, as such, the 10Lines robots help prepare urban spaces for both traditional and self-driving cars to co-exist safely.”
The goal of the marking project is to draw initial markings on various types of objects, which will improve the user experience of cycling lanes, car parks and other elements of the city environment. “During the course of the project, we are looking for opportunities to use the 10Lines robot as part of a smart city environment. For example, testing the robot in collaboration with other devices, vehicles or infrastructure,” said 10Lines Tarmo Prints.
The Tallinn City Enterprise Centre has developed two programmes: Tallinnovation, as part of which the 10Lines robot is being tested, and Test in Tallinn.
“Both programmes are inviting entrepreneurs to develop and test their products in collaboration with the city of Tallinn. Tallinnovation is a fund supporting smart city solutions and is only open to businesses based in Tallinn as part of a competition based measure, with a total 100,000 euros dealt out between various companies every year. This year, we received a record number of 25 applications,” said enterprise centre innovation expert Mark-Emil Talivere.
In 2022, 10Lines received 30,000 euros from Tallinnovation for the purpose of product development. This year’s winners will be chosen and announced on 14 June.
Test in Tallinn is a Tallinn European Green Capital 2023 programme, open on a rolling basis, which also offers foreign businesses the opportunity to conduct tests using programme funds. The programme allows companies access to our streets and buildings and valuable experiences.
The first Test in Tallinn projects were approved by the innovation committee in April. Nine applications were submitted for the first project evaluations, of which three were accepted. Green Gravels OÜ, a fibreglass gravel production company; GScan OÜ, a company developing solutions for 3D modelling based on cosmic radiation; and Hydro Engineration OÜ, which deals in the hydrogen-based cleaning of internal combustion engines.