Highlights from the ‘Innovative Sofia Meets Innovative Tallinn’ Webinar
At the end of September, Innovative Sofia and Tallinn Enterprise Department organized the ‘Innovative Sofia Meets Innovative Tallinn’ webinar. The event was dedicated to Tallinn and Sofia, their digital and smart city development and current initiatives, as well as the synergies and possibilities for collaboration between the two cities.
Mr. Gencho Kerezov, Deputy Mayor for Digitalization, Innovation and Economic Development of the Sofia Municipality, gave some introductory remarks and welcomed all the presenters and participants in the webinar from Tallinn and Sofia.
Innovation and Governance at the University of Technology in Tallinn, the FINEST Twins Smart City Center of Excellence in Tallinn, the GATE Centre of Excellence (Sofia) and Sofia University “St.Kliment Ohridski”, and the Traffic Management and Analysis Directorate of the Sofia Municipality presented their innovative, digital and smart city projects. The webinar was moderated by Ms. Ana Georgieva, Expert ‘Digitalisation, Innovation and Investments’ at Innovative Sofia, and Mr. Jaanus Müür, Project Manager at Tallinn Enterprise Department.
Mr. Toomas Türk, Leading Innovation Specialist at Tallinn Enterprise Department, spoke about Tallinn’s work towards achieving a true e-society. It includes all-electronic operations in regards to administrative documentation, testing of smart urban solutions with 3D simulations, work with a geographic information system (GIS) for making evidence-based decisions about the city through spatial modeling, real-time traffic management systems via IoT, AI, and big data. Did you know that Tallinn has had parcel delivery robots operating on the streets since 2017?
Prof. Sylvia Ilieva, Director, and Assoc. Prof. Dessislava Petrova-Antonova, Research group lead at the Big Data for Smart Society (GATE) institute presented the City Digital Twin pilot project. City Digital Twin is a big interdisciplinary project that develops a digital twin platform to design, test, implement, and provide solutions for the urban environment.
Dr. Ralf-Martin Soe, Founding Director of Smart City CoE, TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology, and Dr. Erkki Karo, Associate Professor at TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology, presented the FINEST Twins smart city center of excellence and how TalTech collaborates with cities in fostering smart city ecosystems.
The FINEST Twins CoE in Tallinn works on various projects in cooperation with the Municipality of Tallinn. The center advises the city government on new regulations and works on pilot projects for joint innovations in collaboration with the municipality. The Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) has a campus with a 5G network since 2018, smart walkways, autonomous cars, a smart sensors system (the largest IoT network in Tallinn), and many other innovations that use the campus as a test site for applications and improvements.
Eng. Dimitar Petrov, Director of the Traffic Management and Analysis Directorate of Sofia Municipality, presented the centralized traffic control system in Sofia. After introducing the traffic control system, the travel time in the city has decreased by 30%, the emissions – by 25%, and the fuel consumption – between 7-9%.
Ms. Nadia Soutlanova, Director ‘Digitalisation, Innovation and Investments’ at Innovative Sofia, presented our work on the gradual accession of the regional administrations to the Unified Model for application, payment, and provision of electronic administrative services, the participation in the European Commission’s 100 Intelligent Cities initiative, our work with the London-based FutureGov on the design of e-services based on life events within the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Digital Innovations, Sofia Municipality’s centralized information center Call Sofia, Skilly – Sofia Municipality’s chatbot for assisting citizens during the social isolation due to COVID-19, and others.
You can watch the video with the presentations of all participants in the “Innovative Sofia Meets Innovative Tallinn” webinar here. You can also find the participants’ presentations and contacts below.
A big thank you to Tallinn Enterprise Department for co-organising the webinar and to all presenters and guests from Tallinn and Sofia’s ecosystems that joined the event! We believe it was only a first step towards a more in-depth dialogue between the two cities, and that there are many synergies and opportunities for collaboration to be further explored in the future.
Please, do not hesitate to contact our team if you need additional details or contact information for collaboration with the organizations participating in the meeting.
You can download the presentations and find the contacts of the presenters below:
“Tallinnovation and Tallinn`s Road to Smart and Green“
- Mr. Toomas Türk, Leading Innovation Specialist, Tallinn Enterprise Department toomas.tyrk@tallinnlv.ee
- Mr. Jaanus Müür, Project Manager, jaanus.muur@taltech.ee
Sofia: Digital. Smart. Innovative
- Ms. Nadia Soultanova, Director “Digitalization, Innovation and Investments” at Innovative Sofia, Sofia Municipality, nadia.soultanova@innovativesofia.bg
- Ms. Ana Georgieva, Expert “Digitalisation, Innovation and Investments” at Innovative Sofia, Sofia Municipality, ana.georgieva@innovativesofia.bg
- Dr. Ralf-Martin Soe, Founding Director of Smart City CoE, TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology ralf-martin.soe@taltech.ee
- Dr. Erkki Karo, Associate Professor at TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology erkki.karo@taltech.ee
Big Data for Smart Society (GATE)
- “GATE Center of Excellence“, Prof. Sylvia Ilieva, Director, GATE Institute, sylvia@fmi.uni-sofia.bg
- “GATE City Digital Twin Pilot Project“, Assoc. Prof. Dessislava Petrova-Antonova, Research Group Lead, GATE Institute, d.petrova@fmi.uni-sofia.bg
“AV Shuttle Use Case in Tallinn” – slides, video presentation
- Dr. Raivo Sell, Head of Autonomous Vehicles Research Group, Senior Researcher & Program Manager of Product Development and Robotics, TalTech University, raivo.sell@taltech.ee
“The Traffic Management System in Sofia City”
- Eng. Dimitar Petrov, Director, Traffic Control and Analysis, Sofia Municipality, inj.d.petrov@gmail.com