Top 12 ideas have been selected: 2 from Mobility, 4 from Energy, 3 from Built Environment – City Planning, 2 from Data and 1 from Governance. There are 10 Estonian towns and 4 foreign towns participating in these 12 ideas based on the present proposals. The projects can still involve further cities. Teams need to send their final projects by November 27 after what they will get the opportunity to present their ideas and teams on December 8 to the international evaluation committee. The selection of the ideas into the finals has been made with the help of wide range of experts from different countries. Two to three experts have given their input and the feedback has been sent to all ideas. The proposal about the ideas to be financed will be made by the international evaluation committee and approved by the steering group of the FinEst Twins project.

The two ideas selected from the domain of mobility plan to develop and pilot:

• a conceptual ecosystem solution to transport system management. The goal is to create a wholesome automated and personified transportation solution, that changes the whole public transport more convenient and closer to stakeholders’ needs;
• a multimodal transportation model of urban traffic for storing and pre-processing urban data in a standardized manner and format.

The four ideas selected from the domain of energy plan to develop and pilot:

• Double Skin Façade system, i.e. an intelligent prefabricated facade system, in a case of non-residential building;
• a platform and scientific tools for real-time building performance audit for local municipalities and other potential entities with large real estate portfolios;
• a different 4th generation district heating network solutions in Estonian cities;
• tackling energy supply for urban areas through electric microgrids and local electricity markets.

The three ideas selected from the domain of built environment and city planning plan to develop and pilot:

• smart planning, monitoring and control of urban drainage systems;
• a decision-support platform for green urban mobility;
• the urban green elements for digital twin.

The two ideas selected from the domain of data plan to develop and pilot:

• a city dashboard for strategy-based data inventory and usage;
• a mobile smart sensor box.

The idea selected from the domain of governance plans to develop and pilot how to co-create of smart services for the elderly in urban and rural localities.

We, TalTech from Estonia and Aalto University from Finland, have been looking for ideas to make the following domains in the cities smarter: mobility, energy, built environment, governance and data. There must be at least two cities involved in each pilot project. One of these has to be from Estonia and the second could be from another country. We expect the results of the projects to be world level research and scalable prototypes.  FinEst Twins Smart City of Excellence has been given the mandate by the European Regional Development Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Research and Education to carry out 10 research intensive pilot projects targeting real life challenges and have remarkable impact for the cities. 15 million euros has been granted to make it happen during 2021–2027. 2-4 ideas will be selected from this 1st round and will start in 2021. The similar challenges will take place annually in the following 3-4 years.

More information from: https://www.taltech.ee/en/smartcity