The TalTech School of IT’s doctoral student who received ITL's Ustus Agur scholarship is developing AI-powered methods to diagnose Parkinson's disease in its early stages.
The Education and Youth Board and the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITL) have announced the recipient of the Ustus Agur scholarship. The highest recognition in the ICT sector's doctoral studies field and the €5,000 scholarship was awarded to Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) doctoral student Elli Valla. Valla is pursuing her doctorate in Information and Communication Technology at TalTech, with her thesis titled "Applying Artificial Intelligence in Human Fine Motor Kinematics Analysis for Parkinson's Disease Diagnosis." Her doctoral thesis is supervised by TalTech Software Sciences Institute Professor Sven Nõmm and Tallinn University Cultural and Neuropsychology Professor Aaro Toomela.
As part of her research, the scholarship recipient developed AI-based diagnostic applications that help address the problem of insufficient health data. The result is machine learning models that can detect Parkinson's disease symptoms from subtle patterns in fine motor skills, helping patients begin timely treatment and supporting quality of life improvement.
According to Valla, the impact of the research extends beyond national borders: "The developed smartphone application and machine learning models can be adapted for international use, positioning Estonia as an innovation hub that brings digital healthcare advances to a global level. Locally, these innovations strengthen the resilience of Estonia's healthcare system and help better address the challenges of an aging population," she adds.
ITL board member Ivo Lasn notes that while most discussions about AI focus on finding answers to questions more quickly, the true value of AI lies in the machine's ability to analyze data thousands of times faster than humans and draw conclusions. "In healthcare, where analysis is time-consuming and there's a worldwide shortage of medical personnel, using machine learning-based tools provides a significant effect. On one hand, we save doctors' time, and on the other hand, disease prevention and early-stage treatment is multiple times cheaper, also having less impact on the patient's daily life. The scholarship recipient is seeking innovative technological solutions in her doctoral thesis for the preventive detection of neurological disease, which would allow doctors to intervene in the disease progression early on," said Lasn. He added that the scholarship aims to encourage young people to pursue doctoral studies, where their research can create new technologies that could be implemented after further development.
Harno IT Academy Program Manager Signe Ambre adds that the competition highlights important IT-related research topics each year: "This year's competition had a very high standard, with candidates' research seeking solutions to several societally important problems, such as cybersecurity and IT security risks more broadly, using IT possibilities in education, and people's health."
ITL's Ustus Agur scholarship is intended to support doctoral students at public universities whose doctoral thesis topic is either specifically related to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) field or more broadly addresses ICT use in another field.
The scholarship has been awarded since 2003.
Technical scientist and computer scientist Ustus Agur was a pioneer of Estonia's information society who also laid the foundation for Estonian IT terminology. Through this named scholarship, ITL and HARNO recognize the scientist's outstanding contribution to the development of Estonia's information society. The scholarship is awarded within the IT Academy (ITA) program. ITA is a cooperation program between the Estonian state, universities, vocational schools, and ICT sector companies to improve the quality and competitiveness of ICT vocational and higher education, ensure necessary workforce resources, and develop research in the field. The IT Academy program and activities are coordinated by HARNO.