Life in Estonia. Autumn 2019

No52 3 /2019

Focus on smart city solutions Estonian Cleantech – the next big thing The revolution of the circular economy Fashion tech alters the fashion industry Fotografiska – the new favourite spot in Tallinn Estonian saunas make their way into the world Erki Kasemets turns trash into art

Helen Anijalg: Roofit.solar panels are a global sensation

Pajaka-Vardi Limited-Conservation Area, Märjamaa County / Photo by Kaupo Kalda

investinestonia.com/start

Cover photo by Atko Januson

Let the Greentech race begin Estonia is known to be a very green country. Its air quality is among the best in the world and over half of its territory is covered with forest. Our nation’s roots are so deeply tied to the spirituality of nature that we have earned ourselves the nickname “forest people”.

As we watch ourselves and the world living the modern lifestyle, we see the threat to the balance of humans and nature. Science has proven again and again the unavoidable truth that global warming is a man-made problem, and pollution and climate change are progressing at dangerous speeds. Many forward-thinking nations have recognised this climate crisis to be the biggest threat to our collective security and some have declared a national state of emergency due to it.

Executive publisher Positive Projects Pärnu mnt 69, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia lifeinestonia@positive.ee Editor Reet Grosberg reetgrosberg@positive.ee

Translations

As members of the developed world we are also part of the world’s largest consumers and polluters who have brought on the greatest challenge that modern humanity has ever faced. For those reasons, it is also the duty of developed countries to lead the world out of this climate crisis. Let’s not pass on a wrecked planet to our children and grandchildren. If we can cause it, then we can fix it. But we need to act fast because it has become a race against the clock.

We can come to a peaceful solution by changing our consuming habits and working together towards greener technologies. It is hard to let go of the comforts of modern life and so, above all, it’s a race of technological development. Everything from inventing new biomaterials to accelerating green energy innovation. If we unite our efforts into cross-border collaboration, joint innovation and co-investment – we can really do it. By working together we can win this race.

Ingrid Hübscher Language editor Daniel Warren Design & layout Positive Design

Estonia’s green-thinking, engineering mindset and super entrepreneurial ecosystem have the potential to play a major part in this race. With some world-leading innovations in solar, hydrogen and grid tech, autonomous vehicles and more, we are only beginning to enter global markets with the innovation that comes out of Estonia. The road to a cleaner and greener future is set. So we invite you, dear reader, to explore and embrace the opportunities Estonia has to offer towards the development of healthy planet Earth. Let the Greentech race begin!

Raido Lember Director, Estonian Investment Agency

Estonian Investment Agency supports companies investing and expanding in Estonia.

World-class human capital, unique digital capabilities and a competitive business environment make Estonia a smart, agile location for businesses with global ambitions. investinestonia.com

The production of the magazine has been inspired by green technology

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News & events

“Skåpet” – Estonian architecture in the Norwegian wilderness

Estonia leading the way in smart city solutions

KOKO Architects have created a one-of-a-kind, contemporary, self-catering tourist lodge called “Skåpet”, which has been the Norwegian trekking association’s most popular self-catering cabin for the last 2 years, with more than 4000 overnight stays registered in the cabin’s logbook.

Estonia’s smart city solutions could become the next big thing: Ülemiste City in Tallinn is now one of the most exciting and innovative business campuses in Europe; a base for over 400 companies and more than 10 000 workers. TalTech has created a Smart City Centre of Excellence (Finest Twins) which will focus on smart city solutions and bring the cities of Tallinn and Helsinki much closer to each other than their geographical distance of 80 kilometres. Smart and green city solutions are also being developed elsewhere in Estonia.

12 State of Estonian Cleantech Beside the story of e-Estonia, another is being written. Estonian cleantech innovation is based on Estonia’s world-class startup ecosystem and clean nature. According to the statistics of Startup Estonia, the Estonian cleantech sector is comprised of 48 startups with two main topics trending amongst them: energy efficiency and electrification. Find out why to invest in Estonian cleantech.

18 BioBag bringing sustainable waste management to Hiiumaa Dagöplast, owned by the Norwegian group BioBag since 2015, is one of the biggest employers on the island of Hiiumaa; they are looking to positively impact waste management on Hiiumaa and make the island truly green.

Life in Estonia talked to Jørn Johansen, Director of Sales and Marketing for BioBag, who is cooperating with the county to create a sustainable waste management system.

CONTENT

23 Estonian solar roofs attract global interest What looks like an iPhone and has Elon Musk as its top promoter? This is how the founders of the company Roofit.solar introduce their elegant, black solar roofs. It is the only Estonian company to be listed by the German Energy Agency among the top 100 energy startups in the world. They will be recognised at the World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi this autumn.

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36 Indonesian farmers use e-Residency to help more people grow their own food Asep and Retno, two Indonesian farmers, were granted e-Residency of Estonia which enabled them to establish Tanibox OÜ to develop their

Artificial turf can be environmentally friendly and recyclable For the past 27 years, Advanced Sports Installations Europe has installed football fields all over the continent. Lately, the company has expanded their portfolio to be more environmentally friendly and recyclable. With the Arena Concept, the company offers field owners the option of an innovative, zero-waste method of reusing artificial turf on-site in just 7 days.

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high-tech agricultural business from Indonesia as an EU company with team members and partners in both Europe and Asia. Now they hope to empower many more people around the world to enjoy the same opportunities.

41 The “Re-Invent Yourself” programme – talent attraction for international spouses in Estonia Coming to Estonia as an accompanying spouse, you might lack a support network and information about your new environment – but Estonia offers a helping hand to those talents wanting to enter the labour market. The Spouse Programme helps the spouses of foreign specialists to find employment in the local labour market and create a community to mutually support one another and exchange experiences.

43 Pollinators help to fight plant diseases Everyone loves big, beautiful, tasty strawberries. But how do we avoid excessive use of herbicides and instead use pollinating insects as a pest barrier? Life in Estonia talked to Marika Mänd, Professor of the Estonian University of Life Sciences and international research group participant. She gave us a closer look into the nature of biowarriors.

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Trash to treasure

Top fashion tech expert Lisa Lang is a fan of Estonian design

How are Estonian startups contributing to the revolution in the circular economy of the textile industry? There are several startups as well as many innovative projects tackling this problem through different initiatives, and even a course on sustainability for designers conducted at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn.

50 PORTFOLIO. Time Wizard Erki Kasemets Have you ever tried to stop time? The artist Erki Kasemets does just that by using old milk and juice cartons, buttons, matchboxes and beer cans – in other words, everything someone else might consider rubbish.

62 Solve the puzzle by turning passion into a real business!

Costume Puzzle is an educational costume game for kids. Today, the company is selling their product in Estonia while simultaneously working on export development activities for the Nordic countries. Founder Karen Korjus speaks about her experience of turning her passion into a business.

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Lisa Lang, a German entrepreneur, technologist and speaker, is one of Europe’s most influential people in fashion tech. She features on Forbes’ list of Europe’s top 50 women in tech. Since the beginning of this year, she has been working together with the skilled Estonian pearl embroidery designer Siret Esko.

69 Fotografiska has arrived in Tallinn Fotografiska Tallinn redefined the role of an exhibition space when it opened in 2019 as the first branch of Stockholm’s coolest art centre franchise. The Tallinn team is proud to head the worldwide expansion of the concept by opening well ahead of New York and London. The centre is a meeting point of world-class photo exhibitions, great food, music and design; framed by an open, responsible and sustainable mindset.

73 Why the world is learning to love Estonian saunas The first written sources about smoke sauna traditions reach back to the 13th century. Recently, Estonia’s sauna tradition has been making news around the world due to a surge in both sauna exports from Estonia and sauna tourism to Estonia. What makes saunas so special in our part of the world is not necessarily that they were invented here, but that they survived here. The sauna has continued to evolve over thousands of years and is still relevant to our modern lives today, yet the basic principles remain the same.

79 Events calendar: Highlights from September to December

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Photos by Raigo Pajula

The 8th Estonia’s Friends International Meeting brought together Estonia’s allies from around the world

Estonia has come a long way to become the thriving economy and dynamic cultural scene it is today. However, the country could not have achieved its goals without external support. In fact, Estonia has always been making friends beyond its borders and always welcomes their counsel and advice.

In order to thank and recognise the business, political and cultural figures whose actions and advice have helped Estonia to become the country it is today, the Estonia’s Friends International Meeting was brought into being. The first meeting was held in the summer of 2010 and was initiated by the President of Estonia, at that time Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the entrepreneur Margus Reinsalu and Enterprise Estonia.

There are two main objectives of the meetings: first, to ensure that the positive message of Estonia’s success is spread around, and second, to host as many of Estonia’s friends in the world as possible. During the event, the participants are offered an opportunity to exchange ideas on the future of Estonia and to mingle with the country’s business community and political decision-makers, as well as learn about local culture and nature.

Through discussions, events and networking, the participants have the chance to learn more

about the country’s current state as well as the ambitions for the future. Over the years, the topics that have been discussed have, amongst other subjects, included Estonia’s culture, e-democracy, the country’s position in Europe and global Estonians.

This July, the Estonia’s Friends International Meeting was held for the 8th time and brought together around 150 of Estonia’s allies from all around the world. The list of invitees included politicians who have helped Estonia to achieve its goals on the world stage, business-people who have already invested or are interested in investing in Estonia, cultural figures who have introduced Estonian arts to the wider world, as well as many Estonians who are active abroad. Usually the guest list varies each time and the organisers try to gather different figures so that the positive word about Estonia could spread through as many channels as possible.

This year, the gathering opened with a traditional symposium entitled “Quo vadis Estonia?“, which focused on development in the digital age. The symposium was held at the Vabamu Museum and opened with the welcoming words of President Kersti Kaljulaid, who expressed her optimism for the future of the country by highlighting innovation

and confirming her ongoing commitment to matching the standards of the private sector in the public sector.

In addition to the symposium, the attendees were invited to visit the Prime Minister’s Bureau and the day ended with the traditional Estonian National Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by maestro Neeme Järvi.

The second day began with visiting the Arvo Pärt Centre, which was followed by attending the XXVII Song Celebration.

Over the nine years that the event has been taking place it has brought together bright people with new ideas and endeavours, both of which play an important role in creating friendships and economic ties in the world and therefore contribute to the further advancement of Estonia. ‘Due to the tensions and emotions in recent years in Estonia, Europe and the wider world, it is particularly useful to bring Estonia’s friends together in one room to discuss ways in which Estonia is doing well and how we could be doing even better,’ said tech guru and event organiser Sten Tamkivi.

For this reason, the gathering is as important as ever and Estonia continues to welcome its friends from all over the world. estoniasfriends.org/en LI FE I N ESTON IA N o 5 2

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Photos by Ahto Sooaru

Latitude59 attracted more than 2500 visitors from 58 countries

by Maarja Pehk

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Photo by Kristi Sits

Latitude59 – Estonia’s flagship startup and tech event – welcomed more than 2500 visitors from 58 countries in Tallinn on the 16th and 17th of May. Among the attendees were 270 investors and more than 700 startup representatives. Taking place in the Kultuurikatel venue as usual, the 12th year of the conference saw some tweaks and new formats added to make the experience more interactive and inclusive.

17 different topics were discussed as part of the stage agenda, including cyber security, entrepreneurial ventures and state funding as well as leadership 4.0, STEAM-ed and smart city concepts. Other topics included data in health-tech and GovTech. All in all, more than 100 speakers from all over the world stepped onto the five stages. The opening speech was given by President Kersti Kaljulaid. Among the speakers was legendary investor Morten Lund, who has founded and invested in more than 200 high-tech startups in the last 20 years, including Skype, Tradeshift, AirHelp & Hippocorn; former French Minister of Culture & Communications, Minister of Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the founder of Korelya Capital Fleur Pellerin; and the Finnish serial entrepreneur and a visionary of the FinEst Bay Area – Peter Vesterbacka.

12 founders from Estonia and abroad shared their unbelievable stories of building their businesses. Among others, Karoli Hindriks – founder of Jobbatical, Eric Lagier – founder of the byFounders investment fund, Ida Tin – founder of Clue, and Peter Halacsy – founder of Prezi. On the second day of the conference, 10 investors from all over the world stepped on the stage in order to pitch to a ruthless startup jury.

While the stages were busy with discussions, stories and presentations, Kultuurikatel and its courtyard was bustling with networkers. More than 1000 meetings were set up at the Karma.vc matchmaking area and Practica Capital’s meeting points. Almost 20 000 messages were sent on the official matchmaking app Talque. 47 of the hottest early stage startups from Europe and Asia showcased their products and services at the Tehnopol Startup Demo Area and, in total, a whopping 111 pitches were delivered at different pitching events. The first ever “Meet Estonia” area introduced the visitors to Startup Visa, e-Residency, the working opportunities for foreigners within Estonia and the e-Estonia Showroom.

Latitude59 culminated with a big pitching afternoon on the 17th of May. The pitch competition received more than 100 applications, out of whom 10 teams made it to the final. Identix. one – the first scalable and ready-to-use facial recognition platform won the Latitude59 Killer Combo Prize, which included 10 000 EUR equity-free cash and several perks from the L59 partners. The Nordic Angel Program pitch competition had two winners this time around with the volunteer management platform Zelos and video-based recruitment platform VideoCV both taking home 225 000 euros in seed investments.

In addition to the main event, the Latitude59 week had a busy side programme, with 24 official events popping up all over Tallinn.

Ranging from receptions and workshops to sauna events and panel discussions, these events attracted more than 1700 visitors during the week.

Latitude59 2020 will take place on the 28th and 29th of May. While the super early bird tickets are now sold out, the rest of the tickets will be on sale in November at latitude59.ee LI FE I N ESTON IA N o 5 2

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Photo by Egert Kamenik

Investor Day

by Invest Estonia Just before Latitude59 started, Invest Estonia had organised a day filled with networking events for both investors who had already invested in Estonia as well as those who were interested in discovering different opportunities.

The Investor Day kicked off at Teras Beach – a unique indoor beach hall with 700 square metres of white sand – where around 150 angel investors and VCs gathered to learn more about the opportunities that the region has to offer. The day ended at the Põhjala Tap Room where guests were able to continue their conversations and exchange ideas in a smaller and more intimate environment.

Estonian tech and music to take centre stage this autumn in Toronto The first Estonian Music Week took place in 2018 in Toronto and was a huge success.

This year, the music festival is expanding to bring along a whole new tech groove and, in

addition to hearing the best progressive pop, jazz, and modern classical music, there is also an opportunity to meet e-Estonia’s most exciting new startups and e-Estonia representatives.

This year, the Estonian Music Week joins forces with the two-day tech event called Latitude44, a conference aimed at bringing together key players in the technology world from Estonia and Canada. Both Latitude44 and the Estonian Music Week are organised by the Estonian Studies Centre/Museum of Estonians Abroad (VEMU).

The tech conference will be held in Toronto on the 14th to 15th of November at the WE Global Learning Centre: the first day is dedicated to

startups, innovation and e-Residency and the second day focuses on introducing e-Government. This is an intimate networking event that allows attendants to interact with senior decision-makers and potential strategic partners in the startup and e-governance spaces.

Canada is a world leader in this field, with advanced expertise in artificial intelligence, financial and blockchain technology. Estonia, on the other hand, has been dubbed “the world’s first digital society”. ‘We can learn a lot from Estonia, which is the most “eco-friendly” country in Europe for technology startups,’ says Eric Morrison, the co-founder and director of Latitude44. ‘Their digital government is an example to all of us, and is the way the world should be going.’

Both countries are well-kept secrets from one another and there are many advantages to encouraging ties between the two. In the evenings, the concerts of Estonian Music Week take place at various venues and continue into the weekend.

For more information see here: www.latitude44to.ca www.estonianmusicweek.ca

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An Estonian student company launches a home composting pilot project

By Sten Hankewitz , estonianworld.com

A former Estonian student company, Wastefox, is launching a home composting pilot project in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, saying it’s the largest of its kind in Europe.

The project, called Rohering (“the Green Circle” in Estonian), involves 150 fast composters to be distributed to the residents of Tallinn. The project is being carried out by Wastefox and the Tallinn Waste Centre.

Based on the results of the pilot project, the company plans to create a method for distributing high-speed composters to EU governments next year that will help them meet the union’s goals to recycle 50% of municipal waste, the company said in a statement.

Most composters are distributed among randomly selected private houses in the Haabersti neighbourhood in Tallinn.

Decomposes food up to 10 times faster ‘For four months, the Tallinn Waste Centre will continuously weigh mixed municipal waste bins from the participating households to determine if the amount of biowaste in the municipal

waste has decreased after the distribution of the composters. Households have to pay a €25 entry fee to join the project,’ the company said.

Produced and developed in Estonia, the Wastefox fast composter decomposes food waste up to 10 times faster than conventional compost heaps, the company claims. ’The waste is not accessible to animals, does not emit odours from the composter and works with organic microbes that accelerate the decomposition process,’ the company asserted. The end product can be used to fertilise plants in the garden, it added.

The pilot project takes place within the framework of the European Climate-Kic City Challenge, the leader of European climate innovation, which was announced in 2018 by the Estonian NGO, Cleantech Forest, that promotes green innovation.

Wastefox was founded in 2016 as a student company to manufacture indoor waste bins. In 2017, the company also won the title of the Best Estonian and European Student Company.

Up to 500 litres of biowaste transformed into humus Researchers of the Estonian University of Life Sciences have contributed to the development of the composters. ‘An accelerated process in a composter allows a 50-litre composter to transform up to 500 litres of biowaste into humus per year. The heat needed to decompose the waste is aided by the special insulation around the box. The resulting humus can be used as a fertiliser in the garden.’

Wastefox founders Joonatan Oras and Madis Vodja

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Photo by Karl Ander Adami

State of Estonian Cleantech

By Triinu Lukas, Cleantech ForEst

Beside the story of e-Estonia, another one is being written.

This is the one of Estonian cleantech innovation, with the author of it being its world-class startup ecosystem.

Having gained momentum through Skype and other miracles of software, the Estonian startup ecosystem increasingly creates opportunities to enhance national pride: Estonia’s clean nature. There are forests and swamps and the cleanest air in the world – three things every Estonian proudly proclaims. With a little bit of magic, the field of Estonian eco-innovation will come alive.

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’Cleantech innovations take into account the future business models and guide their actions based on new and upcoming regulations that are intended to adapt and mitigate the climate change we face’

Clean = economically proven

Why is cleantech the next big thing?

International Energy Agency predicts 920 GW of increase in renewable energy capacity during the period of 2017-2022. This makes a 43% increase in five years – the same volume as the coal sector achieved in 80 years. The increase in risk investments in various cleantech areas reflects the introduction and potential of new technologies. To put it bluntly, old polluting technologies will not be there anymore in some years due to the following reasons:

Old business models are slowly dying In an open world, where information about climate change and the social and carbon footprint of big companies flows, the old economy encounters great problems. Investor Priit Lepasepp, CEO and founder of Sunly sees the basic problem corporations have: they are incapable of dealing with innovative technology development themselves. ‘The only way out for these companies is buying up startups.’ And future technologies provide their money with sustainable flow.

‘Cleantech innovations are the ones that take into account the future business models and guide their actions based on new and upcoming regulations that are intended to adapt and mitigate the climate change we face,’ says the CEO of Cleantech ForEst, Erki Ani.

Clean technologies offer holistic solutions to their foundational problems. It is not OK to sell clean energy, for example, and have a polluting enterprise; the cycle has to be well thought through. Together with optimization, the cost also goes down. ‘In cleantech one does the same thing with a smaller energy cost, the same thing with a lower environmental impact,’ explains Greentech manager at Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol, Ragmar Saksing. He also offers great examples of market takeovers in different cleantech areas. ‘For the renewable energy technologies, people always ask about payback time. I would ask in return: what would the payback time of diesel generators be? This concept does not exist, since you always have to add diesel. The usual warranty period for sun panels is 25 years and it is just economically sensible to invest into things that last a long time.’ He continues: ‘The food industry is a great field of investment, since the population is growing and we simply have no option but to innovate in this field. One third of the land is used for livestock farming, a third for animal feed and only one third remains for food production.

This tough reality boosts the share of a clean Foodtech company. And why should one invest in an electric car-charging startup? Because our infrastructure is not ready to receive all these coming electric cars yet and it’s quite definite that the value of the startup doing that increases.’ The early adopters of cleantech solutions often see themselves as market leaders. ‘People who are at the forefront of cleantech industries will certainly have difficult times in the process, but the consequence may be that you will, at some point, discover yourself as a market leader,’ says Lepasepp. There are numerous examples and cleantech entrepreneur Ivar Kruusenberg takes the classic one: ‘These who made the first investments in wind or solar energy are definitely very happy right now. Back then nobody believed that wind or solar would work out in Estonia.’

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Supportive regulations One of the reasons that cleantech is a growing trend is the passing of regulations such as the Paris Agreement or those of the European Union.

Lepasepp sees that there are several problems ahead to solve and institutions provide resources for companies arising with the solutions.

Sense of mission One of the most important motivations for investing in cleantech is the sense of mission. ‘In today’s developed world, a person might have an inner urge to make the world better,’ hopes Kruusenberg.

Higher risk/reward ratio This investment reason is only for the brave among us!

From the perspective of an investor, it is the risk/reward ratio that differentiates hardware and software.

Cleantech is usually hardware. Tuuliki Kasonen, the head or marketing of Sunly explains: ‘Software development requires people. And oftentimes that is all. In projects of energetics or hardware, which cleantech usually is, your risks are much higher, you invest much higher sums, but I would say the rewards are also significantly greater.’

Enefit Green Paldiski wind farm

Photo by Martin Ahven

Trends in Estonian cleantech According to the statistics of Startup Estonia, there are at present around 550 startups in Estonia that contribute to the steady yearly growth of 30% in the overall startup sector when main indicators (number of employees and employment taxes paid) are considered. 48 of these startups comprise the cleantech sector. Despite its emerging nature, the cleantech sector in Estonia has already seen three successful exits – NOW! Innovations (exited 2015), VitalFields (2016) and PlanetOS (2017). And exits are known to be the ultimate success indicators of startup entrepreneurship.

But who are currently defining the field for Estonia? The largest employers of the field are Skeleton Technologies and Comodule, but there are numerous newcomers with a mission to make our future liveable.

Let us now take a closer look into some of these cleantech heroes in two of the main future trending categories of Estonian cleantech – energy efficiency and intelligent electrification.

Energy efficiency

Skeleton Technologies production line

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Skeleton is seen as Estonia’s first cleantech unicorn to-be. It has the potential to establish itself amongst the top four Estonian software firms.

In the words of Kruusenberg: ‘The most active and successful are the energetics-focused startups.’ Saksing attributes it to the cool climate of the area. ‘Using renewables in different processes, for example ventilating and heating with solar energy or using solar energy in food drying systems. Bright ideas also provide solutions for consumers to produce solar energy at home.’

TOP CLEANTECH EVENTS: GreenEST Summit

ClimateLaunchpad Estonian Final

International cleantech conference covering essential topics and latest developments of the field. The event brings together international experts, cleantech companies and investors. On top of inspiring speakers, there are engaging panel discussions and Europe’s top cleantech companies presenting their ideas. The next summit, on mobility and logistics, takes place on the 29th of October 2019.

This is one of the key annual events where investors can meet emerging cleantech startups. The event is an Estonian final event in the context of one of the largest cleantech business idea competitions. Speakers give informative talks and startups present their business ideas.

PowerUp! startup competition Cleantech Breeze A series of events to network and meet other great minds from the field of cleantech. New topic every time.

Tehnopol’s Green Mornings A series of events in which the coolest sustainable and cleantech solutions are discussed by presenters and visitors.

Skeleton Technologies The idea is to help to save energy and the

also dealing with a huge problem for maritime

means for it are market-leading ultracapacitors

realisation of discoveries in fundamental science.

(energy storage devices), ultracapacitor mod-

It deals with the production of the world’s first

ules and full energy storage systems. The tech-

portable fuel cell-based smart generator, which

nology enables companies to reach significant

can be connected with solar panels and wind

energy savings in a wide variety of industries.

turbines to produce power on board a yacht or

Skeleton has already raised 41.7 million euros

camper van.

SolarStone The company provides affordable building integrated solar panels. ‘They have similar stones to Tesla’s sun panels’, describes Kruusenberg.

WePower WePower’s energy procurement and trading platform is a one-stop-shop solution that provides companies with tools to help them understand their electricity consumption patterns, find a best-fit renewable electricity producer, contract with it digitally and then monitor generators as they are built and start generating electricity. Saksing describes this Lithuanian-Estonian company as the Energy TransferWise. ‘I cannot understand why renewable energy has to be pricier than energy coming from fossil fuels and this problem is something they attack very strongly.’

Elcogen Elcogen is the world’s most advanced manufacturer of ceramic anode-supported solid oxide cells and stacks for power generation. The company is internationally very successful.

TUGE wind turbines It feels as if the lack of sun allows Estonians to appreciate and make value out of the energy coming from it, but there are many windcentred ideas also, one of which is Tuge and its small wind turbines.

transportation and is an excellent example of the

from investors.

Roofit.solar Their solar roofs are integrated photovoltaic construction elements that replace the conventional roofing and facade materials. ‘They have a

The competition is organised in 24 Central & Eastern European countries and is the largest of its kind, creating a huge opportunity for innovators to implement and develop their projects and join the global market. The next PowerUp! Estonian Country Final is taking place in spring 2020, during which you can get to know the best startup companies in Estonia and the latest trends in several Greentech sectors.

unique approach to sun panels, which is special on a world scale,’ believes Kruusenberg, who is well aware of the energetics himself, as seen in the example of the next company.

PowerUp Energy Technologies The company founded by Kruusenberg is

’Two of the main future trending categories of Estonian cleantech are energy efficiency and intelligent electrification’

Erki Ani would not let us forget that there are several successful startups from other fields of cleantech as well (e.g. agritech, textile). e-Estonia is all about digitalisation and the greatest grounds for innovation may also lie therein. ‘Digitalisation has always been one of the biggest strengths in attracting innovation to our country. I believe this will be the case in the future, too. It just opens so many new opportunities to bring about new innovation and test it in a flexible digital society.’

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Intelligent electrification ‘When talking about the electricity market, electricity grid and charging, as well as renewable and distributed energy solutions, then Estonia is the world’s best place for the R&D,’ describes Lepasepp. ‘It has the world’s smartest grid and world’s first nationwide EV charging network.

Just because you can have access to the test server base with a very easy contract – and this is something not done elsewhere in the world.

Elsewhere you will always encounter restrictive network operator regulations. Estonia’s easily accessible consumption data can be generalised to the rest of the developed world and varieties of innovative solutions can be created based on that.’

Comodule The company that gathered the greatest turnover during the first half of 2019 represents the direction to electrification.

Comodule offers IoT solutions for mobility, already as a global leader in bicycle and scooter connectivity.

Lumebot Lumebot produces autonomous snow removal robots and Saksing would bet on them: ‘This is a hell of a strong team and therefore we at Tehnopol have made them a deal that next winter they will be shovelling here. They are solving the snow problem before it can even rise, since the robot does not mind working at 4:30 AM’.

Young but wise cleantech ecosystem Before introducing the three pillars of the emerging Estonian cleantech ecosystems – Cleantech ForEst, Tehnopol and Port of Power – it is fair to emphasise the role of research institutions that the network is based on. ‘If we look at the cleantech startups then most of them have backgrounds in science and when a startup has something to test or certify, scientific institutions can be turned to,’ stresses Saksing, whose Tehnopol has strong ties with TalTech university. Next to that, Estonia makes effective use of the funding mechanisms of European programmes through institutions such as InnoEnergy and ClimateKIC. Startups that have made it to the production phase are welcomed to cooperate and work in the PAKRI Science and Industrial Park. The following three pillars of the ecosystem are organisations that work specifically to support the creation and development of cleantech startups.

Port of Power Renewable energy company Sunly and Estonian green innovation support organisation Cleantech ForEst lately signed a collaboration agreement that also marks the beginning of the establishment of a new centre for cleantech and energy technologies startups. Named Port of Power (PoP), the hub draws together companies from the relevant areas offering investments and access to regional and international networks.

Cleantech ForEst An Estonian non-profit that supports and funds early-stage green technology startups, helps them advance their export relations, advances environmental awareness and business-science cooperation and supports energy experts. Ani explains the core of the organisation as follows: ‘I believe there’s a huge role in international cooperation when it comes to sustainable businesses support. Overall, the climate doesn’t have borders. That’s why our network also consists of stakeholders from developing countries, where the ideas developed have an even bigger impact, but also of relevant organisations needed for cleantech innovation commercialization from the EU and US.’

Sunly is the only Estonian corporate investor that specialises in cleantech companies.

Lepasepp explains the initiative: ‘Our aim is to provide an environment for people who think alike – green, in the given context. This coexistence creates synergies between the ideas, making them even more brilliant.’ One of his partners in this centre of the future is Ani, who sees Port of Power as part of the development of Estonia’s overall business mindset. ‘When organisations are starting to build up their own programs for supporting new innovation, this gives a great push towards corporate-startup partnership. That’s even healthier for the ecosystem and that’s what we see happening now.’ Kruusenberg supports the idea of the developing centre as something that brings brains from outside Europe.

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Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol A research and business campus with the mission of helping startups and SMEs grow more quickly. Tehnopol has a separate cleantech direction that, with its 5 years of existence, was the first institutional seed in the now-emerging cleantech ecosystem. Some third of the Tehnopol’s portfolio consists of companies working on energy-efficiency of buildings.

‘And we’re quite good at finding the export opportunities and contacts for these startups,’ adds Saksing.

‘Energy transition creates opportunities’

Why invest in Estonian cleantech?

Startup ecosystem

Work culture

The Estonian cleantech fairy-tale is quite magical since one can encounter the most unicorns per capita in the world. This is due to our world-famous startup ecosystem (www.startupestonia.ee/startup-ecosystem), led by Startup Estonia. The key element of the ecosystem is the Estonian Startup Visa. ‘With the visa it is possible to get the right people on board relatively quickly,’ in Lepasepp’s experience.

Since Estonians do what they promise, there are several development centres in the country.

Skype and Kuehne+Nagel, for example. ‘In the first project meeting we want to talk about how we plan to finish the project, not what kind of software systems to use to control communications,’ Saksing describes.

Governmental support Speed In Estonia things progress quickly. Saksing gives an example: ‘It is possible to get all the banks behind the table for a fintech startup. In Sweden it never is, since their banks are highly competitive.

Our country is just so small that every contact is a couple of telephone calls away.’

The same applies for the living environment – there’s no need to reserve 2 days to do the taxes – it’s done in less than a minute online, similar to the other 99% of our public services.

Agility ’In our small market you are able to test or change your business model quickly and relatively cheaply, before failing with millions or billions as Uber has done.’ Lepasepp’s statement refers to the agility of businesses that are able to redefine themselves when environments change – an ability oftentimes ensuring the competitive advantage.

The level of science Saksing, who works alongside the university every day, confirms that the level of our universities is “very-very good”.

‘Seeing that the government is interested in supporting innovation and entrepreneurship gives the ecosystem an even bigger boost. On the one side being the enabler and the other a role model definitely helps all ecosystem developers find the motivation to develop the sector,’ approves Ani, who, due to her projects with Cleantech ForEst, works together with the government on a daily basis.

‘On top of Estonia’s friendly investment environment, attractive tax policies, low bureaucracy and accessible digital solutions for setting up a company and online banking, relatively low labour costs, skilled and well-educated workforce, Estonia’s geographical location on the crossroads between the Baltics, the Nordics, Europe in general and Russia, might make a couple of heads turn. Moreover, startups coming from this small country are from the very start embedded with high ambition, vision and motivation to thrive. Estonia is a perfect incubator in which startups can build a launchpad to kick-off and scale to international markets,’ summarises Ani. A look into the young enthusiastic community could make one quite impatient to see the creation of another chapter of the story of Estonian cleantech. Or join in by contacting the ecosystem creators themselves!

Timo Tatar, Deputy Secretary General for Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications

During the last fifteen years, Estonia has dramatically increased its share of renewable energy in final energy consumption. Back in 2004, when Estonia joined the EU, our renewable energy accounted for merely 10% of the overall energy consumption.

Today, only fifteen years later, we are reaching levels of 30%. And this trend will definitely continue.

By 2030 we are expecting our total share of renewables to be 42% of total consumption. The increase will be driven by electricity (39%) and the heating sector (63%). The transport sector will catch up quickly (expected to reach 14%) thanks to more affordable and environmentally friendly modes of transport such as trains, trams and zero emissions vehicles.

Estonia has created a close-to-ideal environment for startups to roll out their businesses in Estonia. The capital for seed investments is clearly available. Climate neutrality by 2050 – the target heavily discussed in EU corridors and meetings – has created a positive vibe around the cleantech sector. That is where everyone is expecting the so-called “final mile” solutions. Solutions that will get us from 80% CO2 reduction to a climate neutral society. Estonia offers ideal grounds to test many innovative business ideas (e.g. aggregation, demand-response, AI solutions). Being a member of the EU internal energy market, the market rules become more and more harmonised between different member states, enabling business models working here also quickly scale into the rest of the EU energy market.

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By Maris Hellrand

Hiiumaa is the quietest of Estonia’s big islands. More than half of the county is covered by forests, making it the greenest in the country, and yet it is the centre of the Estonian plastic industry. Dagöplast, owned by the Norwegian group BioBag since 2015, is one of the biggest employers on the island; they are now looking to have a positive impact on the waste management of Hiiumaa to make the island truly green.

Jørn Johansen

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Photo by Atko Januson

BioBag bringing sustainable waste management to Hiiumaa

‘Today we are the second biggest employer in Hiiumaa in terms of people. In terms of revenue we are the biggest company on the island’

The high concentration of plastic industry on Hiiumaa is a Soviet legacy that has been revamped cleverly in the last few decades. Before 1990, many of the socialist agriculture collectives started small plastic productions in order to find new income streams. This laid the foundation for the specialised skills of Hiiumaa’s workers. After 1991, those who were more successful reoriented their products, approached new markets and became valued contributors to the local economy. Dagöplast, founded in 1997, has been leading the quiet plastic revolution ever since.

Life in Estonia talked to Jørn Johansen, Director of Sales and Marketing for BioBag, formerly CEO of BioBag International. Johansen has lived and worked on Hiiumaa for three years and is now cooperating with the county to create a sustainable waste management system.

What was the incentive for BioBag to buy Dagöplast three years ago?

Jørn Johansen (JJ): ‘We needed more space. We discussed if we could expand the factory in Norway but realised at the same time that Eastern Europe would be a great potential market for our products. That’s when we heard that Dagöplast was for sale.’

Now Dagöplast is almost three times bigger than the BioBag factory in Norway, employing around 100 people in Käina, on the southern coast of Hiiumaa.

What were the arguments for this location?

JJ: ‘Hiiumaa has a long plastic history, the level of competent people is high. We knew Dagöplast quite well. The total cost of business was

cheaper than in Norway but this was not the main driver – we are not very labour-intensive, rather machine intensive. But we could save money on the labour side as well. It can be a challenge to find the right people, but so far, we have had no problems. We have even been able to attract some people from the mainland back to Hiiumaa.

Hiiumaa as a production location doesn’t seem like an obvious choice – the raw material is being imported; the products shipped from the island. Isn’t the island location a logistical challenge?

JJ: ‘Transport is a serious issue as we ship three to four truckloads daily.

But it’s not a major problem. Our central distribution centre is in Tallinn, so all standard products are stocked there and from Tallinn we ship all over Europe and the world. Our biggest market as a country is the USA, then come the Nordics: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland. The Baltic states are coming up as well more and more. That was our big hope with the business location – to see more waste management improvement in the Baltic states.’

BioBag has gone through a transformation over the 30 years that Johansen has worked for the company. It used to be only traditional plastic production but has now turned exclusively to compostable, biodegradable and recycling products.

JJ: ‘Our main focus is on waste management, especially organic waste.

Compostable, biodegradable shopping bags, produce bags for fruit and vegetables, films for the hygiene sector, black films for the agriculture sector – biodegradable rather than synthetic planting films. Our own recycling factory recycles polyethylene for garbage bags. We make a lot of products for organic waste, composting or for biogas plants. For this you need really compostable bags that break down completely. That’s our core business.’

Photo by Mariliis Maasik

Hiiumaa Estonia’s second biggest island, also called Dagö Area just under 1000 km2 Population around 9000 people

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Reili Rand, mayor of Hiiumaa is looking forward to the new waste management system to be implemented from the beginning of 2020. From then, each household will be able to dispose of compostable waste and packaging separately. According to Rand, many households are used to home compost anyway and can continue in the same way. The new system will expand the opportunities for apartment buildings and businesses to sort waste more efficiently. The county hopes to save on food waste when it is no longer transported from the island but rather composted locally. This will also improve the recycling of waste and serve as a pilot project for other regions of Estonia.

Considering the rural lifestyle on Hiiumaa, one would assume that composting is a rule rather than an exception. However, it turns out that waste management has been lagging behind and only now is the county starting to implement a biowaste collection and treatment scheme on the island.

BioBag hopes to share its knowledge and experience from 18 countries.

JJ: ‘Treatment and collection of organic waste is a challenge in Estonia.

Looking at the Scandinavian experience we are looking for examples of how and what to implement here. Hiiumaa can be a pilot for Estonia, where we can prove that it’s possible to collect and separate waste in an effective way. Hiiumaa is being called a green island, we hope that it will become a green island also in regard to waste management. In Hiiumaa, 500 tons of food waste is being transported to Pärnu right now annually. We want to collect and compost it on the island, turn it into high quality soil and give it back to the people here, to the farmers, to improve the soil quality.’

this field in 18 countries. Small, medium-sized municipalities in Scandinavia would be good examples. When thinking beyond Hiiumaa, for places like Tallinn, Australia’s Adelaide is a great example of how to produce high quality compost.’

High quality compost is solving several problems at once. Especially when the climate crisis looms, the quality of soil is becoming a critical issue worldwide. So BioBag is on a mission here.

JJ: ‘Soil quality is a much bigger problem – we are used to taking and not giving back to the soil. In light of climate change, we have to realise this can’t go on. You have to give back.

But it’s also a good business case, and in the long-term hopefully a good saving. Just as using more sustainable materials instead of plastic, which is floating around in the oceans.’

You have lived on Hiiumaa for three years now.

Even by Estonian standards it can seem a very remote place to be. How has your personal experience been so far?

JJ: ‘To treat waste requires investment, it’s not cheap. BioBag is a commercial company that wants to sell systems for good waste treatment.

But in this case, our role is also to share knowledge. I’ve been working in

JJ: ‘I come from a very small place in Norway, so it’s not so different. Hiiumaa is beautiful and full of life in the summer but, when the tourists disappear, it is very quiet. It is very good for working – no distractions here!’

Photos by Mariliis Maasik

Treating biowaste locally is going to improve the ecological footprint of Hiiumaa within a few years. The ambitious project is set to start in 2020.

Johansen is looking at it as a business opportunity but also as a chance to share the experiences of many years working in the field internationally:

BioBag International Turnover: 45 million euros Headquarter in Norway Dagöplast owned by BioBag 160 employees, of those 100 on Hiiumaa Business activities in 18 countries

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Photo by Tõnu Tunnel

“Skåpet” – Estonian architecture in Norwegian wilderness

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Norway loves the outdoors and has a unique network of cabins even in the most remote but scenic locations of the country. The 550 cabins across the country range from simple traditional buildings with grass rooftops to samples of modern architecture, dotting the 22 000 km of marked foot trails.

KOKO architects have created the one-of-a-kind, contemporary, self-catering tourist lodge called “Skåpet” for the Norwegian Trekking Association in Frafjord Highlands on the south side of the Lysefjord, which opened to trekkers in 2016. “Skåpet” has been the most popular self-catering cabin of the whole trekking association network for the last 2 years with more than 4000 overnight stays registered in the cabin’s logbook.

The spectacular cabin, which can be reached with a 1.5-hour hike along a winding footpath, is the gateway to the grid in the Frafjord Highlands on the south side of the Lysefjord. “Skåpet” is also the first accommodation on the Lysefjorden Rundt hike, a continuous week-long walk around the entire Lysefjord, which goes through the world-famous attractions Preikestolen, Kjerag and Flørlis 4444 steps.

Photos by Tõnu Tunnel

“Skåpet” consists of a main cabin with shared living room and kitchen, as well as a couple of bedrooms as well as a loft with sleeping facilities for 11 guests. The rest of the beds are divided into 6 separate cabins,

which are positioned as independent satellites around the terrain. Each of the small sleeping cabins has five beds, and full panoramic windows on the building’s surface, which look out onto Soddatjørn. There is an outdoor shower and sauna in a separate building at the facility, fresh water comes from a lake and a clear stream underneath the cabin and lights are powered by the sun. The exterior finishes on the lodges are of rolled zinc, which resists the wind and snow and does not require maintenance for decades. The interior uses a lot of wood, which creates a warm and friendly atmosphere.

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Photo by Atko Januson

Estonian solar roofs attract global interest

By Ann-Marii Nergi

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Photo by Eeva Käsper

Aesthetical and powerful panels The roof panels come in three different sizes: for example, the small 545 x 1640 mm weighing 11.6 kg and the largest 545 x 2270 mm weighing 16 kg.

The smaller produces 110 W and the larger 160 W. The metal sheet thickness is 0.5 mm, but the final product is 4 mm thick. The standard colour black is the most cost-efficient material. For a full roof the production will depend on roof size and the location/ roof angle, for example 100 m2 roof will be ca 15 kW. The panels are suitable for both new and historic buildings, whether they are private homes or public buildings. Also for complete roof renovations.

One square metre of Roofit.solar panel can produce 150 W. Excess energy can be fed to the grid or be used to charge an electrical car.

A dwelling house with Roofit.solar roof in Southern Estonia

‘In comparison with Tesla, Roofit Solar Energy can already demonstrate specific advantages and success stories’ What looks pretty like an iPhone and has Elon Musk as its top promoter? This is how the founders of the company that produces elegant black solar roofs characterise their product.

In the new Roofit.solar production facility near Tallinn, the innovation that may break through as the people’s choice of renewable energy solutions, is gathering real momentum. Founded only three years ago, the company Roofit Solar Energy produces metal roofs with integrated solar panels. At the same time, it remains invisible that the roof produces electricity. The thin photovoltaic layer which produces electricity is installed within the roof panel and the panels are joined with each other under the roof sheeting between the battens. The company claims that the installation of the new solar roof is as easy as the installation of a standard metal roof.

Comparisons with the iPhone are invited by its black colour and smooth surface. Roofit.solar panels are thin like a smart phone but extremely durable owing to steel and tempered glass. In the USA, Tesla plans to start electricity-producing roofing tiles, and Elon Musk as an innovative visionary is the best promoter of the “solar roof” concept globally.

In comparison with Tesla, Roofit Solar Energy can already demonstrate specific advantages and success stories. First, the panel solution for metal roofs is three times cheaper today than Tesla’s offer and Roofit is prepared to take on larger contracts.

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‘I recently had a phone call with a Norwegian who wanted to buy our roof because he has a problem – he had too many Tesla electric cars in the family and not enough capacity to charge all of them. This is why he wondered how to make his house produce electricity,’ says Helen Anijalg, Marketing Director of Roofit.solar with a smile. The problems people have these days!

But speaking more seriously, she says that when she first heard from her husband Anders Anijalg, co-founder of the company, that someone has invented a nice-looking roof that produces electricity thereby solving two basic human needs – energy and shelter – she wanted to become part of creating the success story.

As it happens, this unique technology was born out of personal need.

Namely, Andri Jagomägi, researcher at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), had spent years researching and testing solar panels. When he started planning to build his own house, he realised he wanted to have both a standing seam metal roofing and solar panels. It is then that he realised that such a product did not exist anywhere in the world, but that it was totally possible to produce! In 2016, Jagomägi founded the company and, in 2017, the first Roofit.solar roofs were installed in Estonia.

The background of the co-founder, Andres Anijalg, is even more interesting; one could say he comes from the opposite side of the renewable energy sector. For over a decade, Anijalg used to work for Estonia’s largest energy producer Eesti Energia, where he led a project taking the Estonian knowledge of oil shale to Jordan. On the basis of that knowledge, an oil shale electricity plant is being built in the Middle East today.

‘Whilst developing the Jordan project, I witnessed the revolutionary development of solar energy, where one of the most expensive ways to produce electricity became the cheapest one. The cost of producing kWh of solar power fell 6-7 times in a short period. I have no doubt whatsoever that the sun is the future of energy production and I am really pleased to help develop it in a unique way in Estonia,’ says Andres Anijalg.

Today, the company is looking for new investors and capital in order to expand production and conquer export markets.

‘We are an industrial enterprise, but also a startup, and our product is easily scalable. In addition to increasing production capacity, we need to create software in order to export the electricity-producing metal panels and other roofing supplies that would come from local resellers,’ explains Helen Anijalg.

What is the cost of all this beauty and innovation?

Helen Anijalg emphasises that it is not more expensive than constructing a new roof and installing separate solar panels. The company can calculate the approximate payback period for each client on the basis of the (geographical) location, the angle of the roof and the cost of electricity.

Photo by Riho Kirss

‘A regular roof will never reach a payback time, whether you wait 100 years or not. In Germany, a Roofit.solar electricity-producing roof has an average payback period of 4-5 years, in Estonia it is about a decade.

Electricity bills are reduced and one can earn from selling electricity into the grid. Estonia actually has the same amount of sunshine as northern Germany or northern France, the payback period is mostly based on the local electricity price and the background system,’ says Helen Anijalg.

Therefore, to claim that Nordic countries have no sun is not true! The Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, and also British, German and Polish inter-

est in the product is already remarkable and the distribution network is under active development. There are daily inquiries from all over the world, from Africa to Australia and mostly from countries with a lot of sunshine.

The electricity-producing metal sheets developed in Estonia have already won a significant amount of competitions and awards. At PowerUp! – the biggest competition for startups and energy industry entrepreneurs from Central-Eastern Europe – the company won a national competition and, in the European round, the Clean Air Challenge Award, which acknowledges the best European startup helping to maintain clean air. Roofit Solar Energy is the only Estonian company to be listed by the German Energy Agency among the top 100 energy startups in the world. They will be recognised at the World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi this autumn.

In 2018, Roofit Solar Energy won the competition “Environmentally Friendly Product 2018”, organised by the Estonian Ministry of Environment. The global energy corporation ENGIE awarded the company the top prize at the competition of retrofit solutions, which will be followed up by developing a new electricity-producing panel with insulation.

Roofit.solar metal roofs are architecturally speaking a solution that suits many geographical areas and gives people the opportunity to produce renewable energy themselves. ‘We bring energy democracy to the people, so that they could participate in renewable energy production and personally contribute to environment protection’, adds the founder of Roofit Solar Energy, Andri Jagomägi.

‘The company can calculate the approximate payback period for each client on the basis of the (geographical) location, the angle of the roof and the cost of electricity’

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Investor Jüri Mõis believes in the triumph of renewable energy

Roofit.solar modules advantages compared to traditional solar panels and BIPV:

The well-known Estonian investor and founder of Hansapank – the predecessor of Swedbank – Jüri Mõis has already invested over half a million euros in Roofit Solar Energy. He confirms that he will participate in the next round of investment.

Roofit Solar Energy is a startup, which involves risks, the experienced team of the company creates trust.

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‘They are not kids wanting to create something fun in order to live a good life. I have known Andres Anijalg for a couple of decades. His experience in Eesti Energia and in relation to oil-shale as well as Andri Jagomägi’s career as a scientist are important reasons for me to be able to have faith in this company.

It is much easier to make an investment when you know the people behind the company,’ says Mõis.

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Mõis himself has ordered a Roofit. solar roof for his house and is looking forward to receiving it. ‘It is true that the best clients of a company are its owners,’ he jokes.

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Why? Mõis has several reasons. Firstly, he believes in renewable energy and in its profitability as an investor and he was looking for new opportunities to invest money gained from the sale of the largest Estonian wind energy company Nelja Energia. ‘I think that in twenty years, people will look at energy based on fossil fuels as a sin or something really bad, just like we are condemning smoking today,’ comments Mõis on his reasons for investing in renewable energy. He is also convinced that although

‘To claim that Nordic countries have no sun is not true!’

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Cheaper than a regular roof with conventional solar panels.

Aesthetics – looks like a standard non-solar roof, architecturally attractive to real estate developers.

Metal roofs are a well-known roofing solution and installation is fast.

Savings on labour cost – installation can be done by a traditional roofing company.

Savings on materials as no extra mounting system is needed.

High mechanical load resistance because of metal back sheet, which is stronger than the plastic usually used in standard solar modules.

Metal lasts longer and protects the photovoltaic layer from damage.

The efficiency of Roofit.solar BIPV is the same as standard photovoltaic modules (cell efficiency 20-22%).

Less contacts under the modules that makes the connections on the roof much easier.

Use of mono crystalline cells that are more efficient and durable than the thin film solar cells used by other BIPV metal roof producers.

Positive climate and environmental impact, clear benefits to society.

Photos by Atko Januson

‘We bring energy democracy to the people, so that they could participate in renewable energy production and personally contribute to environment protection’

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Artificial turf can be environmentally friendly and recyclable

By Ronald Liive

For the past 27 years, Advanced Sports Installations Europe has been active in the area of artificial turf, installing football fields all over Europe.

For the past couple of years, the company has expanded their portfolio to be more environmentally friendly and recyclable.

With the Arena Concept, the company offers artificial turf owners the option of an innovative, zero-waste method of reusing artificial turf onsite in just 7 days.

The owner of the company, Raul Lättemägi, came up with a “circular economy” idea that the company later called the Arena Concept. The idea is quite simple: the artificial turf is picked up and inserted into a machine which separates the turf, sand and plastic particles. In the process, the separated particles are dried. After that, everything is put back together and laid down again. If it’s not possible to re-use the separated particles then they are recycled. For example, the plastic collected has been used to build a terrace.

If the turf is in a condition that it cannot be renewed, they later have the option to use recyclable materials in other areas of business.

The concept for the machines, which Lättemägi came up with during a trip to Norway, is used by the company to this day.

The PR and media manager of Advanced Sports Installations Europe, Roomer Tarajev, told Life in Estonia that the idea to renew artificial turf came to them a couple of years ago when the Finnish Football Association commissioned the company to build a new field.

The company has been awarded many titles for the concept, one of them was Environmentally Friendly Company of the Year. The title was awarded by the Estonian Ministry of the Environment. The representatives of the company have been asked to give talks at the UN about the circular economy and zero-waste treatment.

‘Arriving at the location, our people noticed that the artificial turf was in such good condition that it would be wasteful to get rid of the turf and replace it with a new one,’ said Tarajev.

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To improve the machines, which they call Grab, Arena Master and Wizard, the company accepted monetary assistance from Enterprise Estonia and the EU Horizon 2020 Program.

Photo by Tiit Tamme

Roomer Tarajev

According to Tarajev, use of the funds gave them the opportunity to develop the machines faster and in larger volumes.

The weight of one artificial turf football field is around 300 tons, so packing it up and shipping it to some faraway location produces a lot of CO2 in the process. To combat polluting the Earth, Advanced Sports Installations Europe’s machines are mobile and can fit inside one big truck.

Even though the first artificial turf fields were produced in the 1970’s, the world is only now starting to think about the environmental aspects of them.

‘There are over 20 000 artificial turf football fields in Europe and their average life cycle is around 10 years. About 90% of the fields are not recycled,’ told Tarajev.

One of the latest markets the company has entered is the Netherlands.

According to the PR manager it is not a rare sight to see literal mountains of artificial turf in Holland. The company announced expanding into said market this spring but ran into some legal troubles which have now been resolved.

The company is keen on keeping their own ecological footprint to a minimum, for this they have their machines scattered all over Europe, so clients in Scandinavia don’t need to wait for machines to arrive from other parts of Europe and vice-versa. The machines are operated by a team of three people and, in total, the company has around seven teams working with the machines.

According to Tarajev, the company is now in a phase where they don’t do any active sales pitches because their clients find them themselves.

The company sees that the most environmentally friendly thinking clients are from Scandinavia. Expanding into new markets outside of Europe is in their minds but they are not in a hurry to conquer new territories. Today they have clients in 26 countries.

In addition to the Arena Concept, the company offers artificial turf fields with a monthly lease. Normally, local authorities or football clubs buy a field with no strategy for what to do with it after ten years. With the operating lease, which they call the “5G artificial turf field”, the company takes responsibility for maintaining and recycling it. One of these fields has been built in Haapsalu, a small resort town in Estonia.

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By Tanel Saarmann

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Photo by Annika Haas

Estonia leading the way in smart city solutions

Photo by Liis Treimann

Margus Nõlvak

Thirteen years ago, the surrounding area of the national airport in Estonia was nothing but a garbage dump next to some dilapidated housing.

Today, the area boasts one of the most exciting and innovative business campuses in Europe. More than 10 000 people work in this increasingly smart part of town, today known as Ülemiste City, and it is a base for more than 400 companies. Smart and green city solutions are also being developed elsewhere in Estonia. Ülemiste City area, which today can be considered an unofficial part of Tallinn, was an industrial district of the Dvigatel factory during the Soviet era. Both consumer goods and military equipment were produced on the 36 hectares of land. When Mainor privatised the area, the initial plan was to renovate the industrial complex. But times changed. The founding father of the campus was the late Ülo Pärnits. ‘Ülo was 70 years old when he proposed that we build a smart city here. In a general sense his idea still underpins it all. He wanted young talents not to leave Estonia and stay to follow their dreams,’ says Margus Nõlvak, Chairman of Mainor Ülemiste. The discussion was never about an office landscape, but about the city of the future.

The campus is being developed by Mainor Ülemiste and Technopolis Ülemiste, which is partially listed on the Finnish Stock Exchange and partially belongs to Mainor. Technopolis was brought into the development process due to its valuable experience in developing business campuses. Back then there was a need for finances and know-how.

At first, Mainor was alone and spent its energy on bringing the first

companies, including the well-known IT companies Helmes and Nortal, to the campus. ‘Ülo Pärnits took an extraordinary step and created the first open private park on the campus. Our big picture includes a lot of greenery. The idea is to create the kind of environment where smart people want to be,’ says Ursel Velve, Board member of Mainor Ülemiste.

The moment everything changed The residents of Tallinn witnessed the campus starting to develop. In addition to a growing number of local and foreign corporations, public institutions moved in. First hundreds, then thousands of employees. A breakthrough came about four to five years ago, when the first fine-dining restaurants and other services moved in, Selver opened its first supermarket and the sports club chain MyFitness was the icing on the cake.

‘People were waiting for years for the sports club. The service providers finally realised that there were enough people here needing their services on campus,’ recalls Nõlvak. It was the dream of developers to now have people spending as much time as possible on campus and not having to go out to train or find food. In addition, there is a kindergarten, a local and international school and the recently opened health clinic.

At this point, the developers thought it was the right time to think about residential housing. The first project – Lurich House – has 81 rental apartments ready to be moved into soon.

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Keeping the ecological footprint small As the campus grew, so did the ecological footprint of the area. Electricity, cars, garbage and other things put a strain on the environment. An advantage of Ülemiste City is that the campus is being developed gradually and hence decisions can be taken flexibly. The developers regularly listen to the companies on campus – their customers. For example, it was recently decided that the establishments on campus should not sell food and beverages with single-use plastics. Even the large supermarket chain Selver agreed to come along with this initiative, albeit they need a transition period.

‘When we talk about a smart city, we often only think about technology.

People tend to ask us what kind of smart solutions we have. But smartness is also about clever city planning and a generally great working environment. This includes the natural environment,’ says Velve.

Smart parking Smart technological solutions are all around the campus. For example, making use of the already existing network of security cameras, a smart parking system that shows available parking spots on campus was recently created. Before, one had to drive all around campus to find a parking spot. ‘It is a great example of our way of thinking. Our aim is to solve the problems people on campus have, to save their time and to make their lives easier and more comfortable, so that they can focus on the most important thing of doing their jobs very well,’ explains Nõlvak.

A scientific approach In cooperation with TalTech University, the campus has plans to create a professorship of the Future City. This position, at the Engineering Department of the university, will bring together researchers and a research development working group, as well doctoral and master students who will focus on studying the kind of work- and living environments that will attract top specialists from all around the world. ‘To date, we have taken many decisions based on gut feeling, but we would like to include a more scientific approach,’ explains Velve. The main themes are city planning, innovation in building, mobility and future business models which will be based on data from the city.

The next goal of Ülemiste City is to increase the number of people moving around campus to 20 000 by the year 2025. Less than 20% of the campus has been developed. The Future City is developing step by step whilst always taking into account what their customers want.

‘Smart city is not only technology but also clever city planning and a generally great working environment’ Photo by Renee Altrov

The developers of Ülemiste City believe that future cities will use various solutions, including technological ones, in order to create livingand working environments where people can go about their lives as easily as possible.

‘The owners of this campus deserve a lot of praise. They enable us to work creatively. We can accomplish what we want here and we have been told that it is not the main goal to maximise profit. The supportive environment is more important,’ adds Nõlvak. A sense of mission is more important here than money.

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Photo by Andres Haabu

Ralf-Martin Soe

TalTech creates a Smart City Centre of Excellence

Forum Virium Helsinki was already operating, focusing on smart city solutions and using data to improve services. 80% of their funds came from foreign grants. Soe invited himself to be a long-term observer and the “Finest Twins” idea happened to become part of the ICT Demo Centre portfolio. Later, the latter was replaced by TalTech. Although the project team worked very hard, the first reply from the European Commission was negative.

There is a large team behind the project. From the Estonian side, the entire process has been led by Ralf-Martin Soe, the founding Director of the Smart City Centre of Excellence (Finest Twins) and Senior Research Fellow at the Ragnar Nurkse Department. The funded project will focus on smart city solutions and will bring the cities of Tallinn and Helsinki digitally much closer to each other than their geographical distance of 80 kilometres.

‘So we proceeded with other ideas and forgot about that one,’ recalls Soe. The decision back then was a big and unpleasant surprise. Soe took up part-time employment with the Ministry of Economics and Communications and continued at ITL Digital Lab, in addition to studying for a while at the UN university in Portugal. In 2018, he received his doctorate at TalTech, which was inspired by the Finest Twins project.

Back in 2013, Ralf-Martin Soe started working for the ICT Demo Centre (today ITL Digital Lab), a non-profit established by IT companies. Among other things, it gave birth to the current e-Estonia Briefing Centre. Soe was just starting his doctoral studies and wanted to witness the success story of e-Estonia as well as contribute to it. His task at the ICT Demo Centre was to find new projects for the e-state, which was experiencing some stagnation. They began focusing on research-heavy projects with foreign financing, hoping to see more collaborative projects between different companies and different countries. On his second day at work, Soe happened to go on a study trip to Helsinki and visited a joint company of IT enterprises called Forum Virium Helsinki. This is where it all began.

Photo by Renee Altrov

TalTech University, one of the largest higher education institutions in Estonia, received great news in April. The European Commission decided to support the Estonian-Finnish collaboration project “Finest Twins” with 15 million euros. The co-financing from Estonia is 17 million. This decision will bring many changes to the two countries and the cities of Helsinki and Tallinn.

An unexpected setback

‘The entire R&D activity is very similar to startup culture. Especially in terms of new initiatives. You have an idea and know how it could be funded and then you test it. At one point, you will have a portfolio of ten ideas and you know that up to five of them will be developed in the end,’ says Soe. LI FE I N ESTON IA N o 5 2

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Photos by Gen Vagula

What does “Finest Twins” bring?

“Finest Twins” will create a Smart City Centre of Excellence at TalTech, which will bring together top specialists from TalTech and Aalto University. In addition, Forum Virium Helsinki and the Estonian Ministry of Economics and Communication will contribute with their know-how.

The grant has been awarded for seven years during which the Centre needs to compete successfully with other European centres of research and development for large research grants. In addition, the Centre of Excellence will be carrying out top level research and real-life pilots in five areas: mobility, energy, building-architecture, governance and data.

‘Estonia will become a stronger exporter of R&D. This means that we will have many continuing projects. It is our aim that Estonian entrepreneurs will collaborate more with Aalto University and Finnish companies with TalTech. Usually those counterparts would not find each other,’ says Soe.

The successful second attempt

From the end of 2020, at least two larger pilot projects need to be initiated annually. In total, there need to be at least ten projects. The researchers of the Centre will be involved in each one and each phase must involve cross-border cooperation.

At one point, the European Commission started to hint that “Finest Twins” should resubmit its application. TalTech was keen to do so. This coincided with the announcement that the state of Estonia was ready to co-finance with 17 million euros. Hence, they took a new look at the application.

About 90% of the application remained the same and it was clear what needed to change. The financing decision this time turned out to be positive.

‘The expectations are high. We need to make about ten R&D grant applications per year. This will show how strong the focus is in bringing in additional funding,’ says Soe, adding that the Centre of Excellence is not created for only seven years. It needs to be strong enough to remain in operation for decades. There are also high expectations in terms of scientific publications.

‘The first negative reply we received came as a bad surprise and the second, positive decision, was just as unexpected, at least for me.

Although, naturally I hoped we would be successful,’ says Soe today.

New Estonian magnet

Focus on smart city solutions Ralf-Martin Soe thinks that the timing of the “Finest Twins” project was good. The European Commission today considers smart city solutions to be one of the priority R&D fields. This was not the case in 2015. The direction in Europe is increasingly towards digital unification in the region.

As Soe says, the fragmentation of digital services is a problem in Europe.

Without strong cooperation, each country is digitising, automating and robotising itself and the systems may not be connectable – and even if they are, there is not always a desire to connect them. The broader goal of “Finest Twins” is to find a solution to such discord between Estonia and Finland.

‘Technologically speaking, approximation is possible, but this requires agreements and strong leadership of the project,’ explains Soe adding that a good example of inter-country systems is the Estonian company Bolt – it is possible to use the app in Tallinn, Lisbon and Helsinki. Yet problems come from various local government services, ranging from transport to health- and childcare.

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The Estonian e-state is known and praised throughout the world.

According to Soe, the same could become true for smart city solutions.

The cooperation between Tallinn and Helsinki may attract people here to admire the results. Soe brings in another comparison with startups.

“Finest Twins” will also run pilot projects, some of which may turn out to be success stories and some not.

‘We cannot rule out that after seven years we will become a Centre of Excellence which focuses on service provision and sales,’ says Soe. The grant received from the EU presumes that the main focus is attracting R&D grants.

‘The fragmentation of digital services is a problem in Europe. Without strong cooperation, each country is digitising, automating and robotising itself’

Photo by Madis Veltman

Enn Laansoo Jr

Green technology “Silicon Valley” in Paldiski

One of the authors of the idea, shareholder and CEO – Enn Laansoo Jr – says that PAKRI is much more than just an industrial park. They are developing an innovative physical environment or a “smart campus”. In addition, in cooperation with the Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol they offer various business services to clients.

Geographically and logistically, PAKRI Science and Industrial Park is located in a great place – Paldiski – which is an hour’s drive or train ride from Tallinn. In addition, there are two ice-free ports nearby as well as the Ämari airfield. Apart from the beautiful nature and developing area, Paldiski also has a sufficient workforce.

Photo by Renee Altrov

PAKRI Science and Industrial Park has been active since 2007. From the outset, its focus was to bring together companies that deal with the development of products and services in the field of energy- and environmental technologies. This includes companies needing office and production space as well as companies wanting to test their technologies.

‘We produce green energy for our clients and we are able to create value from energy oversupply, which in turn helps clients to make their products more environmentally friendly,’ says Laansoo Jr. In 2007, the topic of green technology was becoming more popular in the world. There were discussions about renewable energy, smart cities, a smart electricity grid, recording energy and much more. Why not create a themed Silicon Valley in Estonia?

PAKRI encompasses 65 hectares of land in a great location with the potential to enlarge the park by 2-3 times. In 2012, the first buildings were opened. To date, there are three building complexes with the total area of 20 000 sq. m. The park currently has 18 production clients and 35 service providers.

‘We are a great environment for testing future technologies and producing current ones, whilst promoting technologies created in Estonia,’ says Laansoo Jr.

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Indonesian farmers use e-Residency to help more people grow their own food

by Adam Rang

Asep Bagja Priandana and his wife, Retno Ika Safitri

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Asep Bagja Priandana is not your stereotypical farmer. Rather than muddy boots and overalls, Asep wouldn’t look out of place in a trendy startup office as he strolls through his family “farm” — which appears to be little more than a greenhouse that he built in the driveway of their suburban home in Indonesia.

The greenhouse may look simple from the outside but it’s packed with a dazzling array of technology on the inside, including a hydroponic system that allows plants to grow without any soil, special UV lighting for an added boost, and a range of sensors that are constantly monitoring both the plants and the environment to help software decide what actions are needed next. Even the drip irrigation system is automated.

Asep doesn’t even need to be there to inspect the plants because his own mobile app can immediately tell him about the health of his produce online from anywhere, although he’s keen to make sure everything is working correctly.

The vegetables in this greenhouse will eventually end up on plates in the home, but Asep and his wife, Retno Ika Safitri, are not just thinking about their own dinner.

‘I want other people to have the same opportunity as I do,’ explains Retno. ‘They can still have a 9-to-5 job at a place they like, but also grow their own fresh foods at home and maybe sell some excess produce to neighbours or friends. That way, they may have a balanced and fulfilling life and still connect to nature.´

Together, they are now developing new technologies and software to help more people around the world grow their own vegetables — whether in small home projects like theirs or on large-scale industrial farms. They want to help existing farmers grow their crops more efficiently but also lower the barriers to entry so that more people can start growing their own food for the first time, no matter where they live.

They are not only managing the growth of their plants remotely, but also their company. Asep and Retno were granted e-Residency of Estonia, which provides them with a secure digital identity that can be used to establish and manage a global EU company entirely online.

This enabled them to establish Tanibox OÜ to develop their high-tech agricultural business from Indonesia as an EU company with team members and partners in both Europe and Asia.

Their first product is a farm management software called Tania, which already has a growing fanbase of farmers around the world.

‘Our existing users are mostly smallholder farmers,’ explains Asep. ‘But, surprisingly, most of our early adopters are software developers who have a passion for agriculture. Perhaps that’s because we launched our software under an open source license.’

Their greenhouse is just one testbed for their technology, but the results so far are both promising and delicious.

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The story behind Tanibox Asep’s career path has been fairly unorthodox. He studied accounting but then began his career as a software developer in the startup industry before launching his own digital marketing agency.

They looked at different options with the farming software already available, but it was all too expensive and was designed for large-scale farming, not home operations like theirs.

It was during that time that he met his wife, Retno, who provided the original inspiration behind their company.

Undeterred, they simply developed their own software, Tania.

‘We thought there must be more small farmers who have a similar problem to us,’ says Asep. ‘So, we decided to release Tania as a free and open source software in 2016. By letting others gain value from the software, we also received valuable feedback to make Tania even better.’

Unlike Asep, she does come from a farming background and her mother still works as a farmer, so she has a keen appreciation for both the opportunities and challenges of the industry. Retno studied IT and also worked for tech companies, but always kept her passion for farming. More specifically, her passion is sustainable precision farming, which involves carefully analysing all the variables to grow crops more efficiently using fewer resources and lower overhead costs.

Asep was intrigued when he first saw Retno growing plants at home.

They had a small apartment at the time, but she managed to grow enough produce there that some could even be sold to friends.

Asep looked at her plants from a slightly different perspective. He thought about the data that could be gathered about the plants, as well as how they could be “programmed” to grow even more efficiently. By day, Asep was still building his digital marketing agency into a company with more than 30 employees, but in his spare time he and Retno were researching how IoT (Internet of Things) could be used for “smart farming”.

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After the success of Tania, they both decided it was time to scale up their solutions and share them with more people globally. Retno left her job and Asep made an exit from his company.

It didn’t take long for them to figure out the best way to establish their new company. They first heard about Estonia when a close friend of theirs was accepted at Tartu University the previous year, which is when they began Googling more about the country and came across articles about e-Residency. e-Residency provides people living around the world with a digital identity that can enable them to establish and manage their own EU company online from anywhere – just like Estonians already do with their own digital ID cards.

‘We thought e-Residency was a brilliant idea,’ says Asep. ‘Therefore, we applied for our e-Residency and received our cards in Singapore the previous year, although we had no idea what we would use it for at the time. We’ve been thinking global since day one for our startup so we decided to establish Tanibox in Estonia. It was an amazing experience.

We have since travelled to Tallinn to open a bank account and went to Tartu to visit our friend.’

Tania is still free, open source and under continuous development based on the feedback of a growing user base. After that, many users gain so much value from the software that they choose the premium version, which includes extra customisation and support.

Asep and Retno have now spent two years gathering feedback from farmers and have discovered a wide range of problems solved by their software for users both in Indonesia and around the world.

Many farmers do not have any bookkeeping software or even simple offline records to calculate their costs and profits, which can lead to miscalculations and a lack of understanding about what needs improving.

Even those who do, often don’t factor in all the costs properly and leave out secondary costs, such as extra electricity needed to pump more water, which can make the difference between profit and loss. Many don’t track their usage of resources, such as chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and water, in order to optimise what they need. Many don’t have access to data about when and where their resources should be allocated so they may overuse fertilisers in areas that don’t need it or have crops that don’t reach their full potential.

Tania has a modular approach so that farmers can set up their programme to fit the needs of their farm or manage different areas of their farm in different ways depending on what is being grown there.

‘For the micro and small farmers, they need simple farm management software, not the full-blown software on the market. For the hydroponic farmers, they need software that can manage the nutrient water because they grow crops using only water. For organic and permaculture farmers, they need software that can have crop rotation and soil management functionality.’

Ironically, developing the software enabled Asep to use his accounting degree for the first time.

The future of farming ‘”The Martian” is one of my favourite movies,’ says Asep, which might not be too surprising for anyone that’s seen it.

Matt Damon plays an astronaut who is stranded on the surface of Mars and has to use the technology left behind by his crew to develop smart farming techniques inside domes so he can survive.

Asep’s vision of the future is similar, although a little more down to Earth. The Tanibox website includes illustrations of modular dome-like structures that are similar to the ones used by Matt Damon in the movie.

Tanibox plans to roll out these greenhouses for customers within three to five years so that both large and small-scale farmers can easily set up controlled environments to grow the vegetables of their choice, free of pesticides, no matter where they live or what time of year it is.

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‘We are imagining a future where we can grow our food everywhere regardless of the climate,’ says Asep. ‘We imagine a future in which Indonesian vegetables can be grown in Estonia and vice versa, but we also need to factor the economic cost of this, so more research is needed first.’

For now, they are focused on developing an ecosystem around their software that connects farmers to other partners, including landowners, investors, suppliers and experts. They are also inviting developers to create their own software on top of the Tania platform so that it is even better suited to the needs of local farmers in their own areas and niches around the world.

Asep and Retno predict that the variety and quality of fresh food will improve in the future as technology allows farms to become more efficient and diverse. They also believe that as the barriers to entry are lowered, there will be more micro and small-scale farming that will arise to challenge mass production. The expectations of customers will also rise, they say, as more people develop a deeper understanding of how their food is grown.

This may sound like an ambitious vision for the future, but when Asep and Retno sit down for dinner each night, they know that the future has already arrived — at least for them. By building Tanibox as e-residents of Estonia, they hope to empower many more people around the world to enjoy the same opportunities.

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“Re-Invent Yourself” programme – talent attraction for international spouses in Estonia Coming to Estonia as an accompanying spouse, you might lack a support network and information on your new environment – but Estonia offers a helping hand to those talents wanting to enter the labour market.

Whereas the main aim of Work in Estonia is to introduce Estonia to foreign specialists, to help local employers find foreign professionals and to help the latter adapt to local life, now an additional “Re-invent Yourself” professional support programme for international spouses – the Spouse Programme – has been introduced, in order to help the spouses of foreign specialists to find employment on the local labour market and to create a mutual community to support one another and exchange experiences. The programme offers both group and individual counselling, including career consultations by the Public Employment Service (Töötukassa) – free of charge.

Leonardo Ortega, from Mexico, is Work in Estonia’s Partner Relations specialist and was responsible for the first Spouse Programme groups.

Ortega says that although paperwork and the organisation of daily family life is much easier in Estonia in comparison with some other countries, many people still have additional questions, which means they spend too much time running from one public institution to another.

‘Where to find a GP, which kindergarten to send your child to? There are many questions of this kind that locals don’t even think about. We

started working with the Talent Attraction Management Model, which has been used in several countries before. This model consists of four phases – attracting foreign talents, arrival and creating a positive first impression, adaptation and reputation. Ideally people will have only good things to say about the first three phases and, once they return to their homeland, they can recommend working in Estonia to other people. For example, in the case of Brazilians we often experience how people who are already working here invite their contacts to come as well,’ says Ortega.

First and foremost, Work in Estonia focuses on attracting ICT specialists, but understandably their spouses have diverse occupational backgrounds. Often it is the case that a spouse has an equal professional level or is a highly educated specialist in another field. It is these “hidden talents” that the “Re-Invent Yourself” programme seeks to help people realise their professional potential in Estonia.

‘However, the spouses often do not have jobs when they arrive, so they spend time at home and often lack the kind of network that would help them. In such cases it may happen that the entire family decides to move somewhere else where both spouses find work. Because even if an IT specialist has a great job in Estonia, they will not be able to focus on it properly, if they have an unhappy spouse at home who cannot find an outlet in a foreign country,’ explains Ortega.

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Nadin Rusinova

This is where the Spouse Programme comes into play: it will help spouses and families to orientate in the local market. The programme lasts five weeks and, to date, two groups totalling 31 people have completed it. After the completion of the programme, nearly half of the participants found a job and all participants said that they recommend the programme 100%.

The Spouse Programme teaches and/or reminds participants of the main truths of applying for jobs and gives tips on what is particular in their field in Estonia, in another cultural space. It also provides information about the Estonian labour market and working culture and provides career counselling through the Public Employment Service as well as helps to set goals. They have brought in recruitment specialists and organised meetings with regularly recruiting companies such as Bolt (Taxify) and held a workshop on setting up a company.

‘Participating in the programme provided me with emotional and professional support,’ says Nadin Rusinova who completed the first pilot group training after moving here from Moscow with her husband and 5-year-old daughter. She joined her husband in Tallinn six months after he moved here and was certain she wanted to continue her career.

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However, the timing was not set because they first needed to find a kindergarten in Estonia for their daughter. Rusinova says she first began to research available opportunities in Estonia, took an English course and then discovered the Spouse Programme. At first, she found it encouraging to meet others “like her” who had moved to a new country and were about to start new careers. Then she found various job contacts, went to interviews and meetings. She found her job as a data analyst in the IT company Paxful through contacts she received.

‘I am very happy here because the work matches my qualification.

Naturally, I have a lot to learn and do but I am pleased I joined the programme and I am very grateful to Leonardo and his team who really helped us a lot,’ says Nadin Rusinova.

This autumn, Work in Estonia plans to start with three groups – two in Tallinn and one in Tartu.

More information about specific starting times can be found at: www.workinestonia.com

Photo by Myriam Zilles

Pollinators help to fight plant diseases

By Sven Paulus

Probably everyone loves big, beautiful, tasty strawberries. But how do we avoid excessive use of herbicides and instead use pollinating insects as a pest barrier? Life in Estonia talked to Marika Mänd, Professor of the Estonian University of Life Sciences and participant in the international research group. She let us have a closer look into the nature of biowarriors.

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Photo by Ckavassalis

What is the entomovector technology?

This new technology first emerged in 1990. Scientists, who studied different bee species and pollinators found that, in addition to pollen, they also carry a wide variety of fungi or micro-organisms. They had an idea: if insects carry fungi with them, then, on the one hand, they are the distributors of the diseases, but on the other hand, they could also distribute the compounds that are useful to us. They figured out how to use bees to transfer pathogen-destroying bacteria from one plant to another.

The development of the area has been difficult and, in the beginning, it was more researched in Canada. The results showed that in greenhouses it works perfectly. Unfortunately, outside we can’t force bees to fly to the place we want. Beekeepers have struggled to find ways to pollinate and guide bees. For example, they put a scent in the hive so that bees could find food, but no method has produced good results so far. That’s why the entomovector technology has not developed so far, because people were sure that it wouldn’t work on the fields, and there was no point in trying. Now, however, that interest is rising again.

Most of the fields are in wilderness, whereas greenhouses use very accurate technology to keep the humidity and temperature at the optimum. We can use bees to fight grey mould, but it doesn’t make sense to use them in greenhouses. There was an interest in how to solve this problem all over the world, but instead, we must focus on local conditions. In Estonia, we have researched the grey mould found on strawberry, raspberry, tomato and other crops, but if we’re going to test it on the field, we need to know the different aspects.

First of all: which microorganism is going to work? We are a northern country. Any available and effective microorganism may not work.

Secondly, which pollinator type to use? We think all pollinators are on

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blossoms, but different species prefer one or another plant, and this culture has to offer something to the bee. If it doesn’t provide suitable food, the bees won’t come. Most importantly, if we spread any micro-organism in the environment, then it must be safe for everyone – to the environment, bees and humans. Its development in each specific region is very specific and cannot be done simply by taking over.

Where is this research going on?

Professor Heikki Hokkanen from Finland is the head of this joint European research project and we have people from Turkey, Italy, France, Germany and Belgium. Every country conducted their own tests and in Estonia we tried with bumblebees and honey bees. Previous studies by professor Hokkanen showed that honey bees are perfectly capable of pollination and dispersion.

The thing is that the honey bee comes from tropical regions. That bee flies to find a great source of food for her large family and when she finds it, she informs the hive. She’s recruiting the whole family on a couple of blossoming trees that are nearby, and here the bee behaves the same way. If a honey bee finds a great food resource, she won’t go anywhere else. We have rape crops blossoming at this time, which are the great love of honey bees, because that pollen has three amino acids that are extremely necessary for the development of bee larvae.

We were experimenting here with strawberries that were not of particular interest. Although there was a huge 12-hectar field of flowering strawberries by their side, our bees from twelve hives went to rape. Only 2% of pollen was collected from the strawberries, which showed that they did not generally go there. The bumblebees, on the other hand, were not so enthusiastic about the rape, but were picking up the strawberry pollen about as much as the rape.

The results showed that we could use the bumblebee and the European honey bee for entomovector here. From the perspective of production, a honey bee hive can always be bought because the production of bumblebees has begun. It has had a very good impact on pollination and the whole area of entomovector technology.

student took the bees to a friend’s raspberry plantation: he was very surprised how much harvest he got. We have forgotten a very important thing in agriculture: in certain cultures, we need to grow pollinators for more crops because we have large areas of monocultures that need extra pollination.

What happens in nature at the time we’re going to pollinate the strawberry?

When could this new technology replace existing herbicides?

We get the same species we have ourselves: buff-tailed bumblebee.

We can also buy this species from Belgium and the Netherlands, but in the wild, we have only female bees, who are just beginning to nest; we have no base for pollinators yet. So, it’s possible to buy bumblebees, put them on a field and see what’s going to happen. As the bumblebee began to work, it surprised us a little, but at the same time it was also very good, precisely because it was not yet the season for bumblebees.

Even though the strawberry is not their greatest love, the bumblebees still visited the strawberries.

A lot of growers are already using it, but it’s not a panacea and very much depends on the weather. The damager of the plants is a fungus whose development starts when plants bloom. At this stage, we could distribute the compound with a machine, but bees are better, because during the blooming period we can’t spray the fields every day. The bees visit these blossoms and immediately carry the compound. It’s “precision biocontrol”, which means that the substance goes exactly where it’s needed. The use of bumblebees is, however, better in our conditions, as there can be very cold weather during strawberry blooming season.

It turned out that pollen in some parts even had 40% from strawberry pollen and in some parts less, but on average it was around 22-25%.

Then we checked if the bees carried the compound to the flowers. The most striking result was that the fungi were evenly distributed over the blossoms and that surprised us very much. We counted the bugs on the flowers and saw that there was a secondary distribution of the product taking place. The large number of insects led to pollination and also to the dispersion of the product. So entomovector technology has two effects: on the one hand, it promotes disease control and on the other, pollination.

Pollinated strawberries are bigger, more beautiful and more money can be asked for them. When one starts to use the same technology on a raspberry, one can use a honey bees who love raspberries. My doctoral

The real disease control scheme used in Europe is that the harvesters pick the strawberries and then spray the fungicide to try to suppress the rest of the grey mould. In a few days, the ripened berries will be collected and the field will be poisoned again, but no one will want berries that are sprayed too much. If it rains, high efficiency may not be achieved with this technology, as rain will wash the product off the blossoms.

For our compound, we use a fungus that is separated from the soil of the Nordic countries and is developed by a Finnish company. The initial idea was to use this product to eradicate soil pathogens, but then it was also tried as an entomovector and it turned out that the pathogens were equally affected.

Photo by Reet Karise

Buff-tailed bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris) on strawberry

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Photo by Krõõt Tarkmeel

Trash to treasure

By Ede Schank Tamkivi

Up-jeans by Reet Aus

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‘The recycling processes need to be reversed precisely where waste is created’

Ann Runnel

How are Estonian startups contributing to the revolution in the circular economy of the textile industry?

‘What is happening now in the circular economy reminds me of the story of how people envisioned the internet back in 1994: no one is able to predict how exactly it will change our lives,’ claims Ann Runnel, who got into this branch of the economy six years ago. She wants to solve the massive problem of leftover fabrics in the garment industry, and since Estonia represents only a fraction of the waste creation in the industry, she’s starting where the masses are: Asia.

In cooperation with Reet Aus, a pioneer in upcycling in Estonia, Runnel was writing her thesis on why entrepreneurs focus on sustainability in their businesses. She ended up in Bangladesh, a country with a population of 168 million, which over the past decade has become the second largest readymade garment exporter in the world, just behind China.

‘I realised that one designer brand can solve 1% of the waste problem of a factory,’ Runnel recalls. But there are around 5000 garment factories in Bangladesh, which all combined create 400 000 tons of textile production waste per year – including all different types such as yarn waste, cutting scraps and fabrics – an amount that equals 1.2 billion pieces of clothing. Every single person in India could get a free T-shirt if the recycling of textile waste were to become common practice in their neighbouring country.

Runnel registered her company in 2014 and since then has been travelling to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Hong Kong at least once a quarter. Reverse Resources is cooperating with a network of recyclers, with a capacity of over 5000 tonnes per month, they are ready to source their waste transparently through the new platform. Brands like H&M and Levi’s are among some of the largest parties who are keenly looking forward to the results of the current pilot projects.

Reversing Resources ‘Many of the world-renowned brands outsource the work to a large number of factories that are very intensely regulated,’ Runnel rejects the Eurocentric view that underage workers earn lower than average salaries, working overtime in harsh conditions in the sweatshops all over South-East Asia. The real challenge lies in making the production cycle more transparent, she claims.

‘Being so used to living in a digital society, it’s difficult to imagine the digital gap we face in these factories: how they still use paper and pen to run the operations.’ Reverse Resources offers the producers an online platform that enables each factory to track their production leftovers in real-time as well as access information from other parties in the industry – how much and what sort of leftovers are available and where.

According to her vision, the recycling processes need to be reversed precisely where waste is created. So far, all the leftover fabric gets collected into big heaps of fabric and is sorted later; Reverse Resources will help sort the waste instantly.

Currently, the textile producers who want to recycle leftovers will have to go through the tedious task of testing all materials themselves, making it a lengthy and expensive process. These days, more than 60% of all the textiles used in the garment industry are made of polyester, an easy-toproduce and cheap material that wears out fast and leaks microfibres into the water system each time you wash your clothes.

‘So far, the polyester leftovers have been used in furniture factories as mattress filling or burning it to make bricks,’ Runnel brings an example.

These days there are a handful of companies trying to work out innovative solutions to recycle existing materials but all of these technologies are either still in lab or experimental phases. ‘In 3-5 years we’ll definitely see this in mass production,’ Runnel predicts.

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Estonians create 21.8 million tons of waste each year, i.e. 16 500 kg per person. The good news is that only 376 kg of it comes from households and with this number we are among the smallest waste creators in the EU. The bad news is that most of our waste comes from oil shale mining. Out of household trash, Estonians recycle only 28% of their waste, ranking among the worst performers in the EU as the leaders recycle more than half, with Germany far ahead of all the others with 67%. The EU directive dictates that everyone has to recycle at least 55% by 2025.

For the first time, Estonia is now participating in a project run by the Stockholm Environmental Institute to map the textile waste created in Scandinavian and Baltic countries. The results will be available later this year.

‘Using one’s waste as another’s raw material is one of the key elements in the circular economy, also called the circular feedstock or industrial symbiosis’

Making leather in a lab Another branch on the verge of a breakthrough in the circular textile and fashion industry is the creation of fabric out of other industries’ leftovers (using one’s waste as another’s raw material is one of the key elements in the circular economy, also called the circular feedstock or industrial symbiosis). A few examples stemming from this field are currently being tested in labs around the world, spanning mostly fungi- or plant-based materials. Spanish-founded Piñatex is probably one of the best-known example, creating leather-like material out of pineapple leaf fibres.

Since pineapples do not grow in Estonia, local startups will have to find means to extract components from locally available resources. Gelatex Technologies is developing an environmentally friendly alternative to animal skin with imitation leather made from gelatine, a natural collagen taken from animal body parts like bones and joints that usually go to waste.

Meigo Fonseca studied garment technology and became interested in ecological textiles while working for Baltic Intertex, which did product development for Scandinavian fashion designers. She met Märt-Erik Martens, a researcher who had been working on gelatine-based materials for medical use during his studies at Tartu University. They founded Gelatex in 2016, which has by now attracted the interest of many big producers of consumer goods.

With their lab operating in Tartu and having gone through three stages of the Greentech accelerator ‘Climate KIC 2017’ in Berlin and Tallinn, they’re now off to the TechStars accelerator in Indianapolis, US, and Meigo Fonseca feels the time is ripe for a “real thing”: ‘My main goal is for the sustainable material to become a new norm.’

Sustainable living ‘Our technology enables the creation of material that is chemically identical to real leather,’ Mari-Ann Meigo Fonseca, one of Gelatex founders, explains. ‘That way we give higher value to waste and can make up to 5 times more material from the same animal.’

In other words, Gelatex wants to solve the problem of burning more than 5 million tons of animal waste by literally sucking the marrow out of the bones and creating a non-woven textile out of the gelatine mesh that can be produced without using any poisonous chemicals.

Gelatex has nothing to do with so-called “vegan leather”, which was a craze some time ago until users realised it’s simply an oil-based chemical product. Many other innovators are trying to find solutions for reusing waste materials but so far many of them still use oil-based composition materials. 95% of leather used in the industry is chemically tanned. Vegetable tanning as the alternative is terribly time consuming and therefore very expensive.

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Many similar innovative projects have to spend several years in incubation in the lab to wait for the right momentum. And for some, that moment might never come.

‘Academia could be the trend setter in this field,’ says Kätlin Kangur, who herself has studied Creative Sustainability at Aalto University in Finland and is now reading an introductory course on sustainability for designers at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. Last year she initiated the Green Group inside the Academy to start solving the issues of their own building.

Yet she claims that sustainability is a very vague concept. ‘Many people understand it simply as recycling. How to give up some of your personal comfort in exchange for the overall well-being is a far more challenging task. Changing your habits and lifestyle is much harder than replacing some physical items in your life.’

‘The fast fashion industry is constantly picking up speed, there are so many new collections coming out and the logistics-cycles are becoming more and more complex,’ she claims. Over the past 15 years, people have started to buy twice as many clothes as they used to, wearing them 3 times less often. It’s the classic chicken or the egg causality dilemma: are the prices cheaper because the quality is lower or vice versa?

Buy fast, wear slow Kant Hvass is now helping run a pilot in partnership with the Estonian Re-Use Centre and a Dutch company Wolkat. To prevent around 50 tons of textiles ending up as landfill every month due to the limited recycling and reuse capacity of used clothing in Estonia, Wolkat will send them to Morocco where they are sorted by colour and material type, shred and then spun into new yarn from which new cloth is woven. From this cloth, products such as blankets, bags and laptop sleeves are made.

The reason why the materials are currently sorted in Morocco is the cost of labour and the long-term expertise in recycling that Wolkat has gained over 50 years. Ideally, at some point the work will be done in Estonia. ‘So far the re-use system in Estonia has been catalysed by the simple pleasure of getting rid of your old things but consumers are becoming much more aware and want to be able to follow the whole cycle,’ Kant Hvass summarises.

Ann Runnel also claims that she herself has become so much more aware of her own recycling habits that she even takes all of her wornout socks to the H&M waste collection stations because she knows that these will end up in a sorting factory in Germany and then be recycled in India. But is it actually sustainable for the socks to travel so far? Runnel explains that circular economy will initially start working where there are enough resources. In Estonia, the amount of waste is so small that is not economically profitable to start sorting waste.

The circular economy goes much deeper into economic models and will look into the matter of how to make profit by reusing materials several times without constantly pulling in new resources. All chains in the system become interconnected: logistics, design, production, sale, communication, product take-back and end-of-life treatment. It creates interdependence for all parties involved.

She believes that once the industry is ready, the politics will follow. In order to play her role both in changing the rules in business world as well as political, Runnel was recently elected as an expert for EU Mission Board for Adaption to Climate Change.

‘We are currently talking about the first round of recreating value for the resources but the goal should be an infinite number of rounds,’ she sums up the challenges that are yet to be unfolded. ‘The Reverse Resources platform helps to build new supply chains and trace waste end-to-end from the source of the waste up to recycling, shining light through the current black box of textile waste trading and making sure that we can all know that the waste really reaches the best new lifecycle.’

‘Over the past 15 years, people have started to buy twice as many clothes as they used to, wearing them 3 times less often’ Photo by Krõõt Tarkmeel

Kerli Kant Hvass dug even deeper into this field, looking at the post-consumer aspect of the garment industry. In her PhD thesis “Weaving a Path from Waste to Value – exploring the fashion industry business models and the circular economy” she researched the role of fashion brands and their responsibility to minimize post-consumer textile waste through innovation and industry collaboration. She worked with brands such as JACK & JONES, NAME IT, Filippa K and Eileen Fisher.

‘Gelatex wants to solve the problem of burning more than 5 million tons of animal waste by literally sucking the marrow out of the bones and creating a non-woven textile out of the gelatine mesh that can be produced without using any poisonous chemicals’

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Photo by Atko Januson

Time Wizard Erki Kasemets

By Kaarin Kivirähk

Have you ever tried to stop time?

The artist Erki Kasemets does just that by using old milk- and juice cartons, buttons, matchboxes and beer cans – in other words, everything someone else might consider rubbish.

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Portfolio Erki Kasemets

Life-file, 2018 Tallinn Art Hall / Painted one-litre drink cartons Thousands of them have been collected over three decades, ready to be used in various spatial installations

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Tallinn Twin Towers, 2019 / New version of Märt Laarman's painting from 1926 Painted forty-year-old wall covering material

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Lights, 2011 A temporary panel made of painted cigarette packages

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Kalevipoeg in the Underworld, 2015 / Three-dimensional version of the 100-year-old painting by Oskar Kallis Various painted Estonian cigarette revenue stamps from the 1990s to 2010s

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Hole Puncher, 2014 A collection of former city transport tickets that were mechanically punched

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Snapshot, video show / Selected shots, 2012 Frame of an animation created by rearranging a pile of painted metal beverage cans

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Snapshot, 1996 Metal beverage cans, paint, wooden frame Estonian Art Museum collection

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New Information, 2013 / Exhibition view The CDs as data storage media have a layer of paint, allowing new and temporary images to be created from these colourful discs

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Crazy Days, 2013 / Installation Exhibition at Tallinn Art Hall

Born in 1969, Erki Kasemets belongs to the generation that spent one part of their life in the Soviet society and the other in independent Estonia. The transition era of the 1990s brought huge changes and the arrival of consumerism. Hence Kasemets, who graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts in 1996, made the decision to start preserving temporal and cultural changes via different packaging. For example, he began collecting material for his work “Life File”, which consists of a thousand Tetra Paks (mostly milk cartons), about thirty years ago. There are diary entries on some of the cartons, dates on others. That is how this recollection of the past materialised.

Installations of milk cartons have become the artistic brand of Kasemets just like the Campbell soup cans of Andy Warhol or balloon animals of Jeff Koons. The Estonian arts- and theatre critic Meelis Oidsalu has said that the milk carton monuments by Kasemets capture you with their

simultaneously epic and temporal quality. They are monumental and commonplace at the same time. After all, a milk carton is something we all have in our fridges. But how many people recall their daily coffees, not to mention the milk cartons they have used? Seeing thousands and thousands of empty cartons at the exhibition may feel quite existential.

As everyday items, they sketch a person’s life story.

The last big personal exhibition of Kasemets, entitled “Crazy Days”, took place in 2013 and referred to the sales campaign of the Stockmann department store in Tallinn. But the exhibition itself was in no way “marked down”. The artist comments that it reflected the craziness of his art.

‘The exhibition is made up of tens of thousands of parts,’ said Kasemets.

The first milk carton, which he repainted ages ago, became an insignificant dot in a giant installation. ‘Many small and simple normal things can create a totally crazy feeling together,’ said the artist.

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American Blend, 2016

In his work “American Blend“, Kasemets has built a map of the USA from old cigarette packages where towns are represented by cigarette brands of the same name. He has used empty cigarette packages in other compositions as well. Often the artist uses old packaging as modules with which one could limitlessly build new and endless systems. At the same time, such systems come to resemble a portrait of an era. Societal agreements influence our daily lives, but often we cannot pinpoint them.

Used cigarette packages seem to symbolise such invisible rules. Back in the day, a cigarette package was a glamorous status symbol; people used to smoke in offices and on airplanes. Today, cigarette packages carry scary warning signs about the dangers of smoking; in twenty years a cigarette package could become tangible history.

Having studied scenography and later taught the subject at the Estonian Academy of Arts, theatre plays an important role in Kasemets’ work. Isn’t theatre, too, a disappearing art form that still captures a specific moment in our lives? Under the project name Polygon Theatre, Kasemets organised various grand theatre performances in which the audience becomes a participant at the all-encompassing environment. The artist’s friend, author Valdur Mikita, has said that there are not many contemporary artists like Kasemets in Estonia who have been blessed with such great directing talent. Mikita claims that Kasemets’ theatre performances bring contemporary art closer to people, making it more accessible as they literally come to the people on the street.

Button Costume

In fact, milk cartons are not the only things Kasemets has collected and turned into art during his life. As early as 1989, Kasemets began to sew buttons onto a costume: today it holds more than 20,000 of them. By now the jacket and trousers are so heavy that it is not difficult to imagine all those past years, the weight of which makes the clothes sigh. People often recall important events (like school graduations or weddings) by the clothes they wore. With his work “Button Costume”, Kasemets has created a collection of memories wherein each button resembles a past day in his life. All buttons have been registered in written form making it possible to check which button has been sewn where. The artist only wears the amazing costume on very special days.

Polygon Theatre

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These days, Kasemets’ thorough and long-lasting art projects could be linked to recycling and “slow” art. What is the artist’s take on that? As Kasemets started out in late 1980s, people were not so aware of their ecological footprints and the need to recycle. But recycling and climate problems have become increasingly important for the artist throughout the years, and though he does not see them as the main focus of his art, giving new life to rubbish is an important statement in his work. He does ask, however, whether his activities could be damaging from the point of view of recycling as he takes the jars and cartons meant for recycling into his own use.

Arts critic Andreas Trossek has characterised Erki Kasemets as a collector who collects time and information and creates unique systems out of them. But how can one collect and touch time? When Kasemets takes a milk carton and starts to repaint it, he has proof of a time and space that existed some time ago and this proof will also exist twenty years later.

Trossek likes the idea of Kasemets as an artist who will one day create a large house museum where he will present all his systems, milk cartons, bread bag holders, clothes with buttons. Whilst we are waiting the opening of such a museum, Kasemets is preparing for his next exhibition which will take place next year in Gallery Draakon, in the Old Town of Tallinn. If you have time, be sure to stop by!

Erki Kasemets is a modest person who seems to like tinkering about and whose thoughts often follow unexpected paths and contain a good amount of absurd humour. He says he became an artist because he failed the high school exams of his maths and physics-biased class. He therefore tried to get into art class, which worked out thanks to a teacher who knew him. ‘My still life definitely ranked last,’ he says regretfully. Yet Kasemets was no ordinary school pupil.

As early as the seventh grade, he developed the board game “Trip to the Animal Kingdom”, which was marketed in stores all over Estonia in the 1980s. One can only imagine the thoroughness with which he created the game.

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By Sandra Purvina

An Estonian company, Korjus Design OĂœ, stands behind the brand Costume Puzzle, which specialises in making an educational costume game for kids. Today, Korjus Design is selling their Costume Puzzle in Estonia while simultaneously working on export development activities for Nordic countries.

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Photos by Andrei Ozdoba

Solve the puzzle by turning passion into a real business!

Karen Korjus

How to start your business if you want to operate with physical goods? What are the challenges of working in a competitive market?

How to turn your idea into real business?

Karen Korjus, founder and designer of Costume Puzzle, and wife of Kaspar Korjus (former MD of e-Residency of Estonia), clearly remembers how the idea of producing products for kids started. In the early years of her childhood, Karen was so passionate about making clothes for herself and her dolls that she even took her mother’s dresses and curtains and started to cut holes in them to get new materials for her creative work.

Although it probably was unpleasant for Karen’s mother, today Karen realises that it was not just a waste of fabric. She realised, however, that it’s not very safe for small kids to use a needle or a sewing machine.

So eventually, Karen thought to take a well-known principle of LEGOs and use the same technique to make costumes. She created clothes made by simply attaching pieces of fabric together. No sewing, gluing or cutting involved – just a fun and safe game resulting in wearable clothes and accessories. The Costume Puzzle was born.

Since more and more small-business owners are interested in selling their physical products on e-commerce platforms like Amazon or directly to stores, Life in Estonia asked Karen to share some pearls of wisdom that helped her enter a competitive market.

Karen, what are your three “weapons” in order to successfully break into the market with an absolutely new and innovative toy?

First of all, we always highlight that we are the first wearable costume-building game in the market. It’s a strong argument when approaching potential partners because we are first-movers with this product. And being first enables us to establish strong brand recognition and customer loyalty. You know, you can buy LEGO bricks for example, or you can buy bricks without a brand, and most people will go definitely ahead with the well-known brand option because, unconsciously, they trust brands more who have loyalty as being first to the market. Obviously, you can’t always come up with an innovative idea, but in any case, you have to establish a strong loyalty for your brand in order to succeed.

It was just an idea back then and Karen didn’t know that it had actual business potential. But once good feedback started to pour in and she got accepted to the Tallinn Creative Incubator programme, Karen gained the confidence that her passion could be transformed into something bigger. A journey of entrepreneurship began.

Second of all, we like to promote healthy childhood habits, which consist of reducing time in front of mobile and computer screens. Although we admit that video games and similar toys are the big hype in today’s toy environment, there still are a lot of parents and schools who appreciate educational games and this is our market.

Karen has already been in business with her Costume Puzzle for four years. As a part-time entrepreneur and part-time mother, she thanks the Tallinn Creative Incubator programme and admits that without it she might not be in business today.

And last but not least, we have a strong added value, we are producing an educational game that develops children’s creativity, problem-solving skills, social skills, cognitive and fine motor skills. So, as long as your product is truly useful, you have a place in the market.

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Photo by Andrei Ozdoba

You mentioned that you are a part-time entrepreneur and a part-time mother, how do you balance that?

Being an entrepreneur is definitely an exciting process, but it is also one where you need to always plan carefully if you have responsibilities as a mother. While there is no one solution that will work for everyone, there are some common things that other working moms or dads can keep in mind. For example, I would recommend starting with finding somebody whom you can completely trust to stay with your child while you are working. That will give you peace of mind and you will be able to focus on your business tasks. Also, don’t be afraid to delegate your home chores and business tasks to others, it won’t make you less of a mother or entrepreneur. And always, always make time for yourself to rest, if you will try to complete all in your family and entrepreneurship life, it will lead you to burn-out instead of business growth.

Coming back to the competition, do you believe that in a world of such fast technological development you can keep the audience engaged with “old classic toys”?

I think, most of the time, if kids were given a choice, they would choose digital game options. It is just the way digital games and videos are built, to get the child’s full attention, and it is very hard for a child to not get addicted. However, we, parents, are the decision-makers of whether we are allowing it or not. So as long as there are parents who see the difference between the digital games and traditional toys that develop a kid’s cognitive, social and fine motor skills, we are not afraid about our

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product’s position in the toy market. If we compare, for example, phones and the Costume Puzzle, then for starters, content on the phone might be violent, at odds with family values or just junky, while the Costume Puzzle has no negative influence on the kid. This is our trump card.

Are you producing toys in Estonia? If not, is it easy to supervise the process if the product is made in another country?

Some parts of the Costume Puzzle are made in Estonia, some abroad.

The key is to observe and double-check everything. For example, quality assurance is a popular topic when it comes to manufacturing abroad.

It is very easy to lose product quality. That’s why double-checking is so essential.

What are your thoughts about outsourcing services for your business development?

Startups and small businesses could benefit a lot from outsourcing.

Every business needs to find the best solution to develop its product, taking into account such aspects as cost-effectiveness and quality. In such a small country as Estonia, sometimes we face the reality that it’s not so easy to find workers who can deliver your needs. In those cases, we consider outsourcing, because usually those specialists are more experienced and yet we can stick to our budget, paying for the exact amount of work that needs to be done.

What are your goals in this business?

The goal is to open up a completely new world for children, where they can become fashion costume designers instantly. They learn to be responsible consumers and develop their creativity, which actually helps them later in life. If you buy an education game, it’s not just a toy that looks nice but a whole system that develops a kid’s personality further.

And for me, as a mother, it is very important to make a product which is sustainable and brings out the best in children.

What are your responsibilities as a business owner?

I am responsible for managing the whole company – including people and financial aspects, as well as the production side and further product development.

Whenever I read our mission again, I get that feeling that I am contributing to society and my work is not useless, and this feeling is priceless, it drives me further.

Karen, if you had a piece of advice for someone who is just starting out, in a kids’ product sector, what would it be?

Make sure what you do is needed in the world. Ask yourself, am I making someone’s life happier, more interesting or am I solving somebody’s problem with my product? Who needs my product? Don’t create unnecessary waste and I suggest reducing plastic as much as possible.

Also, make sure that you test your product in the lab before selling it to children. And if you truly believe that your product must see daylight, keep pushing towards your dream!

Have you ever felt like giving up on your idea?

Photos by Jaana Süld

No, not at all. My motto is: if you get tired, learn to rest not to quit. So, whenever I feel overwhelmed, I take a little break and after that, once again review our goals and mission. Our mission is to offer every child the possibility to create their own clothes and accessories at home without needing to know how to use a sewing machine or scissors. To offer parents a game that teaches their children to create, explore and solve problems.

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By Minna Toots

Lisa Lang is a woman who shines.

And it’s not just because of her bright character and self-confidence. She literally shines. When I first see her on stage at the Tallinn Design House she is wearing a pearl-embroidered black dress that lights up with one touch of a button. ‘I’m always looking for opportunities to make things glow,’ she opens her presentation with a charming smile.

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Photos by Showgirls World

Top fashion tech expert Lisa Lang is a fan of Estonian design

What is fashion tech?

Fashion tech is technology that is wearable or somehow attached to your body. Lisa explains that fashion tech is a great opportunity for young designers.

Lisa, a German entrepreneur, technologist and speaker, is one of Europe’s most influential people in fashion tech. She features on Forbes’ list of Europe’s top 50 women in tech. Since the beginning of this year, she has been working together with the skilled Estonian pearl embroidery designer Siret Esko. Lisa was in Tallinn this March to present the results of their collaboration.

If the Internet hadn’t happened, Lisa would have become a carpenter. Being a millennial, Lisa is just old enough to remember the time before mobile phones but among the first to have studied web design and software at a German university. Before jumping into the world of fashion tech, she worked in software engineering for a long time, so she knows everything about tech.

Cooperation with Siret Esko Lisa and Siret met at the Tallinn Creative Incubator. Siret’s biggest passion is fine handicraft and pearl embroidery. Lisa’s passion is tech.

It was easy to join fashion tech with pearls, so the two instantaneously clicked and the work was ready in less than two months. Lisa loves the quality Siret provides and she is happy that their work comes from within the EU. Siret loves how the lit-up diamonds add double luxury to the already luxurious pearl embroidery.

The cooperation is currently on hold since Siret’s company Siret Design recently signed a deal with Chinese investors to promote her work in the Chinese market. Investors picked out Siret Design from among small European enterprises because her work matches the taste of Chinese consumers. For the time being, Siret is moving her production over to China and focuses all of her resources on this major opportunity.

‘It’s experimental. Everything in design seems to be done already – in the last thirty years not much interesting has happened in the fashion industry. Fashion tech is changing that,’ she says.

In fashion tech you can use technology to make clothes both more beautiful and more useful. Lisa and Siret use LED lights to make dresses glow. Sensors are also great devices.

‘You can make clothes change colours, add mood sensors, and make smart and useful gadgets,’ says Lisa.

Electric couture – for the woman who wants to sparkle During her presentation, Lisa enlightens her audience on the topic of lights.

‘Technology can be made to look pretty and that can easily be done with light. Light makes us happy. In a time of digital revolution, design is especially important. It makes technology more emotional and accessible,’ she explains. Lisa describes how diamonds, crystals, pearls and light go well together, especially on a dress. If the wearer moves, reflections of the light change the way the dress looks.

We tend to think of LEDs as something hard and rigid, but Lisa and Siret demonstrate how they can be soft instead. Their dress obviously has pockets for storing batteries and switching the lights on and off.

It’s easy to move in the dress and go anywhere (although Lisa wouldn’t recommend swimming). ‘You can wear it, wash it, recharge it. For the woman who wants to sparkle!’ she adds.

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Lisa Lang and Siret Esko

Being a woman in tech When she started her studies in technology, it was a male dominated world. Lisa explains how she has always made sure that being a woman in tech is not a disadvantage.

‘I turn it into an advantage instead. I have different kinds of tools. The best thing to happen is to be underestimated,’ Lisa says.

Lisa thinks the most important requirement in the creation of an ecosystem that supports women in Estonia is that women and girls trust in themselves. ‘Don’t be afraid to ask for something: go and get it. Look at the role models. Some men can be biased, we need to be conscious and give feedback,’ she says, adding that it’s important to try to be blind to gender.

‘Being an entrepreneur, it is normal to not feel safe all the time. It is normal to be afraid. But you can overcome it. Do it anyway!’ she adds.

Bring digital to design: tips for Estonia ‘[Estonia] is in the middle of a big change. Change doesn’t happen quickly. People don’t starve and freeze anymore, but there are social challenges,’ Lisa says.

She likes Estonian design and tells me that she is a huge fan of the Estonian designer clothing brand Tallinn Dolls. Lisa believes that Estonia has huge potential and that Estonians are achievers. Always being able to tell where a design comes from by the look of it, she also sees specific “Estonian traits” in Estonian design. She says Estonian design is clean and simple, but has a whimsical touch, which gives it personality. Lisa says simple design is one of the hardest things to achieve.

‘Every country needs an identity. Estonian identity is very well visible through all of your amazing designers. Your design is connected to your cultural heritage and handicraft. Estonia has a long tradition of high quality manufacturing. Now the question is: how to connect good craftsmanship with tech?’

‘You have the old manufacturing industry and the skilled craftsmen on the one hand and the digital know-how on the other,’ she says, explaining that our new generation is expert in e-commerce and digitalisation. ‘Two bubbles are floating around in the same country, and they should meet.

Go to your parents and grandparents to learn the manufacturing from them. Look around and use your assets. Trust yourself and be brave!’

She finishes our interview by exclaiming enthusiastically: ‘I will come back!’

More about Lisa Lang: www.elektrocouture.com More about Siret Esko: www.siret.design

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Photo by Tiina-Liina Uudam

Fotografiska has arrived in Tallinn

By Maris Hellrand

On a Tuesday morning, Fotografiska Tallinn is already bustling with visitors.

The new photographic art temple has truly landed in Tallinn’s Telliskivi district.

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Photos by Tiina-Liina Uudam

Fotografiska Tallinn is the first franchise branch of Stockholm’s coolest art centre, which has redefined the role of an exhibition space since its opening in 2010. Fotografiska Stockholm’s success is an inspiration and model for Tallinn as well. The Tallinn team can be proud of heading the worldwide expansion of the concept by opening well ahead of New York and London. Fotografiska has a plan to bring Stockholm to the world. Director and co-founder of Fotografiska Tallinn, Margit Aasmäe, explains: ‘Tallinn was not really on the map, this was based solely on our local initiative. It’s one thing to open a gallery in a metropolis, quite different in a small town like Tallinn. It’s a test case.’

Maarja Loorents, founder of Fotografiska Tallinn, has described the place as a meeting point of world-class photo exhibitions, great food, music and design which is framed by an open, responsible and sustainable mindset. Aasmäe wants to reach a wide audience, as photography as an art form is easily approachable: ‘First step – unlike classic art museums, Fotografiska’s opening hours are extremely visitor-friendly – daily from 9 am to 11 pm.’ The founding team also includes investment banker, art collector and hobby photographer Rain Tamm and the “sustainable chef” Peeter Pihel.

Location, location, location

Peeter Pihel, Margit Aasmäe, Maarja Loorents and Rain Tamm

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Margit Aasmäe explains, that the owners of Fotografiska, who hadn’t thought of Tallinn as a potential location in the first place, were immediately smitten by the Red House of Telliskivi once the idea had settled.

Telliskivi is already the most vibrant and free-spirited district of Tallinn, attracting locals and tourists alike with its mix of dining, music and arts venues as well as creative office space. The former secret soviet space tech factory has transformed into a public space that inspires creativity and community. This looked just perfect for Fotografiska. The Red House had been waiting for the right tenant for a while. One of the last buildings of the former factory to be completed, it was actually never used. Jaanus Juss, the CEO of Telliskivi had a long waiting list of companies willing to rent the space, but nothing seemed quite right.

The wait has been worth the while – Fotografiska is a perfect match for Telliskivi and vice versa. Both solely privately funded, both focused on responsible and sustainable development with an unusual alertness for issues larger than the daily trivia. Telliskivi Creative City has invested nearly 5 million euros into the reconstruction of the building that now houses the newest art space and attraction of Tallinn.

World-class photography with a regional touch The artistic concept of Fotografiska International is to present worldclass photography that is relevant to society. The cooperation model makes it possible to bring world-renowned names to Tallinn. The second-floor gallery opened with Jimmy Nelson’s exhibition “Homage to Humanity”, to be followed by the intriguing and timely “Truth is Dead”

by Alison Jackson in September. The third-floor gallery opening shows had a more regional touch with two Scandinavian artists – Pentti Sammallahti from Finland and Anja Niemi form Norway, and the Estonian artist Anna-Stina Treumund. The autumn programme brings Kirsty Mitchell’s “Wonderland” and Yang Fudong’s “Moving Mountains” to the gallery from September.

As the global exhibition programme will follow the same curation principles, new venues also have a role in drawing Fotografiska’s attention to regional talent and thus being a potential door opener for new artists.

Aasmäe points out that Estonia’s regional expertise can be a valuable addition, for example when exploring new Russian artists: ‘The mission is also to find local and world-class regional artists – Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Russia. This would ensure attention to new talent in other Fotografiska outlets as well.’ When Fotografiska started in Sweden, the mission was to bring world-class photography to Sweden. Now Stockholm is going to the world. Starting in Tallinn.

‘We just needed to open the doors and people started streaming in.’

The visitor numbers of the first month prove the decision right. Almost 40 000 people visited the exhibitions within the first 6 weeks, well above the numbers that most popular arts exhibitions have attracted in Tallinn so far. About half of all visitors were foreign tourists. The proportionally high number of international visitors reassures the regional ambition – Fotografiska is a well-known quality destination for Finns who value arts, design, food. So, the new venue immediately drew the attention of visitors from Finland. For locals of Tallinn, it’s a new brand and a new concept yet to be discovered. ‘We are positively surprised by the interest and visitor numbers. The brand was unknown but apparently this slot was empty,’ says Aasmäe.

Fotografiska Stockholm with 500 000 annual visits is the second most popular attraction in the Swedish capital and sets a benchmark for Tallinn as well. Aasmäe explains, that the estimates and targets based on Tallinn’s other museums and arts venues seemed way too shy for Fotografiska’s team: ‘We need to aim higher, otherwise it’s meaningless.’

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Photos by Tiina-Liina Uudam

A lifestyle hub Fotografiska is more than a gallery. The Stockholm experience has shown that the business model, with the combination of dining and events, is effective in supporting the artistic side. The dining experience has to follow the overall sustainable mindset. In the case of Tallinn, the restaurant is at the core of this concept. Chef Peeter Pihel is well-known for his experiments with zero-waste cuisine and he has created the new restaurant on the top floor accordingly. Not only does the restaurant open a new view and perspective of Tallinn’s Old Town, it also opens taste buds to unexpected ingredients. Pihel says: ‘We aim to raise the level of awareness and question what we eat, drink and take for granted – nudging society towards more sustainable habits.’

This is in line with Fotografiska’s overall mission to inspire a more conscious world. Pihel has global experience from restaurants in Estonia, Sweden, and France such as Pädaste on Muhu island, Fäviken Magasinet in Jarpen and Fulgurances in Paris. In 2017, Pihel was the head chef for the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU, earning Estonia the title of “gourmet presidency”. At Fotografiska’s restaurant, which is accessible throughout the day without a gallery entry ticket, Pihel serves everything from leaf to root, from nose to tail. ‘Red wine bottoms and carrot peels end up as ketchup, nothing is wasted,’ says the chef.

On a sustainable mission For the Estonian private funders, Fotografiska Tallinn is a value-based investment. Aasmäe says, they are happy to be part of something beautiful. ‘But we need to be sustainable, also financially, from the beginning,’ says Aasmäe. Therefore, the exhibition programme will give a reason to return frequently, also aided by the versatile membership programmes and special events. The key however, is to predict what is relevant in the society within the coming months and years and be able to curate the exhibitions accordingly. ‘We have to be understandable and inclusive, not elitist, then we can address topics that have an impact on society,’ Aasmäe explains the approach and mission. Like Fotografiska For Life, the Tallinn team dreams of projects that will raise awareness about social issues, using photography as a medium to inspire action.

Fotografiska Stockholm has established itself as an influential space for discussion about the world. Hopefully the same will happen in Tallinn.

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Photo by Ekvilibrist

Why the world is learning to love Estonian saunas

By Adam Rang

Estonia’s sauna tradition has been making news around the world recently due to a surge in both sauna exports from Estonia and sauna tourism to Estonia – and the help of a few new celebrity fans.

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Photo by Andres Raudjalg

Estonian saunas have been getting a lot of attention recently. At the end of last year, British football star David Beckham ordered his own Estonian sauna after trying one out at the home of the film director Guy Ritchie, which in turn inspired other celebrities to order from the same Estonian manufacturer. In February, Otepää hosted its tenth and largest “sauna marathon”, which quickly sold out its 900 spaces and was covered by media outlets around the world. In May, the Boston Globe followed the New York Times in featuring an Estonian sauna on the front cover of its magazine and recommending readers to visit Estonia. In June, Rakvere launched its own “Estonian Sauna Festival”, which attracted visitors from home and abroad to try out a range of saunas – including an Audi converted into a sauna, which then went viral online and in news reports around the world.

Alongside this, several new and quirky Estonian saunas have opened up in Estonia for both visitors and locals. One Estonian even opened a new sauna in New York inside an old fire rescue truck.

‘But wait’, some of you might be thinking, ‘aren’t saunas Finnish?’

The sauna tradition is rooted in the culture of Finno-Ugric peoples from around the Baltic sea. That includes the Estonians and the Finns, as well as minority groups across the Nordic, Baltic and Russian region, who have proudly retained their culture and helped embed the sauna tradition into their national cultures too.

David Beckham and his Iglucraft sauna made in Estonia

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Photos by Ekvilibrist

Estonia has its own rich sauna (or “saun”) heritage with the same roots as Finnish saunas. To understand our saunas today though, it’s good to understand where they came from.

The first written records about Estonia begin in the 13th century, as do the first written mentions of our saunas, which include the same words we use today in Estonian: “saun” is sauna and “wiht” (later “viht”) is the name of the branch we use to beat ourselves with inside.

The earliest saunas – long before the invention of electric stoves or even chimneys – are what we now call “smoke saunas”. In many other ancient sweat bathing traditions, the stones are heated on a firepit outside then carefully carried into the room. In a Finno-Ugric smoke sauna, however, the stones are kept inside the room, which fills up with smoke as a fire is kept alight beneath them for about half a day. The fire then dies out and the sauna is ventilated before people step inside to bathe, using just the radiant heat of the stones, which are large enough to stay hot for a long time. This smoking process doesn’t just heat the stones for bathing, but can also be used to smoke meat that can be enjoyed afterwards. In fact, the sauna has always been a multi-functional space that served a wide variety of needs, both spiritual and more down-toearth. Until relatively recently, it was even the traditional place for Estonians to be born, undergo healing, and lay in rest at the end of their lives.

Conveniently then, the smoke also sterilises the surfaces.

The sauna, as an innovation, is based on three simple discoveries.

1. Fire can be controlled To our ancestors, fire was once an entirely wild and frightening force that only brought destruction, but learning how to tame the power of fire was the most important turning point in the cultural history of humans.

This enabled our species to expand our activities, improve our diet, travel further and settle in new places.

It was only relatively recently that chimneys eliminated the need for smoke saunas. They were first used here towards the end of the 19th century and became widespread by the 1920s. However, even today many Estonians still prefer to bathe in a smoke sauna, which is why new ones are still being built. It takes skill to build and prepare a smoke sauna, but the heat is gentler, the aroma is richer, the air is more soothing, and – often – the conversation inside flows more easily. UNESCO has even recognised the smoke sauna tradition in Estonia’s Võrumaa region as an intangible part of the cultural heritage of humanity.

“Saunapreneur” Adam Rang

2. Stones can store heat After that, humans also discovered that stones have a special ability to absorb the power of the fire, much like a battery, and then slowly release the heat over a longer period of time. This is useful for keeping a small cave or structure heated through the energy of fire without needing an actual fire, which would have choked those inside with smoke before chimneys were invented.

3. Heated stones can release “leil” Finally, humans then discovered that pouring water onto those heated stones releases a powerful steam, known as leil in Estonian, which creates the ideal environment for bathing. This ultimately enabled humans to absorb the power of the fire themselves.

In addition to the Finnish-Ugric sauna tradition though, similar sweat bathing traditions based on these same three principles can be found in many other ancient cultures around the world. In fact, the oldest sauna ever discovered was from Stone Age Britain, although there’s good reason to believe the tradition goes much further back in time and in many more places. This has led to the theory that the sauna tradition is so old and so fundamental to early human survival that it arrived in our part of the world along with the first people to inhabit the land as they moved north behind the retreating ice at the end of Earth’s last glacial period 10 000 years ago. Without a good sauna, it may not have been possible to settle here in the first place.

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Since re-independence, Estonia has been making up for lost time when it comes to sharing its sauna culture with the world. Estonia is now increasingly recognised for its creative, affordable, and sometimes slightly quirky Nordic design, as well as its technological innovations. These trends have shaped the development of our rising sauna industry too.

The company that David Beckham chose to make his sauna is Iglucraft, which is based in the small village of Leie in Viljandimaa and makes a very distinctive “Igloo” style sauna with spruce shingles.

Estonia is already one of the world’s largest exporter of pre-made wooden houses, and so has great potential to also meet rising demand for pre-built saunas, whether out of wood or other materials. Another Estonian company, ÖÖD, for example has experimented with making saunas in their own unique style. They make stunning houses that are see-through from inside to provide a nice view, but mirrored on the outside to blend into the environment.

In Tartu, another Estonian company called HUUM is also experiencing record exports for their stylish and digitally advanced sauna stoves. A few years ago, they tasked design students at the Estonian Academy of Arts to come up with a modern sauna stove based on ancient sauna building principles. While many sauna stoves today are clunky and a bit industrial looking, they instead designed a stove that minimises the metal elements on display and has as many stones as possible, which become the central focus of the sauna – as they have been for thousands of years. This not only looks good, but produces superior heat and leil. Their design has since won numerous awards and often appears in news reports and Instagram photos of trendy new saunas around the world. That Estonian who I mentioned opened a new sauna in New York (Mairo Notton’s “Red Hot Sauna”) ordered the stove from HUUM because he wanted the heart of his sauna to be Estonian. More recently, HUUM has now added a WiFi connection so that saunas can be controlled through a mobile app and reach the perfect temperature before returning home.

verged slightly due to their different fortunes. Our saunas have not only shaped our history, but have also been shaped by history.

The Finnish sauna rose to fame around the world, which is why we use the Finnish word ‘sauna’ in English too. This was helped by the fact that Finland remained free to celebrate its own culture and waves of Finnish emigration brought the sauna to new parts of the world, most notably the Great Lakes region of the US, before the invention of electric saunas made them more accessible to more people and popularised the concept of the Finnish sauna.

Under the Soviet occupation however, Estonians were less able to modernise their saunas. As a result, many Estonian saunas built in the last century are a bit more rough around the edges than their Finnish counterparts, although arguably that’s what gives them their rustic charm. In addition, Estonians had a tendency during Soviet times to create ever larger eesruumid (sauna ‘pre-rooms’) for socialising and enjoying more food and drink during their sauna sessions. This trend was first noticed by the Estonian sauna researcher Tamara Habicht in her book Eesti Saun, which was first published in the 1970s. It wasn’t until after the Soviet occupation ended that the book could be republished with an explanation as to why. Under the planned economy of the Soviet Union, a sauna pre-room with plenty of drink flowing became a convenient place to negotiate with local officials in charge of allocating resources. Traditionally, Estonians would enjoy a hearty meal after their sauna session, but we still have a tendency to get the party started while in the sauna too. If you think Estonians are quiet and reserved, then step into a sauna and you’ll realise that’s where we really open up.

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Inspired and aided by these contemporary Estonian sauna designs, my partner Anni Oviir and I have also recently opened new saunas in Estonia to help share our sauna culture with visitors.

HUUM stove

Photo by Dee Kramer

Throughout the 20th century, Finnish and Estonian sauna history di-

We noticed that there is only one smoke sauna in Tallinn and that is on display inside a museum, but we believe the best way to preserve Estonia’s smoke tradition is to keep using them so we turned to Iglucraft and asked them to construct a smoke sauna in their style, which could be delivered to our home. Our smoke sauna is now open as “Rangi saun”, which we use to teach visitors about Estonia’s sauna heritage while letting them enjoy the sauna too. After that, we turned to HUUM so we could create a modern sauna inside our Tallinn apartment that we offer to guests for short-term accommodation. We give the app log-in details to guests so they can start heating the sauna even before they disembark the plane at Tallinn airport then arrive to find birch “viht” ready to use and the sauna already at the perfect temperature. It’s the best way to recover after a long journey.

We think it’s important to share not just our saunas, but also our sauna culture. Many of the people who visit us are quite hesitant at first because they are confused about how we sauna the Estonian way and don’t want to commit a social faux pas – like stripping naked when everyone else is wearing a swimsuit or wearing a swimsuit when everyone else is naked. A little bit of guidance and expectation management makes a huge difference.

Many of the exporters I’ve spoken to have also explained that there are many potential buyers fascinated by the idea of having a sauna but the likelihood of a sale depends on how well they understand the culture.

Providing a live demonstration of how to use the sauna is usually what seals the deal.

Actually, I’ll let you in on a secret. As the Finns managed to get “sauna” into English, we’re now plotting to do the same with “leil” (sauna steam).

When we teach the world about our Estonian saunas, we are really teaching them about Estonia itself – both our history and who we are as a people today. We are also helping them rediscover an important part of our shared human heritage.

Sure, we don’t need them for the same survival skills as our ancestors, but we still enjoy them for relaxing and taking time to get to know each other better. Perhaps those are the survival skills we now need more than ever. The sauna is our original social network and, some might argue, still our best one – particularly as there are no algorithms to ensure you mostly hear from people with similar perspectives to you.

What makes saunas so special in our part of the world is not necessarily that they were invented here, but that they survived here. The sauna has continued to evolve over thousands of years and is still relevant to our modern lives today, yet the basic principles remain the same.

Adam Rang is an Estonian “saunapreneur” who works with his partner, Anni Oviir, to help share Estonia’s sauna culture with more people around the world.

They host sauna sessions, write about saunas they explore around Estonia, and help export sauna design and technology. You can read more about their sauna adventures at Medium.com/EstonianSaunas.

Photo by Ekvilibrist

Most importantly, we tell people to enjoy the sauna at their own pace. It’s not a competition to see who can stay in the longest or endure the hottest temperatures. We also emphasise that the sauna is so much more than just a hot room. In fact, it’s about cooling down just as much as it’s about warming up. More than anything though, it’s about socialising.

To help them understand this, we even provide a brief Estonian lesson.

That’s partly because it’s interesting to visitors, but also because there simply aren’t commonly recognised English words for so many aspects of the Estonian sauna experience. Language shapes our ability to understand what we see. So, by learning about the different Estonian names for sauna rooms, it’s easier to understand that the sauna is so much more than just a hot room (which we call the “leiliruum”).

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By Kerli Kirch Schneider, Võru Institute

The first written sources about the Vana-Võromaa smoke sauna (sauna without a chimney) tradition, which is included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, reach back to the 13th century. A log-constructed sauna without a chimney is common to all Baltic-Finnic peoples, including the Finns, Karelians and Estonians, but it seems that many Estonians in south-eastern Estonia hold that tradition more deeply in their cultures and the roots of their identity than other Western-Finnish peoples. Today, many people in the old Võro and Seto region still practice this custom, keeping alive various beliefs and rituals that would lose their meaning without it.

Historically, a sauna was built on the powerful ground located between two worlds – that which belonged to the family (e.g. house, barn, garden) and the outside, pristine world (e.g. the forest, the lake, the fields).

According to the Southern-Estonian beliefs, the smoke sauna was not only a place to bathe, wash clothes and smoke meat, but it was also a space of healing, creation, rituals and spirit cleansing.

The sauna was heated on Saturdays so that the family could be clean for the “day of the rest”. It took half a day for the smoke sauna to get warm. Men were usually the first ones to bathe as women had more housework to finish before going to sauna. Some say men went first because they were able to bear higher temperatures. Even children as young as a few weeks of age were taken to the sauna.

The whole family was supposed to be finished bathing before sundown as it was believed that once the sun goes down, the water in sauna turns into Jesus’ blood and the Devil comes to bathe in it. To keep the Devil away, people crossed the sauna door after they left the building, and to invite Holy Mary in, they left a bucket of clean water behind and put a whisk next to it. Once the sauna visit was finished, the sauna goers bowed to the sauna and thanked the ones who heated it, carried in the water, made the whisks, and washed their backs.

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Besides body cleansing, people also used the sauna for healing. It was especially good for the joints and muscles that were aching due to frequent hard, physical work. People used “viht” – whisks (bundled branches) to beat their naked bodies to improve circulation, exfoliate the skin, and relieve muscle pain. It was believed that the whisks made during the waning moon contained nine medications, while the ones made during the waxing moon hid seven diseases. When someone was mended in the sauna, the healer could not be thanked, otherwise the sick person would not heal.

However, the sauna did not only end illnesses, it could also end a life.

According to some tales, if more than half of the family was struck with a disease, the sick ones were taken to a heated sauna, which usually healed the ones who were in the beginning or ending phase of the sickness, while the ones who were in the middle, often died. People just could not afford to take care of sick family members, cattle and the household at the same time.

Apart from putting an end to diseases and people’s lives, the sauna tradition also symbolised wrapping up certain periods of life, such as ending a maiden phase or becoming a mother; changes in nature, including summer or winter solstices, etc. So, beginnings and ends, births and deaths were all associated with the sauna. Moreover, the sauna was used for different rituals (e.g. asking for fertility or prosperity) as well as communicating with one’s ancestors.

To sum up, the ancient smoke sauna tradition serves both mundane and mystical needs, allowing the connection of one’s body and mind. Local folks believe that the smoke sauna teaches people that sometimes it is necessary to go through the grimiest place to entirely cleanse your body and soul.

The smoke sauna is the ending of the old and the beginning of something new!

Photo by Toomas Tuul

Vana-Võromaa smoke sauna – the place for a body and spirit cleanse

A reminder for visitors to the smoke sauna For those of you who have never been in a smoke sauna, some aspects might be surprising, unexpected or even spoil the sauna experience. The smoke sauna differs from other saunas in many ways, so it is recommended to learn a few basic concepts.

You must set aside sufficient time, because a smoke sauna is not the place for a quick wash.

The smoke is present in the sauna only during the heating process, after which it will be let out – so the air will be clear when you go inside.

When entering the sauna, words of greeting are spoken. When leaving the sauna, gratitude is rendered.

The door of the sauna is kept closed.

While using the sauna, no wood is added to the oven, nor is the ash or charcoal in the oven stirred. Likewise, rubbish must not be thrown into the hearth.

It is not wise to lean against the walls – they are hot and grimy. Likewise, it is not recommended to rake the walls or ceiling with a whisk, because the whisk will become grimy and this will make the body dirty, too.

Even the walls of the sauna pre-room can be grimy. Bear this in mind while removing your clothes.

If your body or clothes become dirty, you must clean them with cold or cool water.

When rinsing with hot water in between several bouts of taking steam and threshing, the body becomes clean even without the use of modern washing facilities. You can ask the sauna’s owner about washing customs and about which washing facilities are customarily used.

Smoke saunas are usually not equipped with electricity. During darkness, oil lamps, candles and other sources of open flame are used. But one must be careful while using them!

The water (especially hot water) must be used sparingly, because it is usually not available in large quantities.

Meat smoking in sauna Smoke saunas are also used to prepare very delicious smoked meat. Pork is the meat most commonly smoked in a sauna, but lamb, poultry and venison can be prepared there as well. Meat-smoking is a very old custom for preserving meat.

Before smoking, the pieces of meat must be soaked in salty water for at least a week.

The sauna is heated so that the meat can be exposed to both heat and smoke at the same time. Meat smoking lasts for two or three days. Throughout this time, the meat smoker visits the sauna frequently to keep an eye on the level of heat. The pieces of meat must be turned over every now and then. Every meat smoker has their own tricks that they have learned from their parents and grandparents. As every sauna is a bit different, there is no single recipe for making good smoked meat.

The sauna is a place for healing one’s body and mind, so no contentious or irritating stories are to be told in the sauna.

While threshing, it is good manners to offer thanks.

You do not thank the person who washes your back or gives you a massage, but offer him/her some kind of healing wishes in return.

After the sauna, you must rest and refrain from work. A light meal is taken, and a small drop of alcohol may be consumed if you wish.

Estonian singer Kerli Kõiv in Mooska smoke sauna – come be a part of the winter solstice and ancient traditions of Estonia.

The water used to make steam must not be thrown in the heater all in one go, but must be allowed to trickle around the stones in the heater. You cannot use cold water to make the steam – the water must be hot or at least lukewarm.

The steam from a smoke sauna is not sharp and hot, but very damp and long-lasting.

A dry threshing whisk is soaked in a separate bowl or a bucket filled with hot water, until the leaves of the whisk are soft. The whisk must not be placed into the heater, because the leaves can fall between the stones and release carbon monoxide into the room.

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Events calendar: Highlights from September to December Life in Estonia recommends

Tallinn Architecture Biennale 3rd of September to 11th of November @ Tallinn

Matsalu Nature Film Festival 18th to 22nd of September @ Matsalu

Station Narva 19th to 21st of September @ Narva

The Tallinn Architectural Biennale is the largest international architectural festival of the region.

This year, the theme of the programme is “Beauty matters; the return of beauty”. It will be curated by Dr Yael Reisner. The opening week of the TAB will be held from the 11th to 15th of September; exhibitions and installations will remain open to the public until the 3rd of November. www.tab.ee Tallinn Architecture Biennale tab_2019

The festival aims to introduce and acknowledge new nature films and their makers.

Traditionally, the festival features nature photography exhibitions and workshops. The festival is named after the Matsalu National Park in which it is located, one of largest bird sanctuaries in Europe.

Enter Station Narva, the first edition of the music and city culture festival in the surprising, diamond-in-the-rough city of Narva in North-Eastern Estonia, on the border of Russia and the EU. For three days in September, a vibrant cast of musicians, artists, urban thinkers and more descend upon the city, bringing art and culture to the forefront.

www.matsalufilm.ee Matsalu Loodusfilmide Festival

www.stationnarva.ee Station Narva stationnarva

Tallinn Design Festival 16th to 22nd of September @ Tallinn

Researchers’ Night Festival 26th to 28th of September @ all around Estonia

The Tallinn Design Festival demonstrates the achievements of designers from Estonia and other countries and starts discussions about the role of design in modern society.

The venues of the festival have often been neglected pearls of architecture. In the collectively composed festival programme, one can find formats going deeper into design world, cultural and entertaining events, and initiatives promoting design trade.

A festival with a colourful programme for the whole family. The festival values knowledge and opens the door to the world of science.

The newest achievements in research will be discussed, those who are interested will be taken to discover secret laboratories; elite scientists will introduce their work and it is possible to take part in free workshops, Science Theatre viewings, movie nights and experiments.

www.tallinndesignfestival.com Tallinn Design Festival tallinn_design_festival

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www.teadlasteoo.ee Teadlaste Öö Festival teadlasteoo

Kihnu Violin Festival 4th to 6th of October @ Kihnu Island

Tallinn International Horse Show 4th to 6th of October @ Tallinn

Saaremaa Rally 11th to 12th of October @ Saaremaa

The UNESCO World Heritage ‘Kihnu Violin Festival’ on the island of Kihnu, just a short boat ride away from Pärnu, showcases the best violinists of Estonia. Travelers can immerse themselves in island culture and the rich song traditions of Kihnu, as they enjoy the festival’s spectacular violin concerts and discussions.

The grand event of Estonian equestrian sport carries on its tradition, having added two World Cup qualifiers to its program in dressage and show jumping.

The rally takes you across Saaremaa, Estonia’s largest island – come enjoy the speed and the colours of autumn.

www.tallinnhorseshow.ee Tallinn International Horse Show ratsaliit

www.saaremaarally.eu Saaremaa Rally rallysaaremaa

www.kihnukultuuriruum.ee

Pärnu Café Week 5th to 13th of October @ Pärnu

Tallinn Restaurant Week 1st to 7th of November @ Tallinn

During Café Week, various cafés of Pärnu offer special meals using local ingredients with exceptionally good prices. Come and find out what the food scene of Pärnu has to offer!

In the first week of November, Tallinn restaurants celebrate good food and the city becomes foodie heaven. Tallinn Restaurant Week offers the opportunity to enjoy worldclass restaurants serving quality cuisine at attractive prices.

www.kohvikutenadal.ee Pärnu Kohvikute Nädal parnu_cafes_restaurants

www.tallinnrestaurantweek.ee Tallinn Restaurant Week

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Events calendar

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) 15th of November to 1st of December @ Tallinn PÖFF is the largest and most distinctive film event in Northern Europe, considered to be among the leading film festivals of the world.

The festival embraces a cluster of events, accommodating three full-blown sub-festivals: PÖFF Shorts, Just Film and Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event. www.2019.poff.ee festival poff tallinnblacknightsff

Black Food Festival Tallinn 23rd of November @ Põhjala Factory, Tallinn

Christmas Jazz 29th of November to 12th of December @ Tallinn

The Black Food Festival is coming to Estonia for the first time this year. Having set out its stall in Berlin, London and New York in the last 12 months, it’s now on its way to Tallinn. The aim is to open the door to culinary creativity and experimentation under the umbrella of an enjoyable city festival during some of the blackest nights of the year. Taste-wise, there’ll be something for everybody!

Christmas Jazz is a two-week intimate jazz festival that fills Tallinn’s churches, concert halls and clubs with beautiful jazz music in late November and early December. Performers come from both near and far.

www.blackfoodfest.ee Black Food Festival Tallinn 2019 blackfoodfestival

Tallinn Christmas Market 15th of November to 7th of January @ Tallinn Tallinn’s Christmas Market, held in the medieval Town Hall Square, was awarded the title of Best European Christmas Market in 2019. Travellers can enjoy black pudding and sour cabbage, as well as warm Christmas drinks. A full cultural programme with dancers, singers and more takes place on the stage and visitors are visited

by Santa. www.christmasmarket.ee jouluturg tallinnchristmasmarket

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www.jazzkaar.ee Jazzkaar jazzkaar