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EESTI ELU reedel, 29. mail 2020 â Friday, May 29, 2020
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LEP 2021 save the date and Logo Contest 35th West Coast Estonian Days Save the dates: Friday July 16th to Sunday July 18th 2021 Seattle is excited to share the extraordinary and breathtaking beauty of our home in the Pacific Northwest as we join our hands, hearts, and voices to celebrate Estonia culture at the Seattle LEP2021. Since 1953, West Coast Estonians have met to sing, dance, and reconnect with old friends and make new ones. LÀÀneranniku Eesti PÀe vad, or LEP, is our festival of everything Estonian. The West Coast Estonian League, (WCEL/EOLL) formed in 1954 with the main purpose of preparing and carrying out the West Coast Estonian Days, has grown from 13 founding member organizations to a cur rent 22. The presidency and board of the league rotates on a two year basis among the five West Coast population centers (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, BC). The first of such festivals occurred in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend bringing
together over 600 participants, and in 2019 the leadership was passed on from Portland to Seattle. During LEP2021 we will call the Suquamish Clearwater Resort and Casino our home. The Clearwater, located on the shores of the Agate Passage, is just a short, scenic ferry ride from Seattle. The ferry crosses Puget Sound and you arrive on the traditional lands of the Suquamish Tribe. The beautiful setting will create a unique backdrop for the festival events, from formal programming to casual activities. Events include a Folk Party beginning with programmed Song and Dance Festival that continues with the audience joining their voices to sing old folk songs and joining their hands to twirl through well-loved folk dances.Whether participating in the Sports Day festivities, or dressing up and dancing the night away at the Ball, there will be something for everyone â perhaps even a travelling sauna â stay tuned! Make your mark Throughout the many years
of LEP, strong logos have been featured as a symbol of the Âindividual festivals. We are call ing on all creatives to make their mark on the 35th LEP festivities through our Logo  Contest with a chance to be come part of history and win an example of Estonian ingenuity along with a ticket to LEP 2021. The Estonian company of Click and Grown has generously donated one of their Smart Gardens as a prize, along with cornflower pods to bring a small piece of Estonia to your own home. Find more information and submission guidelines on the Logo Contest Webpage at www. lep2021.com/logo-contest. DeadÂline has been extended to June 28th 2020. Further information and up dates as they become available can be found on the LEP 2021 website (www.lep2021.com) and on the âWest Coast Estonian Days â LEP 2021 Seattleâ Facebook Page. We look forward to seeing you soon! THE SEATTLE LEP2021 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE info@lep2021.com
On the Market: Starship Technologies Delivery Robots Vincent Teetsov At one point, home delivery of groceries seemed inconceiv able. We couldnât rely on gro cery stores to manage the shopping lists of thousands of customers each day, at least not with a reliable schedule. Supply chain management was difficult enough on an incoming basis, importing a wide range of food and home products from around the world and then distributing to each grocery store so that cus tomers received those goods at peak levels of freshness. Grocery shopping was once an errand that took a shopper throughout their neighbourhood. Greengrocer, check. Butcher, check. Bakery, check. Best Buy... well, actually, you can ignore that last one; but shop ping was a multi-step process,
Photo: Ohpuu
and so the one-stop grocery store was as convenient as it could get. Though, this con venience removed the social component of running errands and encountering the same pro prietors each time. Then came Peapod in 1989, and Webvan in 1996. Com puters meant better data organi zation and for some, the ease of using the internet to order groceries won over going in  person. We could get on with our tasks at home without inter ruption, and drivers were the gears of this delivery machine. Click, click, checkout, and within a few days your gro ceries would arrive. But what if we replaced those drivers with robots and reduced the wait time down from days to one hour? The almost instantaneous nature of Â
robot delivery would prevent situations where a shopper would go to the store right away because it was faster. Janus Friis and Ahti Heinla, originally from Skype, built Starship Technologies with this vision, starting in 2014. Star ship Technologies robots can deliver up to 10 kg of goods, which could account for a few bags of groceries or take-out food from a restaurant. Their electric robots can be seen across over 100 cities in 20 countries. With a delivery Âradius of 4.8 to 6.4 kilometres, theyâve been particularly popu lar on university campuses in the United States and less densely populated cities such as Milton Keynes in England. Working in their favour is the relatively slow speed of their robots (6.4 km per hour), the lack of specific legislation about small vehicles on side walks, and the low cost of de livery. In the US, each delivery costs $1.99. It might be difficult to compete with fast or long distance restaurant deliveries like Uber Eats, but for groceries, itâs definitely a contender. Cleaning and agriculture were both considered by the founders as sectors to apply artificial intelligence, but de  liveries were something that most consumers already trusted and had enough experience of, such as through fulfillment Âservices like Amazon. This was important to get investment and expand the companyâs reach. Trust in the company had to be supported by engineering the robots with cameras and sen sors, so that they would react to crosswalks, pedestrians, traffic,
Photo: Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort
Past logo contest winners.
and obstacles. Footage of a Starship robots going around snowy sidewalks in MustamĂ€e, Tallinn substan tiate the success of these fea tures. A wide range of videos show a very measured, respon sive piece of tech, which can at times be hesitant. Would it take off in a more densely populated city though, like Toronto? Initially, big city prospects werenât promising. For example, in 2017, the city of San Fran cisco considered banning side walk delivery robots. After Âdiscussing with several compa nies, including Starship Techno logies, the cityâs District 7 supervisor, Norman Yee, said  âour streets and our sidewalks are made for people, not ro bots.â But two years later,
Postmates, a competing robot delivery service, was due to receive a permit to test their  delivery robots on San Fran  cisco sidewalks. Top level hesitancy to accept robots, whether those are self driving cars or delivery robots, is inevitable. In Toronto, as in San Francisco, there is much more vehicular and foot traffic to maneuver around. Some Âcritics fear the loss of jobs, too. And then there is the question of whether low cost delivery can recuperate the expense of maintaining these robots. AI deliveries will take time to achieve mainstream accep tance, and in the meantime, Starship Technologies is perse vering and building customer loyalty in any places that need their services.
in partnership with CANADA SUMMER JOBS is looking for 5 youth: âąâ Student in Nursing âąâ Student in Activation, Gerontology or Kinesiology âąâ Student in Hospitality, Nutrition or Dietary Studies or similar âąâ Administrative Studies (business, accounting, etc.) âąâ Environmental Services or Maintenance Applicants must be between 15 and 30 years of age and be legally entitled to work in Canada. Please forward resume to info@ehatare.ca or fax 416-284-5595 Only qualified candidates will be contacted.
