NordenBladet – A cutting-edge testing facility has recently been launched in the Ülemiste City business area of Tallinn, offering an exceptional environment for the Baltic and Nordic regions to experiment with and assess the effectiveness of emerging technologies. This state-of-the-art facility is inviting both local and international companies to put their new solutions to the test or validate their services within a realistic urban setting.
“The purpose of Ülemiste City that has been developed into a smart business area from scratch within two decades is to become a testing platform for new green urban solutions. As a compact business environment, we can offer testers access to our infrastructure, a community of 16 000 members, different support services and our know-how in development,” said the Chief Innovation Officer of Ülemiste City, Ursel Velve. “The resulting synergy between science and business and the smart implementation of new sustainable technologies is what makes Ülemiste the most unique environment in the Nordic region for different testing purposes – the TestCity.”
According to Ursel Velve, Ülemiste City invests in creating an ecosystem where testing is a natural part of product development and service design, keeping the focus on the green transition as well as the health and smart city innovation. She says that Ülemiste City is different from other North-European testing environments because of its more significant and more versatile selection of services supported by the actual urban environment in a limited area functioning as a mini-city model.
“Ülemiste Test City, Tallinn and Estonia offer a physical testing environment at the level of a business campus, city as well as a compact small state, supported by data and modern technologies necessary for making leadership decisions as well as talents interested in technology who can contribute to the value chain from the beginning till the end,” said Ursel Velve. She added that Test City’s value also lies in bringing together businesses of different sizes and areas of activity, facilitating the creation of new services and business models.
Several services have undergone a testing process within the framework of the Test City concept. Logistics firm DPD recently tested package delivery with Clevon’s robot courier CLEVON 1. Auvetech Modern Mobility has also tested their self-driving demand-based transportation service on the campus, Fyma its artificial intelligence-based mobility data solution, R8 Technologies its artificial intelligence-based energy management of buildings, Kone Insight its building usage statistics service, Ringo its reusable food packaging service and Active Health its health management platform.
Skeleton Technologies is expanding its test lab in Ülemiste Test City. The company’s board member Ants Vill said they would like to test Skeleton’s technologies more widely in Estonia. “We highly value the level of local engineering, which is extremely competitive in the global context today, and we wish that there would be more engineering professionals in Estonia to enable us to create more value through the development and implementation of deep technology to combat global climate change,” he added.
Representative of Enterprise Estonia Joonas Vänto stated that all kinds of test environments, labs or incubators that gather innovation also attract talent. “In terms of location, Ülemiste City is truly great. It is a business district within the city where new technologies could be tested. Estonia increasingly attracts forward-looking international companies which in turn increases the interest of foreign workforce in our opportunities. We see that Estonia in cooperation with the city of Tallinn and Ülemiste City is becoming a talent magnet where people want to work,” he noted.
Ülemiste City (https://www.ulemistecity.ee/en) located in Tallinn’s international traffic junction is the biggest business area in the Baltics developed by Mainor Ülemiste and Technopolis Ülemiste. The City’s 36 hectare-area includes 167 000 square metres of rentable office spaces. The area hosts more than 500 businesses and provides a work, home and living environment for nearly 16 000 people.
Ülemiste City, focused on a research-based and open economy, is having an ever-increasing impact on the entire Estonian economy, having taken up third place in the country’s business areas within the past few years. The total turnover of the 500 companies occupying the business area in 2022 was about 2 billion euros, of which one billion was made up by export.
Ülemiste Test City in numbers:
over 500 enterprises
167 000 m² of office spaces
44 226 m² of green areas
16 000 people working, studying of living in the area – about 15% of staff are from about 70 foreign countries
The annual turnover of the business area’s enterprises is 2 billion euros
Over 50% of Ülemiste City’s enterprises cooperate with research and development institutions; 70% of enterprises develop innovative products and services
More than 1/3 of Estonia’s IT-export is produced in Ülemiste City
9 successful Test City projects
The first health technology accelerator Health Founders within the Baltics
Featured image: The most unique testing environment for new technologies in the Baltic and Nordic regions opened in the Ülemiste City business area in Tallinn is welcoming local and foreign companies to test their new solutions or validate their services in a natural city environment. (Ülemiste City)