Estonians offer credit scoring solution based on social media

Estonian company Big Data Scoring that is managed and co-owned by Erki Kert, former board member of LHV Pank, is offering credit scoring based on social media data, writes Äripäev.

The company is active at this point in Estonia, Finland and Poland.

The models used by Big Data Scoring predict on the basis of data from Facebook and other online sources which clients are more likely to default on their loan. In developing the model the company has gathered over 45 million lines of data on the internet which it has combined with real-life payment behavior data in a number of European countries over a period of more than a year.

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http://www.bigdatascoring.com/

Estonia’s first satellite reaches orbit

Estonia’s first satellite, ESTCube-1, was rocketed off to orbit the Earth on Tuesday, 7 May at 05:06, after strong winds had caused setbacks, postponing the initial planned launch date on Saturday.

Estonia has thus become the 41st nation to have a man-made object in space, beating out Finland and the other Baltic countries, all of which are due to launch their first satellites in the coming years.

The nanosatellite reached orbit at around 07:06 Estonian time. Launched from the Guiana Space Center, ESTCube-1 was carried by the launch vehicle Vega and was accompanied by two other satellites, Europe’s Proba V and Vietnam’s VNREDSat 1A.

The ESTCube-1 team said on its Facebook page that everything went according to plan and that the satellite will first come into view in Estonia at 10:30 today. One of the project’s leaders, Tartu Observatory senior researcher Mart Noorma, watched the launch live at Arianspace.tv. “I am very proud to be seeing all these students here who are watching their handiwork of five years,” Noorma said. Speaker of Parliament Ene Ergma, an astrophysicist by training who was in French Guiana to observe the launch, said Estonia is now a “tiny space country.” “It’s a really big deal in my opinion,” she said.

University students had been developing the nanosatellite since 2008 and preparations for the project were made even earlier. ESTCube-1 is now due to carry out innovative solar wind experiments.

Source: Estonian Review

Estonia is the European leader in innovation growth

The European Commission says that in relative terms, Estonia is undoubtedly the European leader in innovation growth, followed by Lithuania and Latvia, because these are the countries – despite being a long way behind the leaders – that have the highest rate of improvement.

Estonia is in 14th place in the European Commission’s Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013, after Cyprus and ahead of Italy.

While almost all member states improved their innovation performance, Estonia grew with an average annual rate of 7.1%. Overall, the EU annual average growth rate of innovation performance reached 1.6% over the analysed five-year period 2008-2012.

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Estonians develop a parking system for Moscow

Estonian company NOW! Innovations has been selected by the City of Moscow to develop a software solution that will manage Moscow’s paid parking system, writes Eesti Ekspress weekly.

The company’s CEO Üllar Jaaksoo who is former head of Tele2 in Estonia said that the solution will cover the mobile parking system and the touchcard system.

Similar solutions developed by NOW! Innovations are used in 14 towns in Belgium and 30 small towns in US.

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Estonian students made a satellite

ESTCube-1, a cube satellite built by Estonian students, on Monday started its journey to the European spaceport near Kourou in French Guyana, from where it will be flown into orbit on board the Vega rocket in April.

The first ever satellite of Estonia tests the electric solar wind sail invented by Finnish scientist Pekka Janhunen, which may become an important milestone in the development of future technologies and Estonia’s aspiration to become a space nation, Mart Noorma, teacher at the University of Tartu and senior research fellow at Tartu Observatory, told BNS.

Noorma said the popularisation of science and an educational mission was one of the main goals of the project, which already now could be counted as a success. “I’m sure that all the one hundred or so students who took part in the programme over the five years believe that it’s possible to do big things here in Estonia,” he said.

Noorma described the student satellite as extraordinary in terms of its scientific mission, as in collaboration with Finnish and German partners a novel electric solar wind sail, invented by Pekka Janhunen, researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, will be tested. The electric sail is a new space propulsion concept which uses the solar wind momentum for producing thrust, and is seen as enabling in the future both interplanetary flights as well as removal of space litter.

ESTCube-1 is a cubesat measuring 10 x 10 x 10 cm and weighing 1.33 kilograms. The satellite’s operations center will be located at Tartu Observatory.

The possibility to participate in building a real space craft brought into the project several students from Latvia, Germany, Ukraine, Lithuania, and the United States. Altogether three doctoral theses and more than 40 graduation theses are to be defended as a result of the project that got its start in 2008. a

Students from the University of Tartu, the Estonian Aviation Academy, Tallinn University of Technology, and the University of Life Sciences took part in the project that is led by researchers from Tartu Observatory and the University of Tartu. The development of different components of the satellite took place in international collaboration and articles related to the work have been published in numerous scientific publications.

Source: Estonian Review

Top 10 Estonian startups

Based on input from Estonian startup thought leaders and investors, the weekly Estonian popular tech & startup themed radio show & podcast Restart (run by MP of the Estonian Parliament and a startup founder himself, Andrei Korobeinik) has selected the most promising Estonian startups to keep an eye on in 2013. Here is the list:

1.Transferwise – cheap money transfers. Charges a fraction of the price that banks and others charge for currency conversion. $1.3m seed round from Index Ventures, IA Ventures, Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal), TAG, Seedcamp and others. Co-founded by Skype’s first employee. Seedcamp alumni.
2.Creative Mobile – mobile games. Hugely profitable. Drag Racing on Android has close to 100 million installs.
3.Erply – POS and ERP tools. In use at close to 100k seats. Largest customers have 10k employees. Seedcamp alumni.
4.ZeroTurnaround – Java productivity tools, loved by developers.
5.Marinexplore – marine data place for the ocean community. Only one in top 10 started in 2012. Raised $1.4m from Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Fredrik Astrup, Lars Erik Baustad, Marek Kiisa (Astrec Invest) and Ivar Siimar (WNB).
6.Grabcad – community of mechanical engineers & engineering workflow tools. $14 million raised from Charles River Ventures, Yammer’s David Sacks, Atlas Venture, Matrix Partners et al. Seedcamp and Techstars alumni.
7.Pipedrive – CRM and pipeline management tool. $1 m raised from TMT Investments, Andy McLoughlin, Christopher Muenchhoff and Angelpad. AngelPad alumni.
8.Vital Fields – farming weather forecasts. $318k from Estonian Development Fund et al. StartupWiseGuys alumni.
9.Flirtic.com – dating service.
10.Click and Grow – a self-watering flower pot. Over 80k units sold.

Read more from Jüri Kaljundi blog

Oil industry accounted for one third of R&D expenditure

According to Statistics Estonia, in 2011 the ratio of research and development expenditures to the gross domestic product rose upon a novel level – 2.41%, surpassing for the first time the EU mean of 2.03%.

In 2011, the expenditure on research and development activities (R&D) amounted to 384.5 million euros and was nearly two thirds more compared to a year earlier. The investments in new technology for the oil industry accounted for one third of that expenditure.

The guidebook of R&D statistics^a gives an answer to the question possibly arising: why the erecting of a new plant is counted as R&D? No doubt that in the case of a pilot plant based on new first time implemented technology one is facing experimental development. There have been analogous examples for other economic activities in Estonia earlier but in present case the scale of the investments is exceptional. It tends to overshadow other positive changes that were taking place. To become aware of those it is convenient to present the data by sectors.

R&D expenditure, million euros, 2009–2011

	2009	2010	2011
Total R&D expenditure	197.4	232.8	384.5
..non-profit sectors	109.2	116.0	141.6
..business enterprise sector	88.2	116.8	242.8
Financed by government	96.4	102.8	125.9
..non-profit sectors	86.6	89.8	109.4
..business enterprise sector	9.7	13.0	16.5

In 2011, for the non-profit institutional sectors (of which the higher education sector accounts for the lion’s share) was observed a 22% growth of the R&D expenditure compared to 2010. By the same margin increased the expenditures financed by government. If the oil industry investments are subtracted from the business enterprise sector R&D expenditure then nevertheless the growth for left-over enterprises remained higher – 29% – than the growth for non-profit sectors. Together with the mentioned investments the growth was rather exceptional – over two times. It is worth mentioning that the R&D expenditure financed by government increased by 27% in the business enterprise sector mainly due the support to small enterprises and research centres’ financing by Enterprise Estonia. So, even putting oil industry aside there was remarkable development in the R&D field during 2011.

The growth manifested itself not only in the form of expenditures. In 2011 compared to a year earlier, the working time spent on R&D by R&D personnel increased by 11%, therewith the working time of researchers grew by 12% in the business enterprise sector and by 8% in non-profit institutional sectors. The number of R&D personnel having doctorate increased by 89 persons or by 3%.

On 15 November Eurostat published in its public database the preliminary R&D data for 2011. There the GERD/GDP ratio for Estonia is shown somewhat lower – 2.37%. The final results published today will appear in Eurostat database only in late summer 2013. The marginal discrepancy does not change Estonian seventh position in the EU Member States ranking between Slovenia and France in 2011. Without oil industry the position would have been the 13th in the middle of the ranking list.

Source: Statistics Estonia

Ratio of R&D spending above EU average

The ratio of research and development expenditure to Estonia’s gross domestic product rose to 2.41% last year, surpassing for the first time the European Union average of 2.03%, Statistics Estonia said on Monday.

R&D expenditure totaled 384.5 million euros in 2011, nearly two-thirds more than the year before. Investments in new technology for the oil industry accounted for one third of the total, the statistical office said.

In the nonprofit institutional sectors, where the higher education sector accounts for the lion’s share, outlays increased by 22% in annual comparison. Expenditures financed by the state increased at the same rate. With oil industry investments subtracted from the business enterprise sector’s R&D expenditure, the growth in the remaining enterprises nonetheless remained higher than the growth in nonprofit sectors at 29%. Oil industry investments included, the growth was rather exceptional – over two times.

On 15 November Eurostat published in its public database the preliminary R&D data for 2011 in which the GERD/GDP ratio for Estonia is shown somewhat lower – 2.37%. The final results published on Monday will appear in the Eurostat database only in late summer 2013.

The marginal discrepancy does not change Estonia’s seventh position in the EU member states’ ranking between Slovenia and France in 2011. Without oil industry Estonia would have placed 13th in the middle of the ranking list.

Source: Estonian Review

Europe praises Estonia’s e-annual reporting mechanism

The e-Annual Report project of the Estonian Centre of Registers and Information Systems (RIK) received the jury’s special mention at the 2012 European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA).

The e-Annual Report enables entrepreneurs in Estonia to file annual reports via an e-reporting mechanism from the Central Commercial Registry. This initiative represents a significant reduction in bureaucratic process and about 99% of the more than 140 000 companies registered in Estonia now use the system. It offers a significant saving for taxpayers and the Estonian Ministry of Finance has valued the time thus saved at 4.6 million euros, RIK said.

The e-Annual Report was one of just three entries shortlisted in the Improving the Business Environment category.

The Grand Jury Prize in the competition went to the British economic development and business support organisation YTKO’s Outset project, aimed at promoting and raising desire for enterprise among hard-to-reach groups. Outset is designed to show the unemployed that self-employment and enterprise is a realistic alternative to unemployment. Specifically created to help the most vulnerable groups, including the long-term unemployed, recently redundant, and people with disabilities.

In addition to the Estonian e-Annual reporting project, one of the other three special mentions went to a UN Development program project from Lithuania, Establishing a Unified Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility. The project was created by the UN Development Program in Lithuania to establish a unified approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), by offering training and support to over 500 small and medium size enterprises. So far over 2 500 people from over 500 SMEs in Lithuania have been involved.

The winners of the 6th European Enterprise Promotion Awards were announced at the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Assembly in Limassol, Cyprus on 15 November.

Source: Estonian Review

Tallinn among top 21 intelligent communities in the world

The international think tank Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) included Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, on its list of the 21 most intelligent communities in the world. Making it onto the Smart21 list is the first step in the competition of over 400 communities worldwide vying for the title of the most intelligent community of the year.

All the areas on the Smart21 list are good examples of economic development and the city government of Tallinn considers it an honour to even be included on the list.

Tallinn and the other competitors all focused on the same themes in their applications for this year – innovation and employment. Tallinn was then compared to other communities on the basis of these two areas. Tallinn’s application included descriptions of programmes and development plans that have created a foundation for innovation in the city of Tallinn, including the initiative to create an IT academy and the Estonian Information Society Strategy 2013+.

This is not the first time the city of Tallinn has been recognised by the ICF. From 2007-2010 Tallinn was ranked among the Seven Most Intelligent Communities.

The Intelligent Communities Forum is a non-profit organisation that brings together intelligent communities from all over the world. The organisation introduces its members’ accomplishments to the world, helps to develop valuable ties among the public and private sector leaders in its communities, helps with peaceful development in communities, and tries to ensure good opportunities for innovative and dynamic  information technology development.

Only communities that qualify for the Smart21, Intelligent Community of the Year, or Top Seven Intelligent Communities can be members of the ICF. Tallinn’s participation in the work of the ICF offers good opportunities to gain useful knowledge about IT and other high-technology solutions in the public sectors of other countries. Being part of the ICF also helps to introduce Tallinn as an innovative and developed community with modern solutions in the public sector outside of the European Union.

Source: Estonian Review