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Under this theme, a series of educational seminars took place in collaboration with the Estonian Hotel and Restaurant Association, HotelBuddy, Visit Estonia, and D-EDGE Hospitality Solutions. The aim was to help hotels keep up with industry trends and discover new ways to improve their daily operations.

Just before the start of the new season, EAS and Visit Estonia hosted an inspiring and informative info day for tourism professionals at the PROTO Invention Factory in Tallinn. The event was divided into three main parts: an overview of Estonian tourism and Visit Estonia, insights into key target markets, and a discussion on sustainable management and digital waste.

Geia Rõivas, a graduate of Miina Härma Gymnasium, took part in the Supreme Court’s case competition for the third time this year. The competition gives students interested in law the chance to solve real-life court cases and contribute to justice.

In the autumn of 2024, the County Development Centers (MAKs) partnered with Digiwise OÜ to launch a digitalization training program aimed at increasing business owners’ awareness of how digital technologies can enhance business processes. The training was led by Lauri Antalainen, who has extensive experience in delivering practical training on digitalization and automation topics.

On November 14, 2024, the Läänemaa business conference “Business in the Digital Age” took place in Haapsalu.

Since 1998, the city of Tartu has been recognizing the best entrepreneurs. The competition is based on economic indicators submitted by all registered companies in Tartu and the Tartu County to the Business Register by the required deadline.

Based on the results from the previous fiscal year, Tartu’s top entrepreneurs were invited to the recognition gala. Digiwise is pleased to highlight three companies that were honored at the event:

New Nordics AI Week (September 2–6, 2024) brought together AI fans and experts from across the Baltics and the Nordics. The event aimed to share practical ideas, build valuable connections, and support the growth of AI in the region.

Spring marked the graduation of the seventh group from the Digitalisation Masterclass. This season was especially successful for Digiwise mentors — Malmerk Klaasium, led by Lauri Antalainen, took home the overall win, while Bestair Group, mentored by Olga Luštšik, was voted the audience favorite!

AIPowerment is a podcast that brings listeners the latest news from the world of artificial intelligence, reviews of popular and new tools, and interviews with AI advocates. In a recent episode, the guest was Lauri Antalainen, founder of Digiwise, who shared how AI can benefit people in both their work and personal lives.

The importance of digitalisation for running a business efficiently cannot be overstated.

At the 2024 TalTech Business Forum, Lauri Antalainen gave a talk called “How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing the Business World Around Us.”

Äripäev Radio recently invited Lauri Antalainen, Lead Consultant at Digiwise, and Kristiina Niilits from the joint organisation of EAS and KredEx, to discuss how artificial intelligence is being used in the industrial sector.

Not long ago, artificial intelligence felt as distant and futuristic as flying cars. But today, one thing is clear — AI is here to stay.

For years, Digiwise has supported companies in finding the right funding measures and preparing strong project applications. Once again, it’s a great time to apply for funding to boost your business growth and investments!

The business world is always changing. To keep up, companies need more than just good products — they also need strong innovation skills.

Many businesses face challenges when it comes to creating contracts — whether they’re service agreements or employment contracts. Collecting data through email and copying it manually into Word documents takes time and often leads to errors.

In many companies, support processes often take a back seat to more urgent core activities. One commonly overlooked area is HR management. Employee data — contracts, files, training certificates, forms, and personal notes — may be scattered across spreadsheets. This can lead to confusion, limited visibility, and difficulties in managing tasks like vacation requests or gathering statistics.

Digitalisation is like a living organism — it’s always present in a company and always needed. That’s why it’s important to break it down into clear projects, write out the steps, and make sure someone is guiding the process. Only then can digital tools support the business in the right way.

For the second year in a row, Geia Rõivas, a student at Miina Härma Gymnasium, took part in the Supreme Court of Estonia’s student case competition — and received a special mention for her outstanding work.

In October, the first group of creative companies joined the Real-Time Economy and Digitalisation Masterclass — a new course designed especially for businesses in the creative sector.

Tehnopol Science and Business Park conducted a public procurement process to find partners who could provide advisory services on the feasibility of implementing artificial intelligence in industrial enterprises. The new partners selected include Proud Engineers OÜ, Lean OÜ, Net Group OÜ and Digiwise OÜ, who are all experts with extensive experience in advising on the feasibility of implementing artificial intelligence. Digiwise has already offered guidance on this topic to more than ten companies, some of which have also received support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications for their pilot projects.

Estiko-Plastar AS approached Digiwise with an ambitious desire to modernise production and bring a new sustainable and innovative product category to the market. Our part in this process was to help Estiko-Plastar think through the project plan and the financial calculations related to the new product as well as to find additional financing for investments.

The Smart Manufacturing Meetup took place in Tartu for the fifth time, where it focused on the benefits of digitisation. The goal of the conference has always been to offer participants new ideas and solutions in a pleasant setting. This event, too, offered something for the live audience, those participating via video link and the contributors who shared their ideas on stage.

Europe’s most influential digital development and innovation cluster, EIT Digital, opened its Baltic office in collaboration with the Estonian Research Council and TalTech Mektory. The purpose of establishing the office is to increase investments in research and development activities, as well as to promote the more effective integration of regional digital innovation and entrepreneurship communities.

Tehnopol Science and Business Park hosts AI development program hackathons for companies whose processes in manufacturing, customer management, product development or other areas could be made more efficient and sustainable with AI solutions.

Since its inception, Digiwise has researched and analyzed fourteen forward-thinking Estonian industrial companies to determine their readiness to implement artificial intelligence. Among others, we have been approached by companies from the forest, metal, plastic, food, oil and textile industries seeking our advice.

AI and Robotics Center AIRE collaborated with Digiwise to develop a framework for implementing artificial intelligence in Estonian industrial companies. The framework was needed in order to define projects that AIRE can assist businesses with and to create a vision and decision-making document for industrial companies to plan their AI and digital development.

On 13 April 2022, “Artificial Intelligence in Industry and Support Measures”, the fifth event of the AI & Robotics Estonia club, took place in the Yanu OÜ premises in Tartu. Digiwise was there to lead the discussion on the use of artificial intelligence in industry. The participants who shared their thoughts included Karl Kruusamäe from University of Tartu, Oskar Kilk from TORM Metall OÜ, Marko Saviauk from Leanest OÜ and Alan Adojaan from Yanu OÜ. The discussion was moderated by Lauri Antalainen.

ELMO Rent has been developing its remote-controlled car and controller technology for over a year. While currently the rental car is delivered to the customer by an ELMO driver, then after the introduction of remote-control technology, the car will reach the customer by remote control. Therefore, the introduction of new technology reduces the cost of delivering a car to the customer and increases the efficiency of car use.

Estonian Business Angels Network was founded in 2012 as an umbrella organisation for business angels and business angel groups seeking investment opportunities in Estonia to grow the quantity and quality of local seed-stage investments.

Author: Lauri Antalainen

When implementing production, it is important to consider how work orders are transmitted to production and how the implementation of these work orders is reported. The organisation of production management can be judged by its digitalisation:

18 companies have successfully graduated from the three-month Digitalisation Masterclass that started this year in March and lasted for three months.

In his work, Lauri Antalainen, the Chief Consultant at Digiwise, mainly sees problems with internal project communication, the flow of work orders or information moving between different departments in a company. To offer proven solutions, IT Koolitus and Lauri Antalainen are organising an eight-hour training day called ‘Practical digitalisation in industrial and service enterprises’.

On 3 and 10 June, TietoEVRY, DigiWise and the Institute of Computer Science of the University of Tartu are organising online workshops for manufacturing companies on improving process efficiency. With real-life examples and practical exercises, these workshops will help to start improving the efficiency of production processes.

Digiwise and TietoEVRY are organising a webinar on digitalisation called ‘Digitalisation of manufacturing through practical experience’.

Lauri Antalainen, the Chief Consultant at Digiwise, gave a presentation at a webinar of the Elva Entrepreneurs’ Mentor Club, which was attended by representatives of companies from Elva rural municipality that are interested in digitalisation. During the evening seminar, Lauri spoke about digitalisation in different companies, and participants discussed the causes of inefficiency and the topics of process development and digitalisation.

Enterprise Estonia in cooperation with Digiwise, BDA Consulting, Lean Digital, and FlowIT invites manufacturing companies to join the Masterclass of Digitalization! The Masterclass is a three-month program aimed at manufacturing companies that are interested in digitalizing their processes.

The Guide Running Estonia non-profit association was founded by two running enthusiasts. Their purpose is to offer visually impaired people the opportunity to participate in sports. Guide Running Estonia is where volunteers and visually impaired people meet to go running together. In only a few weeks, over twenty volunteers in Tallinn and Tartu have been trained. Most of them have already had a chance to go running with someone who can’t do it alone.

Digiwise senior consultant Lauri Antalainen participated in the Smart Management Day during Tartu Entrepreneurship Week. He held a presentation entitled 7 Steps to Smart Industry, which introduced the principles of digitalisation and process development. You can see the presentation on the Tartu Linnavalitsus Facebook page. Link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3361632300556494 (The presentation starts  from 5:00:00 and it is in Estonian)

Digiwise partner and senior consultant, Lauri Antalainen, went to Äripäev Raadio to talk about digitalisation. The programme offered several examples of successful projects.

My definition of Digitalisation: it is the development of processes through the application of information technology. It is hereby important to draw attention to the words “the development of processes” – the application of technology or the utilisation of software is never a final solution on its own, but a means of making processes more efficient. It is therefore not correct to observe digitialsation as the application of a software program, but as an important change in the internal processes of an organisation that is realised (amongst others), with the assistance of software.

Companies that have not yet digitalised their main processes, may often experience significant problems with the management of their warehouses, including not being able to fulfil deadlines promised to clients. For example, when stock of a component required for production has been depleted and production of the corresponding product cannot continue until the additional component or material has been ordered and received, leading to a longer delivery schedule which may prove time consuming.

Companies that have not yet digitalised their main processes, may often experience significant problems with the management of their warehouses, including not being able to fulfil deadlines promised to clients. For example, when stock of a component required for production has been depleted and production of the corresponding product cannot continue until the additional component or material has been ordered and received, leading to a longer delivery schedule which may prove time consuming.

Every company has business goals that they wish to achieve. For example, with the Balanced Scorecard method, the financial, customer, internal processes and learning and development goals are defined to realise the vision and strategy. Many companies only define the financial goals, setting targets for the turnover and profit.

Lauri Antalainen speaks of the connections between process optimisation and data science at a data science seminar of the University of Tartu.
https://www.uttv.ee/naita?id=29168

What is information and knowledge management in modern society? Which competencies does a successful business analyst have? Why is the Institute of Social Studies a great choice for a master’s student with a passion for creating and managing information systems?

At the seminar, we will look at the practical examples of problems that can be solved by business process optimisation and which benefits we can expect as a result. The seminar will be led by Lauri Antalainen from Digiwise (formerly CoreGrow).