Ülemiste City is home to almost 500 companies that are visited by tens of thousands of workers and hundreds of guests every day. However, the colourful city of the future is constantly being supplemented with new services and buildings, which is why the need to solve the challenges related to mentoring people is growing.

The Ülemiste City Kratt Competition, which took place at Robotex for the first-time last year, did not get an ideal solution and continues to look for exciting new solutions. Therefore, the next talented robots and AI-competent teams will be given the opportunity to come up with a ‘kratt’ or artificial intelligence (AI) that would help the residents and visitors of Ülemiste City, and later give them a physical shape.

‘The AI being created must be as versatile and talented as possible, be able to identify the language spoken by the visitors, order an elevator, an autonomous vehicle or book rooms,’ explained Ursel Velve, Chief Innovation Officer at Ülemiste City. The transcription of speech into text should take place inside the physical robot, during the course of which the robot is able to understand the questions and provide answers.

‘In the beginning, we only plan to use the system in office buildings, but in the future Ülemiste City has a definite plan to use it all over the campus, online and as a service to offer to other cities and campuses.’

AI Competition coordinator Tauri Sinilaan from Robotex: ‘Experienced teams from IT companies, universities as well as hobby robotics enthusiasts are welcome to participate in the competition. The main assessment factor is the efficiency of teamwork and the ability to combine software and hardware into a single service.

Teams with only AI/machine learning competencies or only robotic backgrounds are also welcome to take part in the competition. In this case, the Robotex team is attempting to bring together people from different backgrounds to create a joint team.’

The main prize in the competition is the opportunity to pilot the solution for 6 months at Ülemiste City’s Öpik building. If the pilot proves successful, the team will be entitled to offer the Robokratt services based on agreed upon pricing.

Registration for the competition is open until 31 October.