This summer SolarSPELL co-founders and co-directors Laura Hosman and Bruce Baikie were invited to participate in Estonian Business School’s 4th International Summer School on Digitalization and Sustainability. The summer school took place August 12-16 in both Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland, making optimal use of the university’s two campus locations.

The three focal areas of this summer school were Digital and Green Futures, Challenges for the Digital and Energy Transformations, and Artificial Intelligence and Business Models for Sustainability. Approximately 75 students, both in-person and online, participated in the summer school.

Hosman and Baikie co-led a half-day interactive presentation on digitalization challenges in developing countries, drawing extensively on their combined decades of experience in the area, and focusing on the SolarSPELL initiative as an example of a university-based non-profit leading by example in the realm of “green” digitization in low-resource settings.

On the final day, Baikie and Hosman also served on the panel of judges as the student teams presented green/digital/energy/AI scenario forecasting models they developed over the course of the program. All in all, this summer school proved a fantastic opportunity to meet amazing students, faculty and staff from Estonia and around the world. We also appreciated the opportunity to present about SolarSPELL, to make the case for the importance of skill-building and training to accompany digitalization wherever it happens, and to generate innovative ideas about green digitalization globally.

Students, faculty and lecturers participating in Estonian Business School’s 4th International Summer School on Digitalization and Sustainability pose for a group photo in the Estonian Parliament building.

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