Sten Allik Talks About Innovation And The Work At The Estonian National Defence College | Garage48

1.   
This
is the second time for you to participate in the hackathon. Are you going to
present some new ideas as well?

Personally, probably not this time. I want
to take an opportunity to have some insight in all teams. Being a team-member you
may not have this possibility. But for sure there will be a number of military ideas,
and I’ll give my input in them.

2.   
The Estonian National Defence College participated also in the Garage48
Hardware & Arts 2015 hackathon last year. One of the ideas, of the many fascinating
ideas that the academy presented, also managed to win the hackathon. Could you
tell us a little bit, how the winner Hitafly
is doing and what is next on their agenda? 

Meanwhile the team has continued the work on the
device by approving its reliability and functional preciseness. I’m very happy
that the team has been kept together to continue the development and hopefully
this year they can come up with a new prototype. I’d also like to highlight the
fact that the team members of the Estonian Defence Forces are active members of
the team and continue to provide their specific know-how.

3.   
The
Estonian National Defence College is now also co-operating with the
architectural students of the Estonian
Academy of Arts to redesign the defence campus in Tapa. What is the
mission of this project?

Military bases are like small towns or
municipalities. The Tapa military base is the home base for most of the units
of 1st Infantry Brigade, the number of people living and working every day on
the base is close to one thousand people. The base itself comprises new and mordern
buildings, as well as older ones, which are originally from pre-World War II
time or a heritage of Soviet troops. That makes it socially and architecturally
a special environment. This environment has to be as suitable as possible for
daily service, that means for training of new soldiers. At the same time, it
has to be also supportive for soldiers to keep up their mental and physical
fitness. The idea was to provide this specific environment with its specific
requirements as a playground for the students of the Academy of Arts to see
what kind of ideas they can come up with to ameliorate the baseas a whole and more
precisely the environement inside its caserns. The reachback what I have recieved
from the academy as well as from the brigade commander is very positive and I’m
convinced that the cooperation will continue in the future.

4.   
Innovation
and technical forward-thinking definitely play an essential role in the
military. Could you say what are some of the most exciting technologies that
are being used by the Estonian military today?

Some recent acquisitions are for example the anti-tank missile Javelin or
combat vehicle CV-90 are top level technological solutions. The technical development
in the military world goes at high speed and as with every new solution, the
adversary wants to find a counter-capability. For me the most exciting
technologies are the ones under development in Estonia, for example and among
number of ones, in the domains of force protection and situational awarness.
But let’s hear about these developments once it is the right time for that. 

5.    Could you also give us some examples of
some very top-notch technologies the military is using throughout the world?  

One of the recent „wow!“-emotion I had
when I saw a video about mini-UAV-swarm, which is self-organising. It’s
fascinating to imagine, what kind of implications that kind of solutions can
bring into the battlefield. It’s not in use yet but I suppose that this kind of
new solutions do impact already our understanding of future warfare.

6.   
What
are some of your own personal favourite apps that you are using every day?

Frankly I do not use often apps in my
daily life. I’m not an appiphile nor appiphobe. It’s not that I have something
against them, but probably the nature of my work – managing the defence R&D
– needs the applications which are in my own brain – finding new ways to
resolve challenges. It’s just thinking.

7.   
As
the whole world is seeing a horrible time of hazardousness and
vulnerability. Could technology actually do something to give people a sense of
security and readiness?

The time what we are living has signs
which do not indicate very positive developments. But we should also keep in
mind that technology gives possibilities to shape the field of information we
use daily, the information based on what we evaluate our level of security. And
it is sometimes very demanding to make difference between objective information
and manipulation.

The sense of vulnerability is based on the understanding
of primary and secondary requirements for feeling safe. Technologies for sure
provide tools which help us to predict threats or manage dangerous situations.
Today’s possibilities what technology provides for information exchange,
building up situational awareness, handling complex situations, protecting
people etc. can increase the sense of security, as well as real security –
these are two different things. But it can also initiate kind of false sense of
security when people start to rely on technology too much, when they think that
technology per se resolves the problem
of threats. Technology can thus also increase vulnerability. Take for example
today’s dependency on technology. On the battlefield we try to be as
self-sustainable as possible by taking into account possibilities „what if?“
also in the field of technology. But what about our daily life, do we think
about it?

8.   
What
is the best advice you have ever received?

Nowadays we tend to speak often about new
solutions – to use them, to develop them etc. Frequently the problem is that we
have not identified the root of the problem what we want to aim with a new
solution. We think that a new solution is always something that resolves the
problem automatically, whatever the problem is. That’s why I think the sentence
„In order to find the solution you have to know, what the problem is“ or its
paraphrase „Every solution is good if you do not know what the problem is“ is
the advice I recall myself often.

9.    What are you most looking forward to at
the Garage48 Hardware & Arts 2016 hackathon?  

Read more about Estonian National Defence College at http://www.ksk.edu.ee/en/