On 7 October, Mayowa Olaide Olapade defended his doctoral thesis “Human-centered autonomous drone systems”. We asked Mayowa to reflect on his doctoral journey. If you had to describe your PhD in one sentence today, what would it be? “How can autonomous systems work?” to, “Okay, but can they actually behave properly in the real world, […]

Ahead of my doctoral thesis1 defense on September 4, 2026, I have thought a lot about the daily paradox surrounding us: we are world-class in Estonia regarding the use of digital solutions, but sometimes quite beginners when it comes to understanding and dealing with cyber threats. This creates a situation where legislation requires the implementation […]

For several years, the final deliverable in the Software Product Management (MTAT.03.325) course was a report. Student groups validated problems, created a business model canvas, conducted user research, defined and prioritised MVP features, developed a roadmap and risk management document, and designed wireframes using tools such as Figma or Miro. Often, the results were genuinely […]

In July 2026, during an internal cybersecurity evaluation, OpenAI agents working on the ExploitGym benchmark escaped isolation, coordinated through an unsanctioned shared workspace, and penetrated Hugging Face production systems. They were not rewarded for attacking Hugging Face. They were rewarded for succeeding at the benchmark. That distinction is the point. The incident is easy to […]

The Digital Innovation Industry Course (LTAT.05.019) is a project-based program where four student teams tackle real-world challenges from industry partners each semester. This term, 19 students from diverse academic backgrounds enrolled—some bringing deep technical expertise, while others came from non-technical disciplines. Crucially, this was the first semester where Lovable, an AI-powered application builder, was used […]

Satish Narayana Srirama worked at the University of Tartu for 11 years, from 2009 to 2020, first as a postdoctoral researcher and later as a lead researcher in big data. He is currently a professor at the University of Hyderabad in India, but remains connected to the University of Tartu as a visiting professor and […]

Satish Narayana Srirama spent 11 years at the University of Tartu, from 2009 to 2020, first as a postdoctoral researcher and later as Professor of Internet of Things. Today he is a professor at the University of Hyderabad, while remaining connected to Tartu as a visiting professor and honorary head of the Mobile & Cloud […]

Aprillis kaitses Simmo Saan oma doktoritööd „Correctness witnesses for thread-modular program analysis“(„Lõimeviisilise programmianalüüsi õigsustõendid“, juhendaja programmeerimiskeelte kaasprofessor Vesal Vojdani). Küsisime, kuidas Simmo teekond teadusmaailmas on kulgenud. Milline on sinu arvates kõige levinum eksiarvamus doktorantuuri kohta? Olen kuulnud arvamust, et doktorantuuris nokitseb igaüks omaette enda teema kallal ja peab kõigega ise hakkama saama. Eks see võib […]

Armando Da Silva Vieira, Lecturer of Applied AI In May 2026, researchers from Oxford, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stanford published a paper (https://arxiv.org/html/2605.10310v1) with an unusually candid premise. AI alignment, they argued, has been dominated almost entirely by preventing harm — safeguards, controllability, compliance. Necessary, but incomplete. Like a psychology that only studies illness […]

On 4 May 2026 Modar Sulaiman defended his doctoral dissertation “From Data to Fair Decisions: On Ensuring Fairness in Machine Learning Models“ (supervisor Kallol Roy). On this occasion, we spoke with Modar about his path in research and how his journey in academia has developed. At what moment did you realize that a PhD would not […]

9. aprillil 2026 kaitses Hele-Andra Kuulmets oma doktoritöö „Cross-Lingual Transfer Learning and Evaluation in Low-Resource Settings“(„Keeltevaheline siirdeõpe ja selle hindamine väheste ressurssidega oludes“, juhendaja Mark Fišel). Küsisime, kuidas Hele-Andra teekond teadusmaailmas on kulgenud. Mida tundsid oma esimesel päeval doktorandina? Ma ei mäleta oma esimest päeva doktorandina, sest ametlikult algasid mu õpingud märtsi alguses, mil kevadsemester oli […]

On 28 April 2026, Tarun Khajuria defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Scene understanding in human and computer vision” (supervised by Jaan Aru). On this occasion Laura Altin, communication manager at the Estonian Centre of Excellence in AI (EXAI), spoke with Tarun about his journey into research and the possible next steps in his professional path. […]