Tampere Hosts SustAInLivWork Annual Meeting: Two Days of AI Insights and Cooperation

On 25–26 September 2025, partners of the SustAInLivWork project gathered in Tampere, Finland, for the project’s second Annual Meeting. The two-day event brought together researchers, industry experts, public sector representatives, and innovation ecosystem builders from Lithuania, Finland, and Germany to review the project’s progress, share scientific insights, and plan the future of the Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Living and Working.

The opening session was marked by warm greetings from Prof. Matti Vilkko of Tampere University and Dr Jonas Čeponis of Kaunas University of Technology, both members of the project’s Governance Board. Prof. Dr Agnė Paulauskaitė-Tarasevičienė, Director of SustAInLivWork CoE, presented an overview of the first two years of activities and outlined the steps ahead in consolidating the centre’s position as a key AI hub in the Baltic Sea Region.

Exploring AI Across Key Sectors

The plenary sessions that followed highlighted the breadth of AI applications across energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and transport.

Romanas Zontovičius from Innovation Agency Lithuania addressed the forthcoming EU AI Act, explaining its risk-based categories and introducing Lithuania’s initiative to establish a Regulatory AI Sandbox. This tool will guide companies in assessing compliance requirements and prepare them for certification.

“Our goal is legal clarity. We want to prepare companies for certification, make them regulator-ready, and help them validate products before launch.” R. Zontovičius (Innovation Agency Lithuania)

Transport and mobility were discussed by Dr Vidas Žuraulis and Prof. Dr Artūras Serackis of Vilnius Tech, who demonstrated how AI can improve driver monitoring, traffic safety, and infrastructure readiness for autonomous vehicles. They also explored the use of thermal imaging and synthetic data for detecting pedestrians, animals, and drones.

“Road safety is first during those actions. Monitoring driver attention and readiness is essential if we expect humans to intervene in semi-autonomous driving,” underlined Dr Žuraulis, while Prof. Serackis added, “We often lack sufficient real-world data – so we are increasingly working with synthetic data to improve the accuracy of detection systems.”

Energy emerged as another key field of exploration. Dr Rasa Džiugaitė-Tumėnienė (Vilnius Tech) showcased how digitalization and AI can support climate-resilient urban renewal, using neighborhood-level data integration to design sustainable renovation frameworks.

“It is not enough to renovate one or two buildings. To make a real impact, we must plan at the neighborhood or even city scale.” Dr R. Džiugaitė-Tumėnienė (Vilnius Tech)

Complementing this perspective, Dr Darius Milčius (Vytautas Magnus University) presented AI-driven energy system modelling that incorporates renewable sources, new storage technologies, and climate scenarios.

He emphasized the critical importance of data availability, noting, “The main challenge for us is data – without enough reliable datasets, our models cannot reach their full potential in real-world conditions”.

His presentation also touched upon international collaborations, including with MIT, to develop nanoscale technologies for CO₂ capture and new approaches to material discovery.

Healthcare applications were also in focus. Laurynas Miščikas from the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences presented how AI tools are already being used to improve heart rhythm diagnosis and treatment, offering faster and more precise support for clinicians.

Healthcare and manufacturing challenges were brought together in Prof. Dr Vidas Raudonis’ (Kaunas University of Technology) talk on developing a robotic system for diabetic foot care. He reminded the audience that “every 30 seconds someone loses a limb to diabetic foot complications – this urges us to find faster, more effective solutions.” His vision is a safe, semi-automated system that combines imaging, AI-based tissue classification, and compliant robotic mechanisms to support medical staff in specialized facilities.

Building Trust and Ecosystems

The perspective of building ecosystems and cross-sectoral cooperation was addressed by international partners.

Dr Florian Vogt from Innovation Contact Service Hamburg reflected on over 15 years of experience connecting SMEs and researchers, emphasizing that “science and business operate with different logics and timescales. Trust is the key currency to bridge those worlds.”

Similarly, Kristian Valkama of Business Tampere described the rapid development of the Tampere AI ecosystem, which has grown to over 100 members. He highlighted new collaboration models, such as companies “adopting” AI researchers to solve real-world challenges, which have since been scaled nationally by AI Finland. As he concluded “at the end of the day, it’s all about people.”

“Successful ecosystems need experimental collaboration models – flexible ways for companies and researchers to work together.” K. Valkama (Business Tampere)

Internal Work and Future Plans

The second day of the meeting was dedicated to SustAInLivWork’s internal activities and future planning. Partners reviewed the progress of educational initiatives, service development, and ecosystem-building tasks. Workshops facilitated discussions on shaping the centre’s service package, strengthening the role of the CoE in the wider AI stakeholder network, and aligning communication goals for the coming year. Project leaders also addressed the integration of management tasks and discussed next steps for consolidating the Centre of Excellence. The day concluded with a demo session at Tampere University.

This year’s Annual Meeting once again demonstrated the vitality of the SustAInLivWork community and its growing international reach. The presentations and discussions reflected the centre’s multidisciplinary nature, combining technical innovation with social and regulatory dimensions. By linking research with real-world applications, and by fostering collaboration across borders and sectors, SustAInLivWork continues to strengthen its role as a lighthouse for AI-driven sustainable development in the Baltic Sea Region and beyond.