Digital Twins for Digital Society

Hosted at TalTech within EuroTeQ Engineering University, this interdisciplinary course combines online learning with hands-on, challenge-based teamwork, primarily for computer science and e-governance students. Students explore how digital twins can support public-sector decisions on sustainable mobility, accessibility and the use of existing infrastructure. Illustrative challenges include improving access to campuses or public services by connecting transport, green infrastructure and user needs. Topics include digital-twin architectures, data integration, sensors and IoT, simulation, optimisation and data governance. Teams use open data or partner datasets where available; testing in external environments is subject to agreement. The course culminates in an on-site capstone week at TalTech, which serves as the project-based examination: teams evaluate and present their prototypes and recommendations. It also provides a basis for exploring longer-term university support for municipal and national public-sector challenges.

NB! This course will take place in autumn semester 2026/2027 which starts on 31st of August and ends on 24th of January (you can find that information under start date section). TalTech's timetables for autumn semester 2026 will be published at the end of June via tunniplaan.taltech.ee.

After completing this course, the student:

• explains the role of digital twins in digital society and describes their key components, architectures and lifecycles;
• integrates sensor, IoT or existing datasets into a digital representation, and applies simulation or optimisation to compare decision options;
• evaluates societal challenges and assesses the ethical, environmental, accessibility and stakeholder implications of digital-twin applications;
• critically evaluates design approaches and system architectures for effectiveness and societal impact, reflecting on team collaboration and peer feedback;
• designs, builds, documents and presents a functional digital-twin prototype addressing a societal challenge, and explains its data connections, validation results and limitations.

Final assessment can consist of one test/assignment or several smaller assignments completed during the whole course. After declaring a course the student can re-sit the exam/assessment once. Assessment can be graded or non-graded. For specific information about the assessment process please get in touch with the contact person of this course. For specific information about grade transfer please contact your home university

1 week on spot

• Lugemismaterjalid määratakse vastavalt meeskonna valitud väljakutsele loengutes.

lectures, exercises