The Doctoral Student Receiving the Ustur Agur Scholarship Helps to Develop Personal Medicine

April 21, 2021

As part of his doctoral thesis, Allik develops applications that process different signals monitoring the fatigue and health condition of people while also helping to improve work safety and convenience. The Ustus Agur Scholarship was established in 2003 in order to honour the significant contribution of the computer scientist Ustus

As part of his doctoral thesis, Allik develops applications that process different signals monitoring the fatigue and health condition of people while also helping to improve work safety and convenience.

The Ustus Agur Scholarship was established in 2003 in order to honour the significant contribution of the computer scientist Ustus Agur as one of the founders of the Estonian information society. The Ustus Agur Scholarship is meant for supporting the studies of PhD candidates of public universities whose doctoral thesis is connected to the field of ICT or with implementing ICT in another field.

The topic of Ardo Allik’s doctoral thesis is Assessing Physical Fatigue Based on Wearable Devices. The thesis is supervised by professors Ivo Fridolin, Gert Jervan and Kristjan Pilt.

“When awarding this scholarship – considered to be the highest award in the field of ICT in Estonia – the expected impact of the thesis to Estonian society is considered, as well as the student’s activities in their chosen field of study,” explains Signe Ambre, the programme manager of HARNO IT Academy. She also mentioned that this year’s competition was extremely tight and all the contestants demonstrated equally high levels of academic achievement. “It is very rewarding to see that so many students on different levels of doctoral study have been able to publish several scientific articles,” she added. According to Ambre, the competition also shows that the topics of research have broadened, starting from language analysis to creating ICT solutions for environmental research.

“In today’s information society, the inter-disciplinary cooperation has become inevitable,” added Jüri Jõema, the CEO of the ITL. “The practical projects of universities and enterprises help young people to see the results of their work. This is very important in making the university and academic life in the faculty more attractive in the eyes of future generations. For example, during his studies, today’s laureate Ardo Allik has participated in creating the prototype for smart workwear and in creating algorithms used in the project of space agency. In addition, the scholarship committee was impressed by the amount and content of Allik’s academic research.”

The award winner Ardo Allik himself explains that in health care, today’s focus is on human centred approach and personal medicine, the purpose of which is to increase the health awareness of all individuals and make people more responsible for their personal health choices. “Many fields today are intertwined with ICT-knowledge, and in my research, the knowledge of ICT is necessary for developing new devices and for creating algorithms based on collected signals. My hopes are to raise people’s quality of life through my research and it makes me really glad that my work has been noticed and recognized by the ITL and HARNO.”

The awarding of the scholarship is regulated by the Ustus Agur Scholarship Statute. The scholarship is awarded within the IT Academy programme by the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITL) and the Education and Youth Authority (Harno).