NAVE Founder Recognised Twice in 2025 for Engineering Excellence
In 2025, Cathy-Liis Põlluveer, founder of NAVE TECH, received two professional engineering titles within one year:
She was named Engineer of the Year 2025 by the Estonian Association of Engineers, becoming the first woman in the organisation’s history to receive this recognition.
Just one month earlier, she was awarded Thermal Engineer of the Year 2025 by the Estonian Society of Heating Engineers.
These are peer-based recognitions from the engineering community. They reflect long-term, hands-on work in energy and thermal engineering.
Commenting on the recognition, Cathy-Liis notes:
“This is a great responsibility and an honour. It confirms that the direction I’m taking — building better tools for engineers — is the right one.”
That responsibility is reflected in how NAVE is developed - with a clear focus on accuracy, transparency, and real engineering use cases.
Cathy-Liis Põlluveer, Engineer of the Year 2025
Engineering experience matters when building engineering software
Engineering software often fails for a simple reason: it is built without deep domain understanding.
NAVE was created from real engineering work:
early-stage concept design
technical calculations
system dimensioning
budgeting under time pressure
These are the phases where engineering teams lose the most time and where mistakes are expensive. The logic behind NAVE’s calculation models and workflows comes directly from this practical experience.
The awards highlight what NAVE is built on engineering judgment, repeatable logic, and clear assumptions.
From individual expertise to scalable systems
Modern engineering teams cannot rely on individual experts alone. When knowledge stays in people’s heads, project files, or spreadsheets, it does not scale.
NAVE’s approach is to:
turn expert-level engineering logic into reusable digital models
standardise how early engineering decisions are made
reduce dependency on single senior engineers
speed up project preparation without lowering quality
This is not about replacing engineers. It is about removing unnecessary manual work.
