WHY GO WITH US ON A LEARNING EXPEDITION IN TALLINN?

• Learn from the Estonian e-government and data experiments to improve public services
• Discover one of the most hidden startup hub in Europe
• Get inspired by Estonia’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship
• Enrich your vision on digitalisation in one of the most digitally advanced nation in the world
• Experience incubators, accelerators and meet Estonia’s technical talents
• Meet the innovative companies making Estonia an European leader in E-government, Blockchain and AI

E-government vision and data experiments

#EGovernment #Data #AI #Blockchain #Ecitizenship

Estonia is an uncontested leader in e-government. 99% of its public services are online. The country has automated and improved its public services by building a database of its citizen, where people control their data.

It has taken a lead in developing AI applications for government services. E-Estonia’s backbone is called X-Road, which saves Estonians 1400 years of working time every year. Using AI, X-Road also spots any unusual patterns in activity and raises a red flag for the cyber experts to check it out.

Thanks to AI, the government also developed profiles for the unemployed, which helps to direct them to jobs that are expected to be a good fit. Before the initiative, only 45% remained in a new job, but now it is up to 74%.

A Digital ID 

#e-ID #digital #AI #security #user #experience

Estonia presents the Digital ID card as the core of its Digital Nation plan. At first sight, this smart-card may sound scary as it may pose a threat to the security of your personal information. However, the Estonians think otherwise and have chosen to avoid an endless debate to this subject, preferring actions over words.  Today, 99% of Estonians are satisfied with the use of the card. It is a chip card using a 384-bit ECC public key encryption with the objective of opening up digital access to all online services (taxes, health records, doctor appointments, bank transactions…). And even more!

Strong technical talent

#TechnicalTalent #Technology #Startups

Tallinn is quickly becoming one of Europe’s hottest startup hubs, with funding seeing a massive boom from just €10 million in 2017 to over €170 million in 2018, according to Dealroom.

After independence in 1991, Estonia needed to build a new administration but on the cheap. As explained by Siim Sikkut, the national ICT policy adviser at the time, “We said, we might as well use information technology”. It led Estonia to become one of the world’s most digitised bureaucracies; which not only created an online-savvy population, but a pool of experienced software developers.

This pool of talented developers was then able to work with startups like Skype, which had the the support of Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn who developed the backend technology for the platform. Estonia’s startup scene later grew thanks to the concept of “Estonian Mafia”, where successful startups give back to the community by mentoring and supporting smaller startups, via different events (Garage48, a weekend hackathon encouraging people to test out their ideas is one) and startup hubs. Other instances include the creation of money transfer startup Transferwise, co-founded by Skype’s first employee Taavet Hinrikus.