Who were the 1st Estonian e-Residents?

Many of the early adopters didn’t necessarily want to start a business.

They included ‘Estophiles’ — people with a connection to the country who wanted to be part of its bold experiment — and journalists who wanted to write about the concept, like BBCTechnology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and Wired’s Ben Hammersley.

But beyond these groups, the number of Estonian e-Residents continues to rise every day.

So who are the people using e-Residency for the purpose it was designed?

The latest stats show that e-Residency is increasingly popular with entrepreneurs.

They’re attracted by the ease of doing business, access to the EU single market, and the lower cost of business administration. It’s also increasingly attractive in the UK as a way to beat Brexit.

Out of more than 13,000 e-Residents, we’ve picked out some of the most notable names who can claim to be among the first… Heads of State, venture capitalists, media stars: find out about your fellow e-Residents on LeapIN by taking a look at the original full article here. LeapIN is also on Facebook and Twitter.

Fuente: e-estonia

 

 

EU eGovernment Report 2016: how Estonia made it to the top, well-explained

06.10.2016

In contemporary societies, governments usually know their citizens way better than how they do about the way things work upstairs. Nothing particularly surprising in that, it is something normal and reasonable. It is fair by the way, for anyone who would be interested in getting to know more about the Estonian way to the digital society, to have a place to go when you wish to take a closer look at how e-services are provided, who provides them and how they ease our everyday life in multiple ways. In three words, it’s time to Know Your Government.

In this new section – with the eyes of the insider, shoulder to shoulder, as equals – we will take you by the hand and periodically show you how Estonia succeeded in being considered as one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world. As if we have not had enough proofs about that, the latest study on eGovernment services in EU (published earlier this month) shows how Estonia is among the top countries in terms of digitisation and penetration of its e-government strategies in the society.

Top-level benchmarks for e-government. [Grab via ec.europa.eu]

Four variables are used to measure countries’ performances:

* User centricity – indicates to what extent (information about) a service is provided online;

* Transparency – indicates to what extent governments are transparent as regards a) their own responsibilities and performance, b) the process of service delivery and c) personal data involved;

* Cross border mobility – indicates to what extent European users can use online services in another country;

* Key enablers – indicates the extent to which five technical pre-conditions for eGovernment are used.

In general, the EU eGovernment Report 2016 finds countries in a quite static situation. There are improvements taking into consideration the progressive digitisation of European societies: many more services are available than two years ago and 77% of all the information and services available can actually be found via online channels. Still, the way to the European digital society is long and full of slowdowns: quality of services provided is improving slowly (“government does not seem to view user experience as a priority“), transparency can definitely be improved, as well as cross border friendliness of services for citizens. Basically, differences from country to country stay the same: in the last two years, only three countries out of 31 have been able to jump from a lower to a higher cluster in the field. Estonia is one of those.

E for Estonia: efficiency and effectiveness of the e-society

Starting from the bottom, it is fundamental to create a provision of services that could actually ease citizens’ life in almost everything they do, at least when they have to deal with the public administration. We need to talk less (and not because we don’t like each other, of course); but when we do it, one of the few times that happens, it has to be done in the most effective way possible. As defined by the Report, “eGovernment maturity is also represented by the public administrations

ability to produce efficient and effective procedures and service delivery”. It means that we must anticipate user’s (footnote, you) activities and needs, like disposing of information that users do not have to provide because public actors are able to obtain it from other secure and reliable sources. To automate, in order to interact with the PA as little as possible. Estonia already made it to the topand has been able to keep the first place in the digitisation index of the EU report. In this field, we are the real thing.

From the banker to the shepherd: equality in accessibility After creating a framework of services like the one we have here in Estonia, then you have to make it work. The variable Penetration is all about this and “the extent to which online eGovernment services are widespread”. “In order to understand the maturity of eGovernment”, says the EU Report, “supply of public services should be compared with their usage”. Great results become remarkable when you create something that can also actually be used by everyone or the great majority of the population and that is equally available for the citizens with no distinctions, no matter where they are. From the banker in Tallinn’s Kesklinn to the shepherd in the deep countryside. It means that we must fight the digital divide and find ways to effectively provided services even to the most remote areas of the country. There is still something to do, but we do have the merit of being the country that has made the widest improvements in the field from the previous biennium of analysis. Once again, data speak for themselves.

The conclusion is that Estonia was already an advanced country in terms of innovation of the public administration, but has succeeded in doing even better than two years ago: “Estonia has been capable to increase the Penetration in 2014-2015, reaching the Mature cluster and exploiting the efforts made regarding digitisation. Malta, Cyprus and Lithuania [footnote, part of the same country-cluster] should follow the steps of Estonia“, a country that worked hard to increase “the awareness of its eGovernment services, which were of high quality already”.

One last important point that can be observed from the report is that, in order to build an efficient and integrated digital society, citizens need to trust the government – and government needs to prove to be trustworthy. Countries with perceived higher levels of corruption find hard to achieve performances similar to Estonia (that by the way is not alone in this group of virtuous States) simply because citizens do not trust the government. This is a further proof of the fact that the road to the digital society has to be walked together, with everyone’s commitment to play their part. It is something that largely already happened in Estonia and that, with the efforts of all the actors involved, can be kept at the current levels and improve citizen-PA interactions even more. The mission is clear: making people’s lives increasingly easier, increasingly better. Let’s walk this way side by side. To read the full report of the European Commission: EU eGovernment Report 2016.

Fuente:ESTONIAN INVESMET AGENCY

“Four eyes are better than two”. A chat with Ambassador of Israel on cyber security and cold weather

03.10.2016

One thing we know for sure at the e-Estonia Showroom is that our target is not merely to advertise all the innovative solutions that make Estonia an effective and efficient e-society. Knowledge is based on exchange and, exactly as we try to give our best to all the groups that come and visit our hub, we would also like to get something from them: opinions, considerations, feedbacks. Basically, anything that could help all of us in getting to know other interesting experiences in the field and develop our strategies in an increasingly fruitful way.

eTalks is the space that e-Estonia.com devotes to this goal. A series of short conversation with some of the guests who walk the doors of the Showroom in order to get clues and thoughts useful to know more about each others’ background and interest in getting familiar with the concept of digital society. A sketch-book, in words and ideas.

First guest of our new section is the newly appointed Ambassador of Israel to Finland and Estonia, Mr. Dov Segev-Steinberg. Chatting about cyber security, the e-residency programme and the fashion of cold weather, here is what he told us.

First of all, welcome to the e-Estonia Showroom Mr. Ambassador. We know it is the first time that you are in service in Europe: how does it feel to work in this part of the world?

I have never been allocated in Europe, even if I visited this part of the world many times before. [At the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs] We have a very interesting system in this sense, because we are able to request to be located in a certain position: I requested to be allocated in this part of the world and I think I was very lucky to get it. First of all so because far I’ve been always working in very hot countries, so I wanted to experience also how it feels to live in cold countries and Helsinki, which is basically at the same height as Anchorage, is our northernmost embassy in the world.

But jokes apart, the main reason is the interest I have in the region: politically, economically and culturally. Estonia, particularly, is a very important country. We share many things: we are both small countries – we’re even smaller than you actually, even if with a larger population. Also, we are talking about countries that have very little natural resources, and the only true resource that we have is our brain, that is something you need to use smartly also in order to survive as a country in a pretty tough neighbourhood with a volatile political balance.

Secondly, the interest arises from the development that both countries had in the very last decades: in the 80s, from a mainly agriculture-based country we had a big change and we also decided that high-tech, IT and innovation were the way to go to improve our economy; after all, this is how we became known in the world as “the start-up nation”. Therefore you come here to Estonia and you see what has been done in the last 15 years, getting the opportunity to learn from your experience. It’s definitely interesting to be here, we have excellent relations with the country, a fruitful exchange of visits and of knowledge related to hi-tech and to cyber issues, which are very important in Israel and here as well.

And talking about exchange of visits, you also had a meeting with President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Impressions about your days in Estonia so far?

The meeting was wonderful. One of the reasons why I’m here at the Showroom is that President Ilves really insisted that every new ambassador that comes to the country has to come and visit this place. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity and before leaving to Helsinki I wanted to come here. I’m very impressed, the lectures were very interesting and enlightening. I knew already a little bit about the policies but this visit was really eye-opening, and again it gives me the feeling that there is much more we could do empowering our cooperation, especially among the younger generations and in terms of boosting research and innovation.

And these two elements are definitely the basis for the implementations of solutions that could actually make people’s lives easier in many ways, everyday. What are the main components of the Estonian way to the digital society that you would find more interesting and useful for the public administration? Also compared to the Israeli experience, eventually.

It’s a very developed field in Israel as well, even if maybe not to that extent. We don’t have the e-residency programme for example, that is a unique case in the world. We just started a programme about biometric IDs and passports, even if there are some controversies about that in Israel, for example on how you protect the data and how you guarantee the security of this data. Cyber security is a very big field of interest for us, and for Estonia as well. But apart from this, it is extremely interesting how through the e-residency programme new companies have been registered in Estonia; it is a very interesting concept and maybe we can learn something from this. Also the banking system and its organisation are interesting for us: you use cards and chips, while we still use codes only.

A few final words before leaving Tallinn and get back to Helsinki?

I always say that four eyes are better than two. The more you exchange, the more you speak to each other, the more you can learn and develop yourself and advance your country. This is an amazing opportunity for me as new envoy to promote especially this field and this side of the relations between our two countries, something that your President is right to be so concerned about (in the best way possible, of course).

Thank you Mr. Ambassador.

From the meeting with CEEMAN, Ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg (on the left). Photo by: Edmond Mäll.