Tallinn Digital Summit to host top-level global debate on the future of digital societies

On 15-16 October Estonia will host the Tallinn Digital Summit 2018. Held annually, it’s an invite-only gathering of government leaders and ministers from digital-minded countries, the tech community, and influential thinkers. This year’s summit will focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and global trade in data, as well as on their implications for governance, economies, and societies as a whole.

Estonia’s Prime Minister, and the summit’s host, Mr Jüri Ratas sees Tallinn as a natural platform for the Digital Summit as Estonia has been at the forefront of digital societies for about 20 years. A digital society only works when people trust and actually use digital channels. By and large, Estonians do and it has helped us to gather lots of anonymous raw data. This data, however, is fuel for machine learning and other technologies.

Beyond sharing Estonia’s experience, there are other universal issues at stake. “When we discuss the future of AI, it’s really the future of humanity we’re talking about. We have a responsibility to do things right. There must be a sense of urgency. We need to create a legal and ethical framework that encourages innovation while protecting privacy and personal data, among other safeguards,” Prime Minister Jüri Ratas said.

The summit will host officials and luminaries from Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay. Participants also include representatives of the European Commission.

From AI to future of work

Keynote speakers of the Tallinn 2018 Digital Summit include Greg Corrado, the Principal AI Scientist of Google, and Jack Clark, the Strategy and Communications Director for OpenAI. The summit’s knowledge partners are the McKinsey Global Institute, the Centre for Public Impact, the Lisbon Council and the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE).

The McKinsey Global Institute’s session, led by James Manyika, will focus on the Future Economy and Solving the Skills Challenge. They will share their latest research through a briefing paper – The promise and challenge of the age of artificial intelligence.

Danny Buerkli and Margot Gagliani will be the facilitators of The Centre for Public Impact’s session. The discussion will run on the application of Artificial Intelligence within the government. They will also present some real use cases of where AI has already been applied in different government entities.

Lisbon Council’s session will focus on the questions of safety and security in the age of Artificial Intelligence. Lisbon Council’s discussion will be lead by Luukas Ilves.

As a part of the programme, the heads of delegations will have a private working lunch on the data economy and its impact on international trade policies and regulations. This session will be facilitated by Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy.

The lunch will be followed by Tech Talks Session for experts, industry leaders and innovators. All in all, the summit will create a great platform for government leaders and ministers to discuss with experts and tech industry leaders how to face the challenges of the AI era and learn from each country’s best practices.

This year’s event follows an EU-level summit held in 2017 by the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. That event brought together EU heads of state and government and indicated the need for high-level global debate on digital issues.

About the Knowledge Partners

About The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Company, was established in 1990 to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving global economy. Our goal is to provide leaders in the commercial, public, and social sectors with the facts and insights on which to base management and policy decisions. Current research focuses on six themes: productivity and growth, natural resources, labour markets, the evolution of global financial markets, the economic impact of technology and innovation, and urbanization and infrastructure.

The Centre for Public Impact (CPI) is committed to helping unlock the positive potential of governments. At the summit, CPI will contribute its expertise on how governments can use AI to improve outcomes for citizens, what appropriate governance structures may look like and how governments can strengthen the legitimacy of initiatives that involve AI.

 The Lisbon Council for Economic and Social Renewal is a Brussels-based think tank and policy network. Established in 2003 in Belgium as a non-profit, non-partisan association, the group is dedicated to making a positive contribution through cutting edge research and engaging political leaders and the public at large in a constructive exchange about economic and social challenges of the 21st century.

About The European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) is an independent and non-profit policy research think tank dedicated to trade policy and other international economic policy issues of importance to Europe. It was founded in 2006 by Fredrik Erixon and Razeen Sally.

Find more information about the summit on the Tallinn Digital Summit’s webpage and Twitter.

font: e-estonia.com

Selfdiagnostics: a game-changer in the field of diagnostics

by Connected Health

The Estonian company Selfdiagnostics brings laboratory-grade precision home medical testing to ordinary users and offers the world’s smallest application of PCR technology. This unique product paves the way for bigger changes in medicine in regard to patients taking the first steps toward diagnosing illnesses.

Founded in 2008, the company originally looked to market a patient-side diagnostic concept and solution to allow for the additional capability for diagnosing patients at home with the goal of starting treatment as early as possible. “Health care issues are a salient topic, and services in the field are certainly not as available to people as they would like. People are also used to making increasingly more decisions about their health themselves, and they are quite well-informed. Today people tend to try to take the initiative themselves as the first step toward understanding what the problem is and how it might be treated.

“Democracy in care and patient autonomy will be the next big drivers of developments in the healthcare sector and Selfdiagnostics is committed to supporting these values.”

“National systems or state-funded healthcare services are one package, but people are also increasingly willing to pay for their healthcare themselves. This is what led us to invest into a diagnostics platform that would help people take the first step – identify their ailment, and, armed with that knowledge, seek out a physician to start treatment as soon as possible. We launched the concept in 2008 and in November 2017, we unveiled the first ultra-accurate diagnostics system for home users at one of the world’s biggest medical equipment fairs, Medica Düsseldorf,“ says Lehes.

Laboratory standards for home users

Selfdiagnostics gives home users access to a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) solution that is the gold standard for diagnosis of communicable diseases. The Selfdiagnostics product is comparable to laboratory testing in terms of accuracy and sensitivity but without the need to visit a lab or use special instruments.

“It’s a unique product – today PCR systems come in the form of big boxes in labs, but our product is a pocket version. It’s the world’s smallest PCR.

We are confident the product will transform medicine by giving people the opportunity to take the first steps in diagnosis.

They then go to the doctor with the result and the doctor confirms the diagnosis and determines the treatment,“ Lehes said.

The STD Multitest, introduced at last year’s Medica, helps diagnose sexually transmitted diseases: a drop of urine is placed in the device, the press of a button launches a reaction and the result appears on the readout. This specific test detects two of the most common STDs: chlamydia and gonorrhoea. The platform itself is quite broad-based as PCR determines the DNA of the disease agent. Today, work is underway on future systems for diagnosing illnesses such as flu and tuberculosis.

”We have screened for about 20-30 pathogens, and today we are working with about 10 pathogens. There are mainly three selection criteria: first, the market size or scope of the problem; second, the technical product concept, meaning that we look at whether the solution can be realized at a reasonable price; and third, the competitive advantage. The flu and TB are complicated goals but we feel they are technologically feasible and our product has a competitive edge,” says Lehes.

There are two types of potential buyers of Selfdiagnostics: end consumers and professionals. “Our target group is the ‘person on the street’ who want to check their health as well as specialists who do not have a central laboratory service, such as family doctors,“ explains Lehes.

“We talk to potential customers or consumers as early as the product development phase. Proceeding from market information has been an important criterion for product development as this is a chance to achieve a competitive advantage,” he says.  “As of today, we have entered into preliminary agreements for the sale of half a million devices all over the world,“ adds Lehes.

Lehes explains that the competitive advantages are different from one country to the next. “For example, Nigeria doesn’t have a way of using molecular diagnostic equipment for a precise diagnosis; doctors make decisions based on old-school diagnostic tests. Furthermore, they do not have ways or means to develop centralized laboratory testing. Our product is more accurate and faster, and it’s also really simple. On the other hand, laboratory services are readily available in Europe. Our product’s advantage in Europe is the fact that the test can be administered at home, in a private environment. People postpone seeing a doctor because they don’t have time but mainly because it’s a sensitive topic and they’re scared of going to the doctor. Otherwise, diagnosis and treatment would be put off, but we offer a private way to diagnose an illness.”

“If we’re talking specifically about the STD Multitest, it’s the only device that can diagnose a disease from urine. It’s non-invasive and can be used by both men and women. There simply isn’t another such comprehensive test on the market. Today, testing for chlamydia and gonorrhoea is possible, and trichomoniasis will be offered in the next version – these are more common diseases,” he adds.

Eyes on the prize

“We started development in Estonia, and in 2013, we started a company in Germany. The German team and laboratories focus on developing a device for the end consumer, while business development and sales are based in Estonia,” says Lehes.

In parallel to product development, the company is also pursuing sales operations actively: “We sell analogous products made by third-party manufacturers – rapid tests, blood pressure instruments, inhalers. We are active on the home medicine market in Estonia, Germany and the UK. In the context of product development, we’re interested in Europe, and we’re in talks with US distributors to validate and market the product, as well as in Asia through South Korean partners,” he says.

Selfdiagnostics also has expansion plans, and negotiations are under way as to whether to set up manufacturing operations in Europe or Korea. “Expansion is the only way to go, as the market is ultimately international. Estonia is a good location for running a business, for doing business – but the expertise, market and resources are elsewhere,” says Lehes. In 2020, we plan to enter the European and Asian market, then enter the US market. In 2025, we plan to get to the stage of an IPO.

“It might come as a surprise to many, but I would say that our overall plan is watertight. Yes, we’ve underestimated many risks, but the same is true of the opportunities that come with the sector. Our overall concept is spot-on and this has ensured our success. Today we have invested around 12 million euros, and we need the same amount to enjoy success on the market. That amount is above average in the world of start-ups. Concerted development and generating income within the company is what has got us here, not living hand to mouth off of donors,” says Lehes.

font: e-estonia.com

Public transport made smarter as Estonian companies team up abroad

by Federico Plantera

Notwithstanding the competition that they can encounter within the borders of their country of origin, Estonian companies play here their home games when developing and implementing solutions aimed to change the way we do things over here. But when two of these companies team up to export real responses to real problems to other places in the world, well, that’s when we start seeing the sparks.

Let us get this clear, it’s not a matter of militant xenophilia – we just can’t help but celebrate when expertise and knowledge are rewarded with international recognition. And that’s what happened to the two Estonian companies Ridango and Singleton, that have been recently completed their stages to set up a new platform for smart and easy-to-access public transports in Sweden.

Ridango is the Estonian market-leader in the provision of transit solutions and connected services, from ticketing to real-time updates on traffic and timings, while Singleton is an Estonian company specializing in the use of React Native technology to develop apps and user interfaces. We put together for a chat Erki Lipre and Norman Saarso, the two CEOs of the companies, to understand what they have done for public transports in Sweden and how did they get there – and please, forgive us for this last transportation-related pun.

Erki Lipre, CEO at Ridango

Ridango is now providing solutions for smart public transportation in Sweden as well. What are the ongoing projects and the most interesting features?

One innovative project in Sweden has definitely been Movingo, which is Mälardalstrafik’s new rail ticketing central system, web portal and mobile application. For this solution, we used new ticketing system structures and API-s. It is called BoB, which is the new Swedish standard and defines how the ticketing system communicates with other ticketing systems. It also defines how the ticket is packed in Aztec code – which is like a QR code for mobile usage – for validation. Ridango was one of the first to roll out a new system following BoB standards in such scope.

Our project, in the end, is much more than a central system and a mobile application only. Technically it was very a complex solution to realize, but of course, travellers only see the web portal and its mobile application.

Are we talking about solutions that have been implemented or in use in Estonia first, or whole new functions?

We always use the main system that we have developed in Estonia and in Sweden as a baseline, then we make customizations and changes for new customers according to implementation-related needs. In this occasion, the central system based solution was adapted to fit with BoB standards. We built a new web portal and a whole new mobile application. The new mobile application provides a better and more seamless user experience compared to previous works, and this is definitely a big milestone for us, also for future projects.

What were the main challenges in implementing this solution in another country and, specifically, Sweden?

To be completely honest, Sweden is a familiar place for Ridango, as we have realized projects there since 2013. However, each project is challenging and unique in its own way. This one, in particular, was unlike anything we’ve done in the past because of the new standards introduced in Sweden. Being the first company to implement something new is rewarding, but it also carries a few disadvantages.

You need to be extra cautious whilst operating, as there are many stakeholders involved and practical aspects that need additional work and attention compared to what the standard outlines.

We also engaged for the first time our new partner, Singleton, to develop the mobile application for this project with us. Getting everybody on the move towards the same goal and timeframe is always a challenge. I am happy that our team managed to do it so well!

How did the cooperation with Singleton start, and what were the strongest points of this joint project?

We saw that Singleton was the organization we wanted to work with on this particular programme, and beyond: if we start working with somebody, we also know that this relationship can last for long. Thus, we have started to look into our other mobile ticketing solutions as well.

What are the future plans for Ridango? Is the company planning to expand to other countries, or municipalities in other countries, even further? Is there anything new coming up for Estonia too?

Ridango has done well over the last years. We used to be operative exclusively in Estonia, but since we entered the Swedish context we have gained a very strong market positioning in Sweden. We have also done projects in Greenland, Lithuania, Ukraine. We always seek out markets and programmes that fit our customer type, as well as technical beliefs for better ticketing solutions. The same we expect to see in the future.

For what regards Estonia, one major news and change is the contactless bank card (EMV) acceptance project in the city of Tallinn. Basically, we are rolling out acceptance for Mastercard and VISA contactless cards directly at the validators. This makes the travel so much more seamless: tap your card on the validator and the price is automatically deducted from your bank account. It’s a very convenient solution for public transport users and even more convenient for occasional users or tourists! It’s a big thing indeed, as Tallinn is in the top 3 of the capitals of Europe employing such solutions – with London being the first one.

Norman Saarso, CEO and Co-Founder at Singleton

What was the starting point of your cooperation with Ridango? What was your part of the job specifically, and what was the end result?

The Movingo app was the first project born out of the cooperation between Singleton and Ridango. When the project was in its planning phase, Ridango was looking for a new mobile app development partner for their solutions that was professional, flexible, and had a strong background in React Native technology – which is quite a new and rapidly evolving technology. Negotiations went well, and we became Ridango’s mobile partner, meaning that we’re the ones developing their mobile applications. I hope our cooperation with Ridango will be fruitful also in the years to come!

The outcome of this project, in particular, was a mobile application now used daily by thousands of Swedes travelling in Stockholm and areas nearby to purchase and validate their train tickets on Movingo (a Swedish transport operator) trains. Since there are up to 50 000 people commuting daily in the region, the app has to be reliable as a Swiss clock.

What were the challenges (if any) you encountered in implementing your solutions in the public transportation sector and in a country like Sweden?

A major challenge was to make sure that the Aztec-ticket validation works on every single type of validator that’s out there, on different devices, screen sizes, light conditions and so on. If the mobile ticket is your only ticket, it simply has to work everywhere. Period.Evenly important is the reliability of the ticket purchasing process. We put a great effort into making these two core functionalities reliable and efficient. Making sure we meet the accessibility requirements, as it’s a public transportation app, was demanding too.

However, I think the biggest challenges were encountered by Ridango, since they handled the backend development and they had to comply with the local technical standards which are quite demanding. Also, as the React Native technology is evolving quickly, another challenge for us on the app side was to always be in control of the situation to make sure that the outcome will always be there and up-to-date.

What are the strongest features of your solutions?

The app is a complete traveling solution. You can purchase and validate your train tickets using your phone, and you can check the train traffic in real time as the solution is integrated with the Trafikverket systems, the Swedish national Transportation Administration: departures, delays, traffic interruptions etc. You don’t even need an NFC card or similar, you can just show the validator your mobile phone screen with an Aztec code ticket and you’re good to go.  The solution as a whole is cutting-edge in a public transportation sector!

Future plans for Singleton alone, and abroad in cooperation with other Estonian companies

Singleton will keep growing. We’re a relatively young company (turning 3-years old in November!), so we want to keep growing like we did so far – doubling the team and the revenue every year. And we’re putting great effort in exporting our know-how outside Estonia, since we’ve learned that we can often offer better quality than local companies. For this reason, we’re always looking for partnerships like the one we built in this case with Ridango. The overall level of competence in the Estonian ICT sector is very high, but I think we would be more competitive globally if we export full solutions and not just competence in technology A, or know-how in sector B. And that’s the case where you have to join forces, like we did with Ridango.

Font: e-estonia.com

Refresh 2018 – going deeper into the world of product team

On 7th September, Refresh Conference takes over the Tallinn Creative Hub, to host the annual product, design and front-end conference. On the fourth year, the conference programme has grown bigger by one more stage with 6 talks dedicated to design topics, and mini-workshops for specialists who want a more hands-on learning experience.

“Previously the design and product talks were sharing the same stage and the emphasis was more on product. We got a lot of feedback from the attendees that they would love to see more presentations on design and it was just logical to add the design stage to the programme,“ comments Janika Liiv, the Founder of Refresh. “The importance of design in software development has changed drastically even during the four years we have organized Refresh. Few years ago you just needed engineers to build a startup, but today designer is one of the first important hires next to developers. Having a separate stage for design means, we will also have more talks on product management and the whole event is more thorough.” Refresh will feature 21 international speakers, who will be going in depth into these 4 key topics:

Focus on customer

Great teams know that to build a successful product, you need to understand and care about your customer. Rebekah Mueller, Senior Product Manager at the biggest audiobook platform Audible will be talking about how to fit into customer’s life without losing sight of humanity; Anna Jozanis, UX Designer from the biggest Polish e-commerce site Allegro, will be sharing her experience how to redesign an old product, when customers are used to bad solutions; Laura Carvajal, Software Engineer from the Financial Times will uncover the things we can do in development to make the product more accessible to the disabled.

Team collaboration

Good communication and collaboration inside the team are major factors that help a company be more effective in what they do. The topics will be ranging from designing design processes that help you keep your focus on the right place to sharing your research results in a most effective way with the whole team.

Personal growth and leadership

It wouldn’t be a learning experience, if the topic of personal growth wouldn’t come up! The lack of growth is number 1 reason of people leaving their jobs and discussing is crucial to relieve stress and to avoid burnout. Alexandra Lung from Pivotal Labs will be sharing the 7 things she wish she could have known before becoming a product manager, Wilson Albert, Engineering Lead form Farfetch will talk about being first-time team lead and the confusion what comes with it and Tim Wantland, Design Lead from Google AI, will talk about intuitive intelligence and how to grow as a creative professional.

New technologies

It’s interesting to play around with new technologies, but isn’t always clear what are the practical implementations, trades-offs or challenges we might face if we want to use them in a production environment. Hence it is crucial to hear others’ experience and case-studies on to get a better understanding of the technology. At Refresh you will learn what to keep in mind when developing a voice-based interface, why you should host your single page apps in a serverless environment and some practical tips for using web components.

“Refresh is the only conference in Estonia dedicated to creating digital products, which covers all the important topics starting from figuring out to whom and why the products are necessary, how to design them, to how you actually technically build them,” says Pärtel Vurma, Partner at the award-winning design agency Velvet, sponsor and a avid fan of Refresh. The value of Refresh is really clear to him – “Participating Refresh should be mandatory to every self-respecting Estonian designer, front-end developer and product manager working on digital products!”

With its unique concept, Refresh is bringing together the whole product team and gives the participants a chance to peek to the world beyond their own and be curious about the bigger picture. Join Refresh already on 7th September at Tallinn Creative Hub!

More info on the event and the programme: http://refresh.rocks/

Font: Startupestonia.ee

Imagine, create, grow. Estonia is the place for ideas worth funding

By Federico Plantera

About two thousand years and a couple of centuries ago, there was a place in Europe where someone believed in the existence of a higher dimension, superior to the world of humans. The so-called hyperuranion was thought to be the world of ideas – as Plato writes in one of his most famous dialogues, Phaedrus – a place indifferent to time and space. These ideas had a hierarchical structure, a quality, but they had above all a specific function: as the philosopher says, they are necessary to the existence of worldly things. Ideas as preconditions for things to happen.

Yes, you are still on e-Estonia, and we haven’t started selling philosophy encyclopedias just out of the blue. But here is one thing we have done, among the many that make our journey as an innovative country for independent minds so exciting: we have created a place where ideas come to life. We thought that Silicon Valley might feel a bit lonely from time to time, so we made Estonia one of the best startup hubs in the world by finding the perfect formula to make entrepreneurial people feel at home. Revisiting and adapting Plato’s theory to 2018, we think that opportunities and context make also a big part of the success of a disruptive idea that can bring small revolutions in different business sectors.

Startup Estonia is the governmental initiative aimed at ideas worth funding, striving to create the best ecosystem to see startups being born, grow, and turn into success stories. It’s not just a public programme: they build connections and partnerships with and between incubators, accelerators, public and private actors, and of course aspiring unicorns.

Maarika Truu, as the Head of Startup Estonia, knows exactly why foreign founders love Estonia as a place to start exciting entrepreneurial experiences: “most of them said that the country is so easily accessible, and not only in terms of geography or services but also for what regards the startup community as a whole”. The human factor definitely plays a big role in the early stages of development of a startup, and the advantages here are palpable: “our community is very open-minded. You come in, you end up in a coworking space, start talking to other entrepreneurs, you might pop in on a Skype co-founder, and everyone is really open to talking. There’s no hierarchy and no reluctance in sharing meaningful experiences. This comes with the smallness of the ecosystem, which can always be both good and bad, but for us is more of a good factor: Estonia is open and small, so you can come here and scale from here to wherever you want”.

When we meet Maarika, things are going pretty well for startups in Estonia. According to the latest mid-year reports, Christmas came early for entrepreneurs based in Tallinn – and then it just never faded away:

• +27% growth compared to the first semester of 2017 in terms of employees who joined the existing 550 Estonian startups; raising the total headcount to 3369 people – and they’re still hiring
• the top 20 startups account for more than half (56%) of the jobs created, with Transferwise, Taxify, Pipedrive, Monese and Starship Technologies being the top 5 talent seekers
• we’ve just become the country with the highest number of unicorns (startup companies valued at more than a billion US dollars) per capita: the birthplace of Skype, Playtech, Transferwise, and Taxify
• 20,8M EUR have been given to the state this year already in employment taxes, meaning that startups are also a guarantee for well and fairly paid jobs
• overall funding of Estonian startups has already reached 245,6M EUR, falling short of only 26,5M EUR from last year’s final rate, meaning that there’s more to come and another record to break before the end of the year
• talking about funding, the inflow of capitals has never stopped growing since 2012, seeing a steep increase (more than doubled) between 2016 and 2017, and projected at up to 350M EUR this year

Businessmen, venture capitalists, funds, you name it, they want to invest in Estonia. “We’re seeing a trend of high growth and it’s now starting faster than ever before, with the largest number of investment available in the whole Baltics, not only in Estonia. Tallinn has been showing the highest trend in raising those investments for startups, and the inflow is just not stopping: they believe in the teams and the ideas, and founders and employees have proved that those ideas are scalable and needed in the world”, as Maarika reveals. New startups and new people are finding their way here, and “this is positive for the investment capital that is actually available” Maarika says, “because funds need startups to invest in.”

Unicorns are rare beasts, but we won’t be the ones to tell you that you cannot become one. Startups that made it and startups that by now are considered companies can be an example for founders on a mission:

“having role models is really important for the youth, whether they are business owners or unicorns.

It’s a fact that unicorns are success stories, but they’re as important as SMEs. They make a big share of the overall economy, and at that point the examples maybe even in your family, where you have parents who are business owners even though they’re not unicorns. School programs are fundamental too, when young entrepreneurs go to the schools and tell students how they started,” Maarika says.

Startup Estonia knows that digital skills help, but the relations between entrepreneurship and human capital are the component that makes Estonia shine for its startup ecosystem. To keep the flow of ideas going, schools are inevitably the places to go: “the Junior Achievement Student Company programme for the secondary school is an example in this sense, and in Estonia we have a really high percentage of students who go through it. Junior Achievement even said that Estonia is one of their most successful countries; founders, young entrepreneurs, they have the possibility to learn something, adapt, change, and then they will already know how to proceed from there”, Maarika highlights.

The current situation sees Startup Estonia concentrating on the national ecosystem, looking for more harmonized paths of developments for the new-born companies here, but cooperation and partnerships are on their way with actors that can help startups scale in other markets. The list is set and open to new target-cities now more than ever, aiming to expand in Europe and Asia.

But if one eye looks at the international context, the other aims to understand more intimate dynamics that can turn someone into a founder. The human dimension of an entrepreneurial initiative seems to make a big part of all the work that the agency is putting into Estonia’s startup environment: “We’re researching into how to start giving people a startup mindset, and how to enable young talents to express their potential and grow into entrepreneurs. Currently, the startup ecosystem is based on company-specific points, you start with your company and then grow into a unicorn. I want to have a human-centered approach too, where we analyze the person behind the company, and we see what are the skills and the knowledge needed to create startups that would become unicorns in the future,” Maarika reveals. The research is ongoing and is being conducted in collaboration with a pool of independent, applied anthropologists.

Corporate capitals are not the only ingredient in the recipe. Human capital, for the personal skills and potential, and social capital, for the community and the general environment, are in no respects less crucial in making what turned Estonia into the European Silicon Valley that is today. From a certain point of view, the country can be considered a unicorn itself: it grew out of a centrally planned economy and a totalitarian political space, to become one of the hottest hubs in the world for young and innovative entrepreneurs. Things that don’t come by chance. Now we all know it – the startup heaven is a place on Earth.

Font: e-estonia.com

e-Talks: Sander Gansen on Robotex

Robotex International is dubbed “the biggest robotics festival on the planet.” As of 2018, Robotex, which originated in Estonia, has spread to over 18 countries. With plans to expand further, we sat down with Sander Gansen, Chairman of Robotex, to learn all about Robotex’s upcoming projects and festival. You will find our video interview and extended interview below.

 

How has Robotex evolved?

Robotex started in 2001 with competitions, and over the years it went into exhibitions as well as workshops. At some point, we also developed a conference; which, at its start, was just a science conference for university professors. But now, this year, we are focusing the conference on executives as well as policy makers — and of course startups and inventors. This is, from the event side, a big part. Other than that, we have our own education programs, summer schools, boot camps, and we might even start our own robotics schools soon. Then we have innovation challenges and start up programs that we are also developing. In the longer term future, we plan to start an early stage fund which will invest globally.

What is the Entrepreneurial Challenge?

The entrepreneurial challenge is a basically the cornerstone of our startup programs. We want to attract to the early stage robotics startups: they might be only prototype stage or first customers early stage product. The idea is that they come to the event globally through the local ones. Then the best come to Estonia, where they have to present what they built over the course of the whole event to all the people, get feedback, and might even do first sales. They have to pitch to investors and judges. They have to go deeper and talk about the tech to judges as well. Then we choose the best one and give them some award money as well and try to help them potentially find investors in the future.

What are the main challenges of exporting your brand?

Funny enough we are kind of growing organically. So what happened with Robotex in 2016 is that one of one of our international participating teams from Cyprus asked if they could also use our brand in Cyprus and start something there. We said, “eh, why not?” And then they held their first event in 2017. After which we had 3 different companies from China asking if they if they could bring Robotex to China. We didn’t know why, but later on we learned that in China if you’re doing educational programs, it’s better if they’re international because then the government believes that they work. So we went to China and we found this one partner that we liked, and had them start Robotex there. After that Greece, then India, and now we are already opening our 18th country. And in fact, the last 6 months we’ve been having so much interest from different countries to open Robotex, that most likely the biggest challenge is how to cope with all this attraction and keep quality without losing quantity.

What’s new in this years confrence?

Robotex conference is totally business focused. So we are only attracting executives like CXOs, policy makers, investors and start-ups, and bringing on speakers from fields like Space tech, Cyber tech, and of course Robotics and AI to speak about what’s currently happening in the innovation world. What are the trends? What are the kind of innovations will be her in the next 5 or 10 yrs? and how to implement them? and the important part is we want to give this knowledge to the executives and have them actually implement these technologies as well as have policy makers learn what is coming so that they can help not hinder the process of innovation. This year we have the chief data strategist, Cassie from Google, coming with opening key note. Then we have XAI, which is doing basically a bot who is acting as a PA for you: so organizing all the meetings without you having to answer when you will be there. We have experts from NASA, ESA, and different Cyber Security experts. So it’s a bunch of really interesting people.

What are the future goals of Robotex?

So our current plan, is that by the end of this year, we want to be in 25 countries, and then keep on growing from there. Our ideal would be that in the next 10 years we would end up in 100 countries and then see where we can go from there. We have already had some difficulties where we have had exits some countries because of political reasons. But so far, in most case, where we have entered into a country, the team has been really good at starting to grow the whole thing there. Other than that, we are introducing our robotic school system, and we want to take it the global level. Like we have the music schools globally, we want to have this similar type thing for robotics schools. And especially for the advanced level because there is a lot of robotics clubs at schools and universities which are getting the basic level there. But at some point when someone is very smart, they kind of are just left there. They keep on learning the same things, and they do not get better and better. We need to make these advanced programs while, of course, keeping on doing the beginner ones. As well as teaching teachers and maybe even executives. But what is my own biggest passion is, we want to start a robotics focused fund. With Robotex especially, as we are attracting these early stage start-ups via our entrepreneurship challenge, and hopefully this will be here in the next 5 years’ time and then we can start growing it to more later stages. And one day having the biggest private equity firm in Robotics. A small dream of mine.

What are the innovation challenges?

Other than the entrepreneurship challenge, we are also doing the innovation challenge. Where we attract some global companies that want to have teams solve their problems, or just want to attract talent. So last year we had our first competition with Starship, where they basically had a challenge where teams had to build small Starships that had had to find objects and send information back to home base and capture points. And the idea for Starship was to see if they could find some talent whom they could hire. This year we are doing it again. Together with them. Starship is one of our biggest partners because Ahti Heinla, the founder of Starship, is a ex-Robotex participant.

And we are starting a challenge with Taxify this year. Where they want to have teams build potential solutions to run the autonomous car parks, which could be used to make the ETA better on the apps – and potentially one day run the fleats.

Then we have Elisa, the telelcommunication company, giving us their data so we can do a machine learning competition as well.

This one of the services that Robotex can provide: we bring in 10-20 international teams who have built some solutions, come back to one location, show what they built, and pitch it, and have these companies either get the talent or the solution or get partners.

Robotex International

Robotex International, the biggest event, happens in Tallinn from Novemeber 30 to December 2nd. Where we have the exhibition, festival, and competitions throughout, and the conference till December 1st. The tickets are currently on sale, and we are accepting request for speakers and for companies who want to exhibit at the Expo. And if you can join us for the Estonian event, then you can choose for 18 others globally, or join us in 2019!

Font: e-estonia.com

 

Digital Leadership: Estonian pioneers ranked in Apolitical’s top 100

When Apolitical posted its ‘World’s 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government’ list this month, it quickly went viral on social media platforms. Among the distinguished world leaders who are blazing the digital path were four outstanding Estonians. Of course, it is only natural that a nation with a reputation as a leading digital society would have some of its pioneers and innovators highlighted.

The nominations for Apolitical’s 2018 list drew on the contributions of numerous academics, experts, and public servants to craft a holistic and diverse cast. The final selection — reviewed by independent experts from around the globe — includes four Estonians: former CIO Taavi Kotka, former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip, and our dear CIO Siim Sikkut.

We are clearly very proud of their achievements and would like to highlight them in brief for you.

When former President Ilves received the Mohn Prize in 2017, he said, “What Estonia has done in the past quarter century is the work of many people.

I did outline what at the time was considered a quirky and impossible vision, but so many smart people took to the idea that soon Estonia was racing ahead on its own.

It took a spark to light a torch that in turn was carried by many. Call it the Zeitgeist…”

It would be hard to overstate the contributions of the former president to state of Estonian’s ICT society today. During his tenure, President Ilves was appointed to several high ICT positions in the European Union: chairman of the EU Task Force on e-Health (2011-2012) and chairman of the European Cloud Partnership Steering Board (2012-2013). Additionally, President Ilves chaired ICANN’s Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms (2013), the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Cyber Security (2014), and the World Bank’s World Development Report on “Digital Dividends.” All while being an outstanding spokesman on the necessity of a robust digital infrastructure for Estonia.

Taavi Kotka

In an interview with Forbe’s former CIO Taavi Kotka said when joining the Estonian government

“I asked for the parking spot behind the government building, and I asked for full political support no matter how crazy my ideas were. I must admit that they fulfilled their promise, and it was harder to get the parking spot than support.”

You may know Kotka as the man who spearheaded the e-Residency program, which to-date has over 41,000 applicants from 161 countries, but he has played a vital role numerous other Estonian projects: data embassies, country in the cloud, VAT fraud detection, etc. Needless to say his ‘crazy ideas’ have contributed immensely to Estonia’s outstanding reputation.

Andrus Ansip

From mayor of Tartu to Prime Minister to the Vice President for the European Commission and European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip has always been closely associated with the digital revolution. His impressive resume distinguishes him as  a forerunner of e-Society and digital governance. It was Ansip who gave Estonia’s first Digital Signature.

Today, Ansip’s work with Digital Single Market is an ambitious attempt to unify the regulations and transactions of the internet companies across the EU; which has implication from everything from e-commerce to cyber security. In short, Ansip has taken on the monumental endeavor of tearing down regulatory walls to transition the EU’s Single market into the digital age.

Siim Sikkut

Last but not least, Siim Sikkut our current government CIO. Picking up where Kotka left off, Siim’s vision and policies steer the strategic initiatives for digital governmental development. As such, he was also one of the co-founders of the innovative e-Residency program.

Siim is shaping the status-quo in real time. He is clearly forward-thinking and future-focused; among his bold ventures is the introduction of autonomous vehicles for the purposes of assisting the elderly.

Font: e-estonia.com