Estonia to open first data science Master’s programme

June 2019

Next year the University of Tartu in Estonia will be opening a new data science Master’s programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication. It is the first of its kind in the country and it is expected to educate 50 new highly skilled data science specialists by 2023. Estonia has also recently published a national AI acceleration strategy that includes a push in education and research activities.

Ott Velsberg, the Government Chief Data Officer said that the amounts of data gathered by both the public and private sectors has grown dramatically in the past ten years. “Thanks to current technologies the challenges don’t lie with gathering and saving masses of data anymore. Instead the question is what to do with the data and how to benefit from it,” said Velsberg. “The biggest challenge is how to use data effectively and ethically in business, politics, sciences and the society at large,” he added.

Since data analysis is increasingly common in many walks of life, Velsberg predicts a growing need for highly qualified data scientists. “Data scientists are valued highly because of their skills to solve complex problems. Since organizations have begun to realize they lack the necessary skills for gather, interpreting and processing data, they have started to look for specialists who can help with that,” explained Velsberg. Harvard Business Review recently named data scientist as the most attractive job position of the 21st century.

According to Professor Jaak Vilo, Head of the Institute of Computer Science at University of Tartu, there hasn’t been a holistic curriculum so far that would give a complete education in data mining, visualisation, machine learning and fields of application. University of Tartu and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication have signed a contract to educate 50 new highly skilled specialists by 2023, who can further specialise either in business or the sciences.

Data science is tightly connected to artificial intelligence and machine learning as most automated decisions will be made with the help of models trained with data. Vilo explained: “Data science is a wide discipline that includes how data is created and unified, statistical analysis, data visualisation and applying methods of machine learning and AI.”

First admissions will be held in 2020. While students with previous studies in IT are expected to mainly enrol, the programme also welcomes people with a background in other disciplines.

Resource: e-estonia

Proactive governance enhances service delivery in Estonia

June 2019

by Federico Plantera

The provision of proactive public services relies on the contribution of three fundamental components: citizens, governments, tools. In a government-to-citizen (G2C) perspective, researching into the instruments that foster seamless governance proves to be a constant work of updating programmes, shifting policy paradigms, implementing new strategies.

Nonetheless, artificial intelligence and machine learning are only some of the paths available to governments to enhance such development. Instead, a concrete impact on creating the next generation of public services entails, first, a change of heart in approaches. With an action plan tailored on citizens’ life-events, Estonia is making its way towards a new model of proactive governance.

Twenty years of experience as a digital society

The implementation of digital solutions to increase public sector efficiency started in Estonia already almost twenty years ago. It was the beginning of 2000s when interoperability and secure authentication became the founding pillars of our nascent e-state. Today, a shift in the approach to service delivery can provide the basis for a truly seamless digital state.

Janek Rozov is the Chief Digital Officer and Deputy CIO of the Government of Estonia, and is currently working on the development of this new path to service design. “Take artificial intelligence, for example – it is only a technology, and should not be a goal in itself. Surely we must use AI where it creates the greatest value, and we already have very good examples so far. The most important thing, however, is to identify problems that technology best seems to be able to solve,” Rozov says.

In general, Estonia has never ceased digging into new technologies that can make the public sector more efficient. The current “Kratt” strategy for AI deployment is a perfect example of this long-standing trend. Progressively, machine learning and automation are coming to become an integral part of the service provision duties of the government.

However, according to Rozov it is fundamental to remember: “Challenges do not lie in technology implementation, but in paradigm change. These are ethical and trust issues. Are Estonians willing to delegate data-based decision-making processes to machines? If yes, then we are already able today to provide such proactive services based on the life- and business-events of each individual person or company.”

Proactive services to increase living standards

From tax returns in a few clicks to predictive tools on macro-economic performance, digitalisation processes have already brought outstanding results. But time savings and increased efficiency allow us to replicate successful projects, and to research new ways forward in sensitive areas of life – such as health, education, employment. Proactive services in these fields can have an impact on citizens’ experience with the state, rewarding innovative public sectors.

“In healthcare, we could implement personal medicine, analysing the specific characteristics of each individual patient based on genetic information. It would also be possible to use a personal approach in education. Imagine seeing classes and learning groups formed not based on age, but on the actual capacity and potential of students. For what regards unemployment in Estonia today, the Unemployment Insurance Fund (EUIF) is already using AI to provide job seekers with the job they need based on their long-term experience. We can also predict in what areas the risk of job displacement remains high,” Rozov states.

Public sector at the forefront of technological change

Wide-ranging technological change has been driven by private sector initiatives in the past. Governments, however, are increasingly looking at such paths with greater interest. Implementing up and coming digital solutions, paired with shifts in approaching service provision, contributes to developing new ideas of governance. Estonia’s effort towards proactive services does not only aim to increasingly optimise costs and generate higher added value – it is a crucial step in the creation of a state that keeps citizens and their needs at its very core.

“The plan is to move towards invisible event services where customers are served through events in their lives. For example, when a child is born or starts school, or becoming unemployed, changing jobs, buying a house, being in an accident – technology is capable of linking dozens of services by different institutions, providing a comprehensive solution to the citizen through a single event, in only one contact. In addition, the state does not have to wait for the customer to ask for grants, assistance, advice. The state can itself proactively offer special opportunities to citizens, as all information is available and citizens have agreed to the use of this information for those purposes,” Rozov concludes.

Digital development has long been aimed at saving time and resources. Citizens’ satisfaction, however, has always been one of the pillars of legitimacy for governments’ actions. The creation of an enhanced, proactive digital society is one of the policy directions ahead. With seven seamless services to go live by 2020, Estonia is pioneering once again new ways of digitally transforming the state and its relationship with the citizens.

Resouce: e-estonia

Where is Estonian e-health headed?

June 2019

Priit Tohver, adviser for e-services and innovation at the Ministry of Social Affairs, looks at the current state and possibilities of e-health solutions.

“In the future visiting your doctor will mean that a screen with your family doctor will appear while you’re having breakfast. Sensors on your body have detected that your blood cholesterol levels are a bit high and your doctor suggests replacing fried eggs with granola instead.” This is roughly how the future of e-health was depicted all around Europe about ten years ago. What are we dreaming of right now and how do we get there?

If we move past the worrying image of a human doctor who should be keeping an eye on their patients every morning, ten years ago this vision seemed really cool. Knowing how these solutions should actually work, was also pleasantly unimportant. The fun ended the moment I passed through the security gates at the “super ministry” to start my job at the Ministry of Social Affairs. As it turns out, my family doctor still doesn’t know what I have for breakfast, and it was now my job to figure out the best way to let him know.

The National Audit Office of Estonia said in their 2014 report that the e-health tiger has not been leaping lately. Other tigers had gone to consult in Finland in the meantime and had discovered that their health data remained in Estonia still, regardless of X-road interoperability. Others (and myself included) had been too busy learning new languages and had fallen behind in the conversation. What are eHDSI and DICOM and is SNOMED still with HL7 dwarves?

Estonia has many smart e-health solutions

Fortunately there have been smart people steering our e-health towards calm waters. We have a lot to be proud of, even on an international level, like a fully functional e-prescription, smart support for discovering the co-effects of medicine, e-ambulance and a developing e-consultation service. Even a digital registration that works across the country is now working and more and more hospitals are connecting to it. Cross-border e-prescription now reaches across the Baltic Sea.

We are capable of creating a health system that supports the person – let’s call him Mart (or Mari) – and their whole life cycle. If Mart so wishes, we are capable of gathering data that describes his journey through the medical system, but also his environment, lifestyle, genome and more. Integrating these data, we can create a full picture of his current health situation and plan preventative actions if need be.

We also have the technology for all this

If Mart would like to move to another country for a change, his health data can also be shared with his new doctors. If Mart falls ill, we can determine if the problem requires a doctor’s attention or can be solved more easily, maybe even with the help of an automated system. This way we can also ensure that once Mart really needs a doctor, the doctor will have time for him.

More importantly, we can bring medical help to Mart’s doorstep through long-distance solutions, which is crucial if Mart is not mobile for some reason. If Mart should have a chronic disease – and around half the people will have one – we could monitor his health situation from his home already now. Mart in turn could download a mobile app integrated to the health system that reminds him when to take his medication, what to eat and which exercises he should be doing.

If we put all the Marts and Maris of our country together, we could learn from our master data which treatments are actually effective, which hospitals give the best care, which problems our people have and even how genes affect diseases and treatments. For example, Mari could discover that even though she carries the BRCA gene mutation, her risk of getting breast cancer is lower because her lesser known gene regulators will block the mutation. We know this based on other women who carry the same genes and didn’t have cancer.

We need international cooperation more than ever

It’s already a tangible reality if only we could put the pieces of e-health together as one whole. Future health is not an unattainable dream, however, I could never say that it will be easy to get there. Figuratively, we have the components to build a ship for Mart or Mari to sail to the e-health paradise. Unfortunately we and everyone else lacks a ship building master to put the components together so that the ship wouldn’t sink.

This is why we’ve created an association with other European Union countries called eHAction – European Union e-health joint action. It has e-health experts from 30 countries and it is focused on mobile health, telemedicine, big data analysis, artificial intelligence and cross-border health services. Of course, the challenges lie with privacy and data security. In three years we hope to get this far that every country will at least have an IKEA-style guide to build the ship mentioned above. Estonia will win from user-centric and effective e-solutions in any case.

This article was originally posted in Estonian on the Ministry of Social Affairs blog.

Resurce: e-estonia