11 500 visitors to the e-Estonia Briefing Centre in 2019

December 2019

The e-Estonia Briefing Centre has shared the unique e-Estonia story with 11 500 visitors from around the world in 2019, making it the new milestone in visitors in its 10 years of existence. The Centre was also visited by the Presidents of Georgia, Albania and Ukraine, King of the Belgians, and the Governor General of Canada this year. The most delegations came from Germany, Japan, USA, Netherlands and France.

The Briefing Centre’s role is to introduce e-Estonia to international audiences and build contacts between delegations from abroad and Estonian companies. The main visitors to the Briefing Centre are from different levels of other countries’ governments, business leaders, policy and decision makers. Managing Director at the e-Estonia Briefing Centre, Liina Maria Lepik said that interest in e-Estonia is continuously growing: “It’s clear that the Estonian know-how and practical experience with digitalisation is very highly valued in the world. There’s been around 20% growth in visiting delegations this year, which shows that other countries believe there is something to be learned from Estonia in this area.”

The new concept of the e-Estonia Briefing Centre was unveiled in February this year. The focus has now shifted more towards building quality leads and collaboration. “Refreshing the Briefing Centre’s brand was needed to better get into the minds of our target groups. Our goal is to inspire a change in their mindset and to introduce Estonia’s outstanding experience in building an e-state that includes the whole society. Of course, we also put them in contact with Estonian companies open to leading international projects,” said Lepik. Delegations can choose between three different formats: a briefing by the Centre’s experts, meetings with companies of different backgrounds, and a special tailor-made business programme.

To expand international reach, the e-Estonia Briefing Centre has also built digital solutions to assist in storytelling. For example, 360-degree virtual reality videos are accessible online, but also travel across events and can be viewed at Gate number 3 at the Tallinn Airport. An interactive solution introducing Estonian ICT companies and startups will soon be publicly launched along with video presentations and a chatbot.

The e-Estonia Briefing Centre is a department of Enterprise Estonia and is located in Tallinn. The Briefing Centre has operated for 10 years already and has altogether hosted more than 63 000 people, including King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, President of Austria Alexander van der Bellen, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and many other heads of states, prime ministers and other high level dignitaries. Additionally, the Centre’s experts have spoken at 20 conferences and events all across the world this year from Japan to Paraguay, increasing Estonia’s global visibility.

Resource: e-estonia.com

Digitalising agriculture for a sustainable and just future

December 2019

by Peeter Vihma

sociologist, filmmaker & authorshare

Adventures of a digital man in America is a column where Peeter Vihma, an Estonian sociologist, filmmaker and author, currently a Fulbright Fellow at Cornell University, NY, is bringing you his personal monthly reports into the American digital economy, government and society.

Agriculture is one of the least digitalised areas in the modern world. As start-ups and tech companies are starting to fill this void surely Estonia’s innovation is right there among the most prominent as VitalFields, a farmers’ digital “field book” with prediction capabilities was just bought by Monsanto, and eAgronom, a tool that simplifies daily and seasonal farm management, is used to manage over 700 000 hectares of land in nine countries.

The competition is of course, ramping up. Being the top university for agriculture, Cornell University has just started an Initiative for Digital Agriculture (CIDA). It is a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration between academia, technology companies, farmers and public sector to foster a pipeline of practical innovations. Companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Cargill and Trimble are among the collaborators. In other words, it is a big deal.

Prospects of digitalising agriculture

I talked to professor Steven Wolf, one of the leaders of this initiative, who happens to be my supervisor here at Cornell. “We are facing a challenge – how to feed 10 billion people by 2050. This is huge. Considering the pressure on ecosystems already we need a unprecedented shift in how we grow food,” professor Wolf.

“But this is not just about food. We are not applying mental capacity and resources into thinking how the 1% of producers could get more wealthy or 1% of consumers could get fresher apples. It is not the elite that we are worried about. Our contribution should address bigger issues such as sustainability, rural poverty, public health – both in terms of malnutrition and obesity – depending on which part of the world you are looking at. These are the goals worth fighting for,” professor Wolf sets the agenda.

As an example of technology that could be used for these aims, professor Wolf points to nanoparticles developed at Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University, that are transported into plants with nutrients, which then turn plants themselves into sensors.

“We will be able to monitor with drones or satellites the actual water or nutrient stress levels in plants. No more predicting and calculating using weather forecasts or separate sensors,” says professor Wolf. “This leads to major water saving and reduced pollution.”

In addition to cutting-edge technological innovation, collaboration between actors is a crucial area. “We need to understand that innovation is what happens WITH the producers, not FOR the producers,” professor Wolfe states. “And there are several other actors involved. Farmers are in close dialogue and learn from agrichemical producers, from veterinarians, from tractors manufacturers. The key is to get them into the conversation.”

Easier said than done

Just last week I was at a seminar held by CIDA where professor Katharine Legun from University of Otago, New Zealand, gave a talk (not over Estonian-invented Skype, for some reason, but over Zoom) about how apple farmers are seeing the upcoming innovation through digitalising agriculture. “Farmers generally feel that the change towards more technology-based agriculture is inevitable,” professor Legun explains. “But the question is, who does this benefit and to what result.”

Presenting her research project she elaborated how, for example, apple-picking robots being developed today, apple farmers need to plant and design apple trees in 2D instead of letting them grow more dense. Yet, some farmers are concerned, because they tried this already 20 years ago and this did not result in higher yields. Some farmers with more suitable soils could have an advantage.

“We have also issues with farms on sloping lands or smaller, family-owned farms that cannot make huge investments into technology. So my project is looking into how to co-create future technology with farmers and tech-companies,” professor Legun explains.

The state is an important actor

Although technological innovation mostly happens in cooperation between universities and businesses, the public sector has a huge role. “First, it is the funding they provide,” lists professor Wolf. “With their money towards this kind of research they prove their dedication to solving imminent problems. ” But the public sector has various other ways it can pave the road for achieving a more sustainable and equitable goals through digitalising agriculture.

The public sector can set standards for data management, something where the EU is making good progress. It could play a role in fostering cooperation between smaller farmers and broker negotiations between them and tech companies. Ideally, it could also work towards an all-encompassing digital infrastructure such as in Estonia. “And, of course, our leaders could play a huge role in framing the problem,” professor Wolfe concludes. “Innovation is just a tool. Responsibility towards the future is the real aim.”

Resource: e-estonia.com

Data Embassy – the digital continuity of a state

December 2019

Nobody wants to imagine the worst-case scenario, but victory loves preparation. So, try to picture a situation where a cyber-attack, natural disaster or even war would compromise the functioning of a state – all these are considerable threats also to countries that have a less advanced digital infrastructure than Estonia. How to make sure that all crucial citizen and governance-related data is safe in situations like these? This is where the data embassy comes in.

Storing data outside our borders

Estonia is the first country in the world to establish a data embassy. It may sound futuristic, but it actually just means a secure data centre. In essence it’s an embassy without an ambassador and it’s located at a secure facility outside Estonia. While it has the highest security level for data centres, it’s not an embassy in the traditional diplomatic sense – it is something completely new under international law.

What’s inside?

As mentioned, it’s really just a data centre – on the visual side just imagine racks of servers. From the database side, ten strategically important datasets will be backed up into the data embassy. They currently are (in no particular order): e-file (court system), treasury information system, e-land registry, taxable person’s registry, business registry, population registry, State Gazette, identity documents registry, land cadastral registry, national pension insurance registry.

Want to know more? We’ve prepared a handy factsheet on the data embassy. You’ll find more factsheets on different e-Estonia topics in our Toolkit.

Resource: e-estonia