Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2021 Ranks Estonia Among Leaders

 By Kristen Rainey

October 10, 2021

Recently, the Global Startup Ecosystem Report of 2021 was published. The report has covered 275 startup ecosystems globally and highlighted Estonia as one of the strongest ecosystems of startup companies. The report ranked Estonia at number 6 on the list. 

The Foreign Trade Minister of the country, Andres Sutt, said that the high ranking is connected to the attitude of the country towards its booming startup community. He said that Estonia is large enough for companies to test out different ideas and viability of businesses, as well as small enough to go beyond the local market quickly. 

He also said that the ranking is very important for Estonia, as it will increase the pace of innovation in the country and will further help the economy and business industry to grow in the country. The minister also said that the revenue from labor taxes alone brings as. much as 100 million Euros to the state budget and he predicts that the figure will further increase in the future.

Global Ecosystem Report 2021

The report, which was done by Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network, GEN, shows that as much as half of the top ten of the emerging startup ecosystems are from Europe. Many of the ecosystems were applauded as the majority of them managed to attract international talents. 

However, for Estonia, this was different, as, in the country, many of the startups are created by locals. There is a special system in Estonia, which helps the development of the field further. It is called the e-Residency Programme. This program makes sure that international talent and experience are used to further develop the local market and reach global-level success. 

While working on the report, the two companies have analyzed over 280 innovative ecosystems and more than 3 million companies. The report claims that although the year was very much turbulent, the startup industry still managed to have a successful year. 

According to the report, North America dominated the Global Rankings and as much as 50 percent of the Top 30 ecosystems were from the North American region. Asia represented 27 percent of the Top 30, and Europe – 17 percent. It was also noted that the global startup economy is worth over $3.8 trillion in Ecosystem Value. 

As for the Emerging Ecosystem Rankings, here, the top 10 are led by Europe. The Emerging Ecosystems were collectively worth over $540 billion in Ecosystem Value. This is as much as a 55 percent increase compared to last year. 

The data published with the report indicates that the Startup industry is growing very fast. The best thing about it is that the growth is not limited to any one region alone, rather, the industry is increasing around the world. 

Startup Industry in Estonia

Over the past few years, the role of Estonia in the startup industry has grown a lot. Many of the resorts around the world list Estonia as a leading position in terms of the startup industry. For example, the EU-Startups listed Estonia among three of the best European countries to set up a startup. 

The country remains to be a very attractive destination for startups because of its massive and powerful educational system, highly digitized procedures, and the ease to get the work as well as entrepreneurial visa.

There are numerous very successful startups from Estonia very well-known around the world. A great example of a successful startup company from Estonia is Bitsgap, which is a company aiming to make crypto trading easier. 

The main aim of the company is to help crypto traders get the most out of the crypto trading market. It offers traders tools to easily analyze the cryptocurrency market. Bitsgap has already managed to become one of the leaders in the industry and is one of the best choices for trading crypto. The team behind the company is full of experts with years of experience in the market. 

Bitsgap is just one example of a successful Estonian startup company. There are many others that have become very popular around the world.

There are many reasons that make Estonia such a great place for startups. First of all, it is the attitude of the country towards startups. The country has worked very hard over the years to make the job of startups a lot easier. 

In addition, the majority of the startups in the country only hire top talent, which ensures the highest quality at all times. Most of the startups in the country are very innovative and work on services and products aimed at making people’s lives easier. 

Startup Genome, which worked on the report, continues to increase its coverage. The analysis expanded from just 60 ecosystems in 2018 to almost 300 in 2021. The Emerging Ecosystems report looks at the countries that are still at the early stages of growth and development but already have shown substantial commitment and increase.

Resoruce: Baltic Times

How Estonia became a gateway to Europe for established businesses and startups

By Palak Agarwal

October 26, 2021

It has been six years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Digital India’ campaign, and the government has since been rapidly making efforts to enhance cybersecurity in the country and advance the digital transformation. 

In 2019, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu had also visited Tallinn in Estonia, one of the most digitised countries with a large business delegation. Speaking at the 12th edition of YourStory’s flagship startup-tech event, TechSparks 2021, Katrin Kivi, Ambassador at Estonia to India, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh reveals cybersecurity and digital cooperation between India and Estonia.

“Venkaiah Naidu’s visit put Estonia on focus as we have seen increasing business opportunities. During the visit, Indian and Estonia signed two Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cybersecurity, e-governance, and other digital technologies,” she said.

India-Estonia cooperation

Estonia is known for its e-governance and blockchain technology. Katrin says that the country had adopted online voting since 2005; they are leaders in cybersecurity, and almost all public services are available online – be it filing taxes, registering childbirth, or renewing the driver’s license. Estonia’s private sector also has a big role to play, with the country having its unique digital society and e-governance, and many companies have found partners to work in India. 

“There are more than 3,000 Estonian e-residents from India, and they have established more than 500 companies in Estonia. Several great examples to give are Mukesh Ambani who has set up a Jio Research Centre in the country. Another example is Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is also enlarging its presence,” she added.

Katrin further says that both countries have made significant achievements in digital technologies, and the mutually beneficial cooperation between India and Estonia will further strengthen the cybersecurity and digital transformation goals.  

The gateway to Europe

Estonia also has a special digital nomad visa programme for established founders, entrepreneurs and startups, where they can set up a company in Estonia and operate digitally (remotely) in the European market, while being physically present in India or elsewhere.

“During these trying times of COVID-19, it is a wonderful opportunity for people who want to establish their business in Europe, where they can establish their business, file taxes, and everything else online,” Katrin explains. 

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She also highlighted that the investment outlook of Estonia is very positive, and underscores that the ease of doing business, a competitive tax system, highly transparent operations, stable and proactive government and its policies, world-class skilled manpower, and global orientation of the country, as a whole, makes Estonia a dynamic and progressive country worth exploring. 

Katrin concluded by saying, “innovation is no longer a choice but it is a default setting for an ambitious economy. There aren’t any obstacles to operate even more and so let’s do it for the benefit of our both countries.”

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Resouce: yourStory

Another record-high i-voting turnout at the local elections

October 2021

by Anett Numa

digital transformation adviser at the e-estonia briefing centre

One thing is clear, digital solutions provide us freedom and flexibility. In all ways possible.

Apparently, life has played cards in a way so that I have never been physically in Estonia during the time of any elections. This time is no different. My long-awaited vacation turned out to happen during another local election. Considering which country to fly to I did not have to spend my time thinking about whether there are any Estonian Embassies nearby. My “polling station” could be wherever I would open my MacBook. This time it happened to be the beautiful city of Paphos in the Republic of Cyprus.

But let’s talk about the biggest benefits of i-voting itself: low costs, flexibility, no contact with anybody (extremely essential during the new wave of the pandemic), inclusiveness. Estonia introduced i-voting already 16 years ago. The number of people participating in the election by using an i-voting application has risen each time. Last time, in the year 2019 during the European Parliament elections more than 46% of people cast their vote online.

During these local elections, we had a new record amount of votes cast online- 275 587, an increase of almost 30,000. There was a 6-days period to cast a vote online this year – but in case the voter needed to change their choice electronically, they had a chance to do it any time during the election week until Saturday evening. From the 2021 elections, voters could also change their i-vote by voting on a paper at a polling station on Sunday, the election day. Almost 2,000 people cancelled their e-vote with a paper ballot and there were 23,600 repeat voters this year. It’s very difficult to conclude the reasons behind it.

I have been asked a lot, why do around 50% of people still go to the polling stations in person. Speaking of the results of my investigations to figure out the main reasons- some people still feel elections are so special that they want to physically visit a polling station and also show their kids that it is necessary to vote. Some people, who vote for the first time, also want to have their in-person voting first experience and some have traditions that are not easy to change.

But let’s also hear what the expert has to say about the last local elections?

“These elections set new records of Internet voting usage in multiple ways. First, a new record of a nominal number of Internet votes was cast. Second, an increase of 15 percentage points in i-vote usage share nationwide compared to the last local elections of 2017 was recorded. Third, the 50% usage threshold was broken in multiple counties for the first time in local elections. For example, in Harju county, the biggest county in the country in terms of population size, that surrounds the capital Tallinn, 55% of voters voted over the Internet and a new record of 57% of Internet votes were cast on Hiiumaa, the second biggest island in Estonia.

Somewhat unexpectedly the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic did not produce such a large increase in overall i-vote share, but it did continue the growth trend of Internet voting usage recorded almost in every election since the introduction of this voting mode in 2005. While we will get more precise data on voter perceptions and behaviour in the coming weeks it seems that regardless of the pandemic and the social disruption it has brought, as well as the social media-induced political turmoil around elections globally the Estonian voters do trust the Internet voting and have accepted it as a normal way of voting, and in large population segment even accepting this as the central mode of voting. Past survey evidence has shown that on average 70% of eligible voters trust Estonian Internet voting and this share has been stable at that high level for the past four years, ” shared Mihkel Solvak,  Director of the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu.

 Trust in i-voting

So here I am, sitting on the balcony, enjoying a stunning sunrise and designing the future of the city I live in. Because I can – no matter my current location or time-zone. This is exactly how elections should be organised – being convenient, fast and efficient. With no need to wait in a queue- but casting your vote wherever you need to be inspired by.

Resorce: e-estonia

Certific: World’s 1st certified remote COVID-19 testing service

October 2021

by Blessing Oyetunde

co-author and postgraduate student

Earlier this year, the British-Estonian company, Certific, launched the world’s first certified remote COVID-19 testing service. The company seeks to make medical testing more convenient and affordable while eradicating the problems associated with remote test takers’ trust and adherence to testing procedures. Due to huge demand, their Fit to Fly Test Certificate service keeps getting sold out in the UK.

The pandemic has been a significant catalyst for innovations, and that has spurred several thriving startups. One of them is Certific. Certific was founded by Taavet Hinrikus, Wise’s co-founder, Liis Narusk, tech innovator and entrepreneur, and Dr. Jack Kreindler, physician and health-tech innovator in September 2020.

 The founders of Certific. 

“At the moment, what we do is provide a thorough guide for home-based/remote tests, verify the test takers’ identity, verify the testing procedures and then certify the test results. Although COVID-19 inspired it, our setup goes further than that,” says Liis, Certific’s CEO and co-founder. “We think that medical diagnostics, as an industry, is yet to be disrupted. It could be ten times better, cheaper, faster, and more convenient for both the patients and the doctors,” she continues.

COVID-19: a catalyst for telemedicine

Innovators and scientists have always pointed out the issue of patients’ trust/reliability and testing procedure adherence as some of the major barriers to telemedicine’s stability. But what if these barriers are out of the way? The Certific app is designed to increase trust in remote/home testing while also ensuring that remote tests are carried out at similar standards to those done in official clinical settings.

“Take COVID-19, for instance, its testing, whether PCR or Rapid Antigen, can be done remotely, but the problem is trust and procedure adherence. The moment a test is to be carried out remotely, some questions should come up.

• How do you verify that the right person took the test?
• Can you guarantee that the test procedure was carried out correctly?
• Is the test result what the patient says it is? (Was the right result declared?)

These are the core questions that Certific provides answers to,” Liis says. We are pretty much like Veriff but for medical diagnostics, and our process is much longer. While Veriff does identity verification, we do identity and medical procedure verification,” she continues.

How does it work?

After getting the COVID-19 test kits, the users would need to log into the Certific mobile or web app. The first step is identity verification, whereby test-takers upload a clear photo of themselves along with a personal identification document. Next, the test kit is to be verified. Here, the users upload clear pictures of their test kits. After that comes the procedure instruction, test-taking, and process recording. Following a step-by-step human guide from the app, the users take the test while recording them. “Although highly synchronized, the video isn’t live. Rather, it is self-recorded, which makes the process highly scalable for verification,” Liis points out.

Certified remote COVID-19 test results in 90 minutes

If the test result is negative, a valid test certificate is issued, and a QR code is created in the app. With a combination of automated and human-based processes, the entire testing procedure (from starting the test to getting the medical certificate) takes a maximum of 90 minutes for Rapid Antigen tests and 24 hours for PCR tests. Those whose results turn up positive are guided on how to handle the situation.

All results are automatically reported to the public health board, but no other party has access to the users’ data aside from the test takers and the public health board. “We don’t share medical data with any third party – not your office, the event organizer, the airlines, etc. We are obligated to report the medical data to the Public Health Department, and that alone we do,” Liis confirms. Being fully compliant with GDPR data privacy, Certific deletes photos and videos of the users within three months of the test or sooner upon request. After that, only the Public Health Department maintains a private copy of the medical record.

Disrupting the health sector

“We are willing and intentional about disrupting the healthcare sector, going far beyond this pandemic period,” Liis says. “But at times, it’s tough. This is because the hurdles you’d have to overcome in terms of legislation, regulations, registrations, licensing, etc., in other sectors like education, transport, and finance are less than in healthcare. That’s understandable, though, because it has to do with patients’ health, human lives, patient medical data, and so on,” she adds. Narusk believes that ‘new brains who are ready to pull from the front and push from the back’ are needed within the e-health sector. 

 Certific´s co-founder and CEO Liis Narusk.

“There are also so many different fields within the healthcare sector where we could experiment and pilot things. I hope that will become more of a priority in Estonia. Also, looking at Estonia’s startup ecosystem and the current prognosis for the next ten years; the future seems bright… According to the Estonian Founders’ Society, the startup sector employs 1% of Estonia’s workforce while accounting for 2-3% of the GDP. With a past growth of about 30% a year, the startup sector will grow to about 50,000 employees, about 10% of Estonian’s workforce, and €10 billion (30% of Estonian GDP) by 2030.

So the question is, ‘how do we enable this foresight?’ I think that the healthcare industry is one of the sectors that has a lot of potential. This is mostly because of the increasing aged population, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and therefore, a bigger demand for remote healthcare. But if governments don’t make this sector a priority and allow disruption, for example enabling patient data transfer across and beyond Europe, then that will be hard to achieve,” Liis points out.

Fit to fly and fit for event participation

For COVID-19 testing, Certific majorly offers the Fit to Fly Certificate with Test Kit and the Fit to Fly Certificate without Test Kit services. The Fit to Fly Certificate with Test Kit comes with two kits, all for 1. According to Liis, “we ship 2 test kits to the test takers because there has to be some room for error. Our test verification procedure is quite rigid. Even though the procedure guide is very audible, easy-to-understand, and synchronistic, some test takers might still make errors leading to invalid tests the first time.

Meanwhile, we immediately invalidate tests that don’t follow the laid-out process correctly. So, with the availability of a second test kit, users have the opportunity to retake the test if need be at no extra cost.” Instead of choosing the Fit to Fly service that comes with test kits, test takers also have the service option to make their preferred test kits available to take the test. But for this option, they need to provide Certific-approved test kits. Asides from the Fit to Fly service, Certific also offers a pre-event COVID-19 testing service.

This pre-event screening ensures that all those who would turn up for an event are COVID-free. To gain entry to the event venue, all that participants need to do is present their Certific test QR code for scanning. Notably, Certific saw to the COVID-19 pre-event screening of about 15,000 attendees of the Standon Calling Festival in the UK in July. And now, they are tasked with testing and screening the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival participants, scheduled for this November.

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Resourse: e-estonia