President Kersti Kaljulaid’s Interview for Finnish Business Newspaper Kauppalehti: ‘Digital’ Supports a Return to Growth

29.11.2016

Text by Jorma Pöysä / Kauppalehti

President Kaljulaid: The coon service route is a competitive advantage for companies in Finland and Estonia. mm

Estonia’s new president Kersti Kaljulaid is a staunch supporter of the liberal market economy. According to Kaljulaid, Estonia that has sunk into a slow growth similar to Finland will not be raised by centralized agreements holding back wage increases, but by selectively supporting the rise of the new economy where it is possible.

One of the new competitive advantages will be in the Estonian e-Residency, and the other one will be connecting the service routes developed jointly between Estonia and Finland next spring.

Kaljulaid believes that now there is a need to analyze where we are going. “I’ll leave the Finnish analysis to the Finnish experts, but I think we Estonians have fallen into the trap of median income,” the President contemplates the reasons for slow growth from the beautiful pink presidential palace located in Kadriorg Park. “International companies do not come here anymore to manufacture conventional products for familiar markets using traditional technology because the work would be cheaper here. For them, we are no longer the solution for their problems of facing cost competitiveness. Along with the changing situation, we ourselves must become innovation leaders. And this is happening: the ICT sector is already producing 4.6 percent of our gross domestic product. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Estonia’s average gross salary is EUR 1100 per month. Unit labor costs rose by 7.2 percent last year and are projected to continue to rise by 6.2 percent this year.

The growth of gross domestic product will this year remain within only a small percent, and the EU Commission predicts its acceleration next year to 2.3 and the following year to 2.6 per cent.

“We are in a transition, which leads to the renewed structure of the economy, in which higher wage levels are tolerated,” the president said. “Wages are relatively high and the jobs, which generate very little added value, are in trouble. We need to find new technologies and jobs that create more added value. We have to market more, go to new markets and create new brands. There is no need to turn the development backward and to limit the increase in wages administratively,” says Kaljulaid. “The ICT sector, for example, can withstand higher wages, as in Finland. We also know that the low-income sectors will eventually benefit from the success of the high-income sectors. Sure, there are sectors that are in trouble, but the new government agreement reflects it to some extent.”

Kaljulaid feels that a great opportunity for Estonia is the fact that the country has created a globally unique e-government, which is also open to nationals of other countries.

Every reputable citizen of the world can get a digital identity in Estonia reasonably fast. Once the identity has been received, its holder, inter alia, can set up a company in Estonia but also do much more. Estonian e-citizenship can be applied for electronically online. Upon acceptance of the application, the e-resident receives an e-Residency card with a chip. Once registered, a new e-resident can communicate electronically with the Estonian authorities and, for example, set up a business. The company’s dealings can be managed electronically from anywhere in the world. Also, bank transactions are an easy deal with e-Residency.

Alongside e-Residency, Kaljulaid considers it extraordinarily important that Estonians and Finns have developed jointly the Estonian national communications platforms based on the X-road, the service routes of which will be connected next spring. Compatibility is unique even on a global scale. The interlinking of Estonian and Finnish service routes allows for a smoother, faster and more secure exchange of information between different organizations. Initially, the tax authorities and the social security authorities will benefit from it, but it is also a big opportunity for our companies.

“The fact that the information systems of two independent states are linked so closely together, is a competitive advantage for both of us,” says Kaljulaid. “This has not been done anywhere else. We will be a great testing place for companies that want to know how to act in such a market and in the digital environment. We will together create a global interest in our region. It is important that companies are able to turn operating in the environment of low administrative costs, into a profit. Perhaps this way, both of our countries will get out of stagnation.”

Estonian e-citizenship and service routes are featured prominently, as Kaljulaid takes part in Slush, organized for the ninth time in Helsinki. In Slush, it is also possible to apply for Estonian e-citizenship, if you remembered to take your passport with you.

 Fuente: E-estonia

Estonia to Showcase its e-Solutions and Startup Community at Slush

28.11.2016

Estonia to showcase its e-solutions and startup community at international technology conference Slush in Helsinki.

Estonia will be present at Slush 2016 on many fronts. In addition to hosting the official opening party Enter e-Estonia on the evening of November 29th, all Slush participants are welcome to the e-Estonia stand the Slush exhibition area to learn about world leading Estonian e-solutions, apply for e-Residency and explore the possibilities of the Estonian startup scene. Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid will deliver a speech at the Estonian opening party as well as meet Estonian tech companies at the Estonian booth.

One of Estonia’s latest innovations, the government startup e-Residency will celebrate its 2nd birthday at Slush. Since December 2014, non-Estonians around the world have been invited to join the program and take advantage of Estonia’s convenient e-services. To this day, the program has attracted over 15 000 e-residents from 135 countries and over 1000 new companies.

The growing number of e-residents and their interest to establish and run their companies via e-Residency has inspired the country to continuously develop the program. “This year the Government of Estonia approved legislation that allows Estonian residents and e-residents to open bank accounts without visiting a bank branch. Currently the banks are building and testing the information technology solutions and hopefully they will be ready to offer their services in spring 2017,” said CIO of Estonia Taavi Kotka. Kotka added that opening a bank account online will be a big step for e-Residendy program as it will complete the otherwise already totally virtual business environment allowed by e-Residency.

In addition to being one of the most advanced digital societies, Estonia also boasts a strong startup scene. According to head of Startup Estonia Mari Vavulski, Estonia produces the biggest number of startups and seed stage investments per capita in Europe. “Estonia is small but nimble which makes it a perfect test ground for new innovative ideas. Our hassle free government listens to the start-ups and is constantly iterating to become one of the TOP5 startup ecosystems in Europe. We aim to be the birthplace of many more startup success stories and will showcase all the opportunities at Slush,” says head of Startup Estonia Mari Vavulski.

Estonia is also launching the startup visa scheme that will make it easier for non-Estonians to relocate or set up their startup in Estonia as well as enabling all startups registered in Estonia to recruit talent from everywhere. The new legislation will be enforced on 17th of January 2017.

e-Estonia at Slush 2016: 

– Tuesday, November 29 at 10 PM – Slush 2016 official opening party Enter e-Estonia taking place at Kuudes Linja, Kaiku and Stidilä complex. Entrance is open for all Slush Pass owners at 10 PM.

– Wednesday, November 30 at 11 AM – Estonian President Ms Kersti Kaljulaid to visit e-Estonia stand at Slush exhibition hall and meet Estonian startups.

– Slush participants are encouraged to apply for e-Residency at the e-Estonia stand at Slush (passport needed) or online at e-resident.gov.ee.

– Thursday, December 1 at 1.15 PM – Funderbeam, the funding and trading engine for growth companies, will host a discussion at the e-Estonia stand. Founder and CEO, Kaidi Ruusalepp will discuss the Estonian Startup Ecosystem with Herty Tammo, founder of the region’s leading accelerator, Startup Wise Guys who is currently funding its next batch on Funderbeam. Tammo and Ruusalepp are ready to answer questions from participants from 1 PM to 3 PM.

– Estonian startups that made it into the Slush 100 Pitching Competition and will take the Pitching Stage are Reverse Resources, Wolfprint 3D, Insly Ltd, Shipitwise, 3DC.io.

 

Prize winner announced for the e-Residency 2nd anniversary celebration at Slush 2016!

04.11.2016

We are happy to announce the winner of our giveaway of a free trip to Slush 2016 to help e-Residency celebrate its 2nd anniversary!

Congrats to Barnabas Debreczeni on winning the prize! Barnabas was randomly chosen from over 1400 entries.

Even if you didn’t win the prize, you can still attend the e-Residency pre-party at Slush on November 29th (if you have a valid ticket to the Slush main event). Details will be announced soon!

Fuente: E-Estonia

Joining the e-State revolution: interoperability and digital identity, today

01.11.2016

E-Estonia Showroom‘s manager Anna Piperal has recently been one of the keynote speakers at Civica Expo in Sidney, Australia. GovernmentNews, the country’s only independent website dedicated to all the aspects regarding how the State deals with matters of public administration, took the chance to have a chat with her on how Estonia turned out to be, only 25 years after gaining the independence after the collapse of USSR, one of the most advanced digital societies in the world.

It is something that did not happen by accident. Post-Soviet times Estonian governments, fully aware of the limited capabilities of the country in terms of size, population and natural resources, decided that the foundations for the new State should have been based on a new idea of society: a digital society, open, with citizen friendly services and public bureaus.

The way to go seemed to be quite obvious: wise use of internet and its potential. This is the concept behind the creation of a national ID card, of the X-Road system, of all the digital services aimed to ease life and business in Estonia. Interoperability among different offices’ databases, resilience of the system in terms of security, cooperation with the private sector in order to implement and develop valuable and efficient solutions for the government: these are only few of the cornerstones of Estonia’s digital revolution on the way to a new model for State-citizen relationships. In two words, on the way to the creation of a truly digital society. [Read the full article on GovernmentNews: “National identity card for Australians? Digital government lessons from Estonia“.]

But the Estonian digital revolution could not happen without significant changes in the concept of citizen’s identity. A system that works must be a system that is safe as well, where everyone could certainly do everything faster than in the past, but also being sure of the identity of the person which a subject comes to interact with Whether it is a person, whether it is a company, whether there is an active dialogue with the public administration involved.

BBC News‘ Nicola Smith opened an interesting thread on the topic with a point on the future of hand-written signature in the digital age. There is one country, together with few others, already living the experience of being part of the Digital Age. We will let you guess which one.

As the article reports, “In Estonia […] every resident over the age of 15 has an ID card protected by a personal identification number and containing a digital signature. This enables them to access government services, digitally sign documents, and vote electronically in parliamentary elections”.

The relevant point is that this is definitely not only a matter of showing the world that Estonia is one of the most digitally advanced countries in providing fast and efficient e-services to its citizens. It is also a matter of cost-effectiveness that actually helps the State in dealing with budget-related issues: 2% of Estonia’s GDP is saved every year as a result of the use of digital signatures. And who would not want to do something faster, safely and saving some money too? We all know the answer.

Fuente: e-Estonia

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.