DI SPATC H E S| ESTONIAN E-GOVERNMENT
Estonia’s e-government revolution The tiny country of 1.3 million has put itself on the global map with innovative e-government programs, one of which allows foreigners to establish companies there, from afar.
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fter Estonia finally gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, following 51 years of occupation and poverty, then-prime minister Mart Laar was searching for a way the tiny nation could carve its place in the world. The internet was relatively little known at the time, but Laar could see it was something Estonia could embrace and something that could take his country into the 21st Century. The government embarked on a series of reforms to modernize the economy, always with a digital-first approach. Back then, the Economist notes, fewer than half of Estonians had a telephone line. Today, Estonia, which is made up of just 1.3 million citizens and located west of Russia and south of Finland, is one of the most 60
connected countries in the world. Bolt is an Uber-like service that was founded by Marjus Villig when he was in high school. In March 2020, the company was ranked third in the FT 1000, a list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. Skype’s software — the original free video chat and voice-call application and a precursor to the COVID-19 pandemic’s ubiquitous Zoom application — was created by three Estonians in collaboration with developers from Denmark and Finland. These innovative companies have produced a generation of developers and innovators who’ve gone on to establish their own “unicorn” companies. The backbone of Estonia’s recent successes — especially since it joined the European Union in 2004 — is its digital
economy and its e-government system, which gave Estonia the distinction of being the first country to allow online voting in a general election. That happened in 2007. Now it’s old hat in the nation that grants its citizens a digital identification card that slips easily into any Estonian computer by way of a USB adapter and opens up all of the government’s services to them, at the touch of a key. In Canada, our health records are in the hands of our general practitioners. If your GP retires, it’s up to you to prise your records from the company he or she hires to deal with them. Expect to pay about $200 for access. In Estonia, your ID card will get you to your own health records in mere seconds, any time, day or night, and from anywhere in the world. SUMMER 2020 | JUL-AUG-SEPT
E-RESIDENCY
This photo is a Zoom app background for virtual meetings. It's provided by Estonia's e-Residency program, which invites foreigners to start businesses in the country. So far, 70,000 foreign businesses have been launched through the program.
