The innovative approach to government and citizenship developed in the Baltic nation of Estonia was the subject of discussion during an informative talk by Taavi Kotka, Government CIO, Deputy Secretary General of ICT at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications for Estonia, on the first day of The Government Summit.
Read more: Estonia shares vision for digital nation of the future
Last December, Estonia took the unprecedented step of offering any person in the world a chance to become an Estonian e-resident, a title that grants the holder access to many of the country’s top-notch online government services. Acquiring this status would allow, say, an Indian entrepreneur to establish an Estonian company that he runs from Dubai but which does the bulk of its business in Spain; he’d also be able to use his electronic signature to execute contracts with customers throughout the European Union—and pay no taxes by keeping his profits in Estonia. No wonder that 13,000 people have signed up to beta-test the program in its first nine weeks of operation, and 500 people have already received their e-residency cards.
The project aimed at elaboration and pilot implementation of procedures to deliver two socially important municipal services through electronic channels. These services are delivered by the municipal archives, working in the border towns of Narva, Kingisepp, Slantsy, located in the North-East of Estonia and the Leningrad region of the Russian Federation.
Read more: E-services for cross-border municipal archives in Estonia and Russia being created
Economist editor and cyber-security expert Edward Lucas become an e-Estonian at a ceremony held in the capital, Tallinn, which was attended by President Toomas Hendrik.
It’s good that the interest towards e-residency is high, but an even better outcome would be if many e-residents would choose Estonia as their home and start a business here.
Read more: Let’s attract e-residents to settle down in Estonia – editorial