Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Centre) attended the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos this week, where he spoke to heads of state and government as well as to business representatives about the Estonian experience with its e-state and e-government.
Mr Ratas met with the CEOs of Apple, Accenture, BenevolentAI, Booking.com, Coca-Cola, Ericsson, Facebook, Investor AB, Koc Holding, Proteus Digital Health, Paypal and Uber Technologies. According to a government press release, the main topic of discussion was the potential for further cooperation.
Read more: Ratas speaks on Estonian e-state experience at World Economic Forum
Estonians can access about 99% of public services online through an encrypted digital ID.
- A new report from The Associated Press outlines Estonia's most recent advancements in its digital government.
- Estonia allows its citizens to vote, obtains medical data and register business documents online.
- Given security concerns and other complications, it remains unclear whether nations like the U.S. could implement similar systems.
Read more: How Estonia’s paperless e-government serves as a model for other nations
The freelance journalist and a member of the Estonian Centre Party, Abdul Turay, asserts that Estonia’s free public transport system, first introduced in Tallinn in 2013, has justified itself and abolishing the project would be an act of folly.
The editors of this portal asked me to rewrite this article as an op-ed – I originally wrote it as a feature. An astute reader will notice this story is more balanced and fact-laden than an opinion piece would normally be; now you know why.
Read more: A free ticket to ride: how Estonia is leading the world in a free transit revolution
The Republic of Benin in West Africa is to develop a data exchange platform based on the Estonian model.
The Estonian e-Governance Academy and Benin’s National Information Systems and Services Agency have signed an agreement to design and implement the governmental interoperability framework for enhancing secure data exchange between government authorities and developing digital services for Beninese citizens. The development includes the Estonian secure data exchange platform based on the Estonian X-Road model and several interoperability solutions.
Mike Barlow and Cornelia Lévy-Bencheton tell the story of Estonia and its experiment in digital government that’s paying off.
What does it take to turn a national bureaucracy into a smart government? It’s not too often a country is given a clean slate from which to start. But for Estonia, a small nation on the Baltic Sea, that is exactly what happened.
Read more: EE: The smart nation where everyone owns their personal data