e-Estonia Programme for e-Government

Estonians are pathfinders, who have built an efficient, secure and transparent ecosystem that saves time and money. e-Estonia invites you to follow the digital journey. The initial part introduces and demonstrates the underlying mechanisms involved in digitizing a society, an overview of the main challenges and policies, an understanding of the infrastructure, e-solutions and services.

99% of public services in Estonia are available online. The e-Government development in Estonia is led by the office of Deputy Secretary General for Digital Development (Ministry of Economic Affairs).

This section would cover how Estonia has reached this level, what is needed to keep the services up to date and what are the future plans (AI, proactive services etc.)

It is a well-known fact that the real benefits from the use of ICTs come not from simple automatization of the existing processes but from changing these processes and reinventing service delivery in the information society. The e-Governance Academy in Estonia has compiled the change management lessons learned from Estonia and elsewhere and, as a result, developed the change management framework. The framework serves as a guiding tool for changing management tasks in government and society digitalization.

Estonia has by far the most advanced national ID card system in the world. Much more than a legal photo ID, the mandatory national card also provides digital access to all of Estonia’s secure e-services. In cooperation of SK ID Solutions and Cybernetica the so-called Smart ID was developed. Smart-ID is an app based new generation electronic identity designed to use conveniently on smart devices, while still keeping high level of security.

The X-Road is the backbone of e-Estonia and was initiated by the Estonian government to enable secure data exchange between governmental organisations. The first version was developed by Cybernetica and launched in 2001.

X-Road is a distributed information exchange platform that makes it possible for all different systems to communicate all across the governmental sector; for example, the police can access data from the health system, tax board or business registry and vice versa.

It has enabled to increase the depth of cooperation between public organizations and reduced paper work exponentially so that public employees can concentrate on tasks that require human interaction.

Nortal is a multinational strategic change and technology company. Combining the unique experience of transforming Estonia into a digital leader and creating change in businesses with a strategic approach and data-driven technology, Nortal’s vision is to build a seamless society. Nortal partners with governments to bolster business through intelligent public administration.

Nortal has planned and implemented over 40% of Estonia’s digital disruption, which means we have unique experience building a digital, seamless society. Being true digital governance trailblazers, Estonian establishments can help other governments achieve the same. Nortal has successfully exported its expertise to countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We know how difficult this change can be, but we also know how much value it creates.

CybExer Technologies is a NATO-awarded Estonian cybersecurity company that has wide-ranging experience in providing and maintaining highly sophisticated cyber security training platforms with a special focus on cyber capability development. The platforms are the key to successful delivery of a plethora of cybersecurity trainings and exercises aimed at ordinary users, technical responders and the very top of strategic leadership.

CybExer’s flagship service is the development, operation and maintenance of next-generation, state-of-the-art, cyber ranges. Ultimately, it offers a safe environment where personel, technical, and organisational cyber security capabilities can be assessed, analyzed, and developed.

Estonia’s nation-wide digital twin, developed in cooperation between public and private sector, will gather data and visualise real-life situations so accurately that, in the future, we will be able to test and work on constructions projects in virtual reality, before putting them into action in real life. And there is certainly much more that the digital twin can achieve.

You can find the 3D twin here: https://3d.maaamet.ee/kaart/

Startup Estonia is a governmental initiative aimed to supercharge the Estonian startup ecosystem in order to be the birthplace of many more startup success stories to come. For that, we are working on making Estonia one of the world’s best places for startups, partnering with and uniting the best of startups, incubators, accelerators, private and public sector. Find out what makes Estonia one of the best places on earth to create and run a start-up.