“It’s not about tech and money, it’s about will and people,” he says about building an e-country.

The Estonian Mr. Internet and eGovernance “ambassador” Linnar Viik has travelled around the globe and advised different governments on how to build a successful package of public e-services. He just arrived from Cape Verde.

Speaking about e-services  – one of the students of Viik, Estonian Riho Oks has established an undertaking called eGovernance Laboratory. He wants to “provide a comprehensive overview of Estonia’s best eState experience levels as well as bringing together the creators of successful solutions.”

One of his first tasks was to organize an Estonian e-governance “mission” to Azerbaijan. Few of Estonian IT companies, among others Datel and NOW! Innovations presented what they have to offer. 

I’d suggest you to visit eGovernance Laboratory’s website, because it provides an exhaustive overview of some thrilling Estonian e-services. The ones that occasionally come as a great surprise for foreigners.

Like for example…

ID card – something that 80% of Estonian residents have and many of them have used for giving digital signatures or for e-voting. 

MobileID – an alternative electronic identification solution to ID Card. Honestly, do you know any other country in the world where people soon start to vote using their mobile phones?

eTaxOffice – this year 86% of Estonians submitted their tax declarations online, it took like 5 minutes.

There’s more, check this out.

Unfortunately Estonia has become a bit lazy in e-development during recent years. Viik worries about that too. 

He has worked in Skype, given lectures in Estonian IT College and advised the Estonian Prime Minister. Viik is one of the owners of mobile services developer Mobi Solutions.

For a while already he also works in a new role – Viik is a member of the Governing Board of European Institute of Innovation and Technology, based in Budapest, Hungary. That’s not research- and education-driven organization, like many other EU initiatives, but focuses more on boosting entrepreneurial spirit. The new institute wants to become something similar to MIT in US.
 
Sorry about the somewhat unconstant quality of the video…