Societies of Tomorrow

Giorgos Verdi Schwarzkopf Stiftung Junges Europa

Introduction

The digital revolution is upon us. From the proliferation of the personal computer to

the emergence of artificial intelligence, the 21st century has witnessed the unfolding

of game-changing innovation. Right now, the impact of these technologies on our

lives is blurred. It is still hard to tell in what way exactly they are changing our

societies.

The only thing that is certain is that change will be for a fact. If we look back at our

societies’ history, we can understand more clearly that our lives are destined to be

disrupted by technological advances.

The first occasion in which technology disrupted society in a large scale was during

the agricultural revolution. It disrupted the way in which humans covered their most

basic needs and therefore it gave birth to a new status quo: Humans now formed

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settlements, organized political structures, created writing, specialized their labor,

began trading and gave birth to what we now call civilization.

We can observe a similar pattern during the industrial revolution. The inclusion of

steam and electricity in the productive process changed history in way which today

seems obvious. Industrial societies gave birth to the middle class which in turn gave

birth to modern democracy. Moreover, the need for raw materials gave birth to

colonialism and the supply of cheap steel enabled the possibility of total war.

If the pattern I have presented by now seems persuasive, then the next logical step

is to question: Where will the digital revolution take us? What is the new status quo

that will emerge? What will be the upsides and the downsides of living in digital

societies? These were the questions that guided my research.

The Case Study of Estonia

Catching a view of Tallinn from the Toompea Hill is a beautiful experience. The

history of the whole city unfolds itself from there through its magnificent architecture.

The first thing you can notice is the Old Town, a product of the medieval period in

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which the city of Tallinn was developed. Next, you will most likely spot the old

factories and buildings in Telliskivi which represent the communist era in which the

city came under Soviet control. Lastly, somewhere between these two areas you can

observe the glass-walled skyscrapers of the City Center, some of which are

decorated with enormous digital screens. The era which this last area represents is

the reason I came to Tallinn, Estonia.

Estonia has been named by The Wire Magazine as the world’s most advanced

digital society. When I was mentioning this fact to my friends and family, most of

them looked stunned. How can a country with a population of 1.3 million people

which gained its independence just 27 years ago be the world’s most advanced

digital society?

It all started with governance. Today, 99% of Estonia’s public services are available

digitally, as eServices. This includes taxing as well. Filling your taxes in Estonia

takes about 5 minutes and every year around 95% of the population does it through

their computers. Since 2005, voting is done digitally too. The only thing that is

required for you to vote from home is a Digital ID.

As you can imagine, in an information state like this, cyber-security is a prime

concern. In order to resolve this issue, Estonia has deployed blockchain

technologies in its national registries and it has also built a data embassy in

Luxembourg which acts as a state backup in case of a large-scale cyber-attack.

Estonia has also been named The Silicon Valley of Europe. This title derives from

the fact that Estonia produces the most startups per capita than any other European

country. Four Estonian startups are today evaluated at over $1 billion. It’s most

probable that you have already used Estonia’s most famous product, Skype.

In case you got jealous of this environment and you wish you could start your own

business there, you should know that you can. Estonia’s eResidency program allows

foreigners to establish their business in the country and take advantage of the

eServices. Of course, every step of the process is done digitally. You won’t even

have to leave your house.

Estonia’s achievements made it the perfect place to research all the questions I

mentioned earlier. I decided therefore to travel to Tallinn for three weeks in order to

learn what’s it like to live in a society of information. My research was to be

conducted through interviews. At the heart of the meetings that I arranged and the

questions that I posed was the issue of sustainability. I focused on the question of

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how our choices regarding technology can impact future societies positively rather

than negatively.

On Education

One of the questions that Societies of Information need to address is education. Our

educational systems were tailored to fit the needs and opportunities of the Industrial

Revolution. Today, as information has become available to everybody through the

internet and as the information economy emerges, we need to re-adapt our

educational systems to the new environment.

In order to understand this trend better, I visited the Mektory Innovation and

Business Center of the Tallinn University of Technology. There, I met with Meeli

Semjonov, who explained to me what the Mektory is and why it is so important for

Estonia.

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MEKTORY Innovation and Business Center Meeli Semjonov, Coordinator

“The Tallinn University of Technology started in 1918 as an engineer school. Today it

is an international university with 12.000 students enrolled in its programs. Thirteen

of these programs are tailor made for foreign students.

Mektory was built in 1986 but it was born in 2013, when the Department of

Information Technology moved out.

When a company has a problem and they are interested in working with students in

order to solve it, they contact Mektory which in turns connects them to a student

team, led by a professor.

They are even interested in first year students. That’s why we have established a

rule under which students cannot be employed by a company after a project is

completed. Too many students were dropping off their studies to be employed with

these companies

An example is a project underdone by Mitsubishi. The company imported 400

electric cars in Estonia, but the problem was that there weren’t enough electric

charges laying around for these cars. Mitsubishi contacted Mektory which gave the

project to a student team to solve. Every week, we organize two to four projects.

A lot of students want to start their own companies, so we created an incubation

project. The program is targeted at TTU students and even at small children. We

educate them on innovation, corporate affairs and we even help them find

customers. The incubation project lasts for four months. If a company is successful,

it can go two ways: Either they sell out to a major company or they rent a room in the

Mektory for six months. The Mektory doesn’t provide any funding. It just supports

students with their vision.

Another one of our aims is to popularize science among children. We organize

technology related workshops. These may include robotics or plain simply some

science games. Programming is integrated in the national curriculum, so children

come to the workshops to learn about more advanced stuff. Our aim is to attract the

future generation of university students.”

After our talk about the Mektory, I asked Meeli to talk to me a little bit about Cyber

Security education, which I have heard is a priority in Estonia.

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“In 2007, Estonia was the target of the first ever cyber-attack in history. After that, the

Cyber Security Engineering BA program was created. There are lots of smart people

in this program. We even have Cyber Olympics, where students engage in Ethical

Hacking.”

MEKTORY Innovation and Business Center

After our discussion, Meeli showed me around at the Mektory building.

Mektory is mainly funded by the government, but it also partners with private sector

enterprises, like Samsung. These partnerships usually last from five to ten years.

Currently, there are a lot of companies interested in a partnership. The Mektory

building hosts 40 rooms in its three floors. One third of these room belong to

companies. They are renting the rooms, so they can promote themselves to students

and attract the most talented ones.

The first room she showed me was the one we had our discussion in. The Samsung

Digital Academy, where tablets are put in place in front of each chair. This is a

showcase, Meeli told me, of how tablets can replace pen and paper in the traditional

school system.

After that, she showed me the Erickson Room which is completely controlled by

electronics. With the push of a button you could even make the walls transparent.

There was a room with Lego robotics. A room about ventilation technology. An

energy studio with an electric map which was used to familiarize students with

electrical panels. There was even a sauna meeting room where contact signing took

place.

Meeli also showed me the national rooms. There was the American Embassy room,

the Japanese room, the Chinese room, the German room etc. Each room was

designed with the purpose to represent each nation’s values. For example, the

German room was meant to represent practicality.

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At the end of our tour, Meeli showed me the Delegations Map. It was a world map

with signings and wishes from every national delegation that had visited Mektory.

You could see that people from nearly every corner of the Earth had come to the

Mektory to witness the wonders of modern education. I wrote a warm wish on the

map and wished Meeli a nice evening.

On Social Inequality

Gender equality will be a major challenge for information societies. In the UK, it is

estimated that women make up only 14% of the work force employed in STEM

(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). As information societies emerge,

it is only reasonable that the importance of these fields will increase. Employment in

the tech industry offers high salaries and the chance to largely impact the world. It is

therefore urgent for women to be engaged in these subjects if we want future

societies to be equal.

To understand how we can get women interested in technology, I met with Ines

Boski, founder of the Women in Technology students’ club.

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Women in Technology Ines Bôski, Founder

“I am not Estonian. I am half-Portuguese, half-Polish, born and raised in Belgium. I

came to Estonia to study on a master’s program. I studied eGovernance at the

Tallinn University of Technology. The reputation of the country in eGovernance is

what brought me to Estonia. I was interested in applications of ICT in Development. I

did my undergraduate in the UK, where I studied Geography. After I graduated, I

learned to program and started my own business.

I founded Women in Technology when I arrived in Tallinn University of Technology.

When I was learning how to program, and I was seeing all these men program, I

started feeling lonely. I started to think, what is it that holds women back in technical

fields? I created Women in Technology to educate them about the importance of

tech, not just from a professional perspective but also as an everyday tool that can

have an impact on your life, your country and the world. There is a whole world you

could be missing just because you didn’t focus on it enough during school.

We have workshops, events, guest speakers and even debates. The purpose is to

educate, raise awareness and create a community.

We organized a series called Front End Web Development Series, which we created

in partnership with Mektory. Our purpose is to give women hands-on experience with

tech. It ran successfully. Front end web development gets a lot of attention because

it gives you instant gratification. You create a website and you instantly see the

results of it. It is very satisfying, and people were very engaged. The camp ran for

three months.

We were meeting once a week. We would code all together, introduce the topic and

then during the week, people would learn virtually through a website. In anything you

learn you want to feel supported. The problem for women is that tech is a man’s

world. When you’re learning something as challenging as programming you want to

have role models. You want to relate to people learning.

There has been a steady decrease of women studying engineering and technology

fields since 1980. Personal computers are a major factor for this. They were mostly

directed towards men. The personal computer was usually placed in a boys’ and not

a girls’ room. Nowadays, women are the biggest early adopters of tech, but they are

not involved as much as men in learning how these devices work. Women were

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never part of the conversation. They were always end consumers. But what if they

wanted to create?

People need to stop and think, why is it that I can’t be a quality engineer. They need

to think that «hey, maybe I could do this». We need to help people engage in

learning material that can change their lives.

There are many hackathons. This is a great way to get women interested in tech. It

provides hand-on experience. It is important to practice when you’re learning to

program. We push a lot of members to participate. When they’re done they are

thinking: Hey I didn’t realize that this could be easy and interesting.

Programming bootcamps are on the rise. Most of the organization have special

programs for women. In Estonia there is a lot of special treatment targeted towards

women such as scholarships and grants. These bootcamps are expensive and it’s

nice to see that help is offered in order to remove this economic obstacle.

Many women in tech face structural barriers. That means that even though they go

through they are trained as engineers, they are still held back from finding a job.

There are many factors into this. Employers think that a woman will bring problems

because of maternity leaves and family time. I believe that these companies should

address men in the same way. Men should also be able to take paternity leaves and

be allowed to have quality family time.

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When a woman is interviewing for a position, she shouldn’t be asked irrelevant

questions such as, if she’s planning to have a family. We can balance this problem

out. Men should also be able to take days off in order to take care of their children.

Women, on the other hand, should be able to work from home during their leaves.

There are a lot of problems with sexism in the workplace. You can hear something

that is meant to be funny but is ultimately demeaning. These unsupportive

environments are a reason that women are not entering the tech industry.

Women in Tech is not only focused on women. The more men are involved in these

discussions the better they can understand that the things they say can have an

impact, whether that is a joke or a comment. We just want to let men know that

women would love to have your professional support.

My parents weren’t very tech oriented. They wanted to give a technical education to

my brother. Whenever there was a mechanical task, my brother would be called for

help. There is no need to blame anyone. That’s just society.

I do believe that diversity can bring about success in a business. That’s just data. We

want to highlight this fact in order to achieve diversity. The fact that you have some

interesting results in your company if you don’t just have an all-white men team.

Diverse work spaces should not be limited to gender but should also be open to

racial diversity. It is wonderful if a company can create an environment like that. In

the United States, you have organizations that exclusively target groups like African

American Women. For example. Black Girls Who Code is an important example.”

At this time of the interview I wanted to ask Ines about The Google Memo. The

Google Memo, also known as Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber, was an internal

memo that was issued by James Damore, one of the company’s engineers. The

Memo became a subject of interest on mass media because it advocated that the

reason women are not involved in the tech industry is mainly genetic.

“The Google Memo was a controversial moment. Personally, I think it is sad. You

can have studies for a lot of things, and I am sure there are studies that try to prove

that women are less capable to learn certain things. There is no vastly verifiable

proof that this is the case. Again, I think that is sad that people push their personal

frustrations to the point of trying to back their argument with genetics.

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Change brings a lot of controversy. Companies like Google understand the power of

diversity. Since diversity brings better business results, why wouldn’t you want to

gain a competitive advantage?

My advice for little girls is this: Get exposed. When you are a little kid you are most

likely to do what your parents tell you to do. So, what I would say to the parents of a

little girl is, expose her to as many things as possible. Maybe she won’t understand it

fully, but a little kid will always find ways to assemble or disassemble. Give the

opportunity and see what happens. I wish I was given the opportunity to play around

technical things like circuits.”

On The Environment

Climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges for the 21st century. For us

to preserve the well-being of future generations, it is imperative that we put an end to

the process of destroying our own planet.

A lot of proposals have been made on how to tackle climate change, but most of

them can be boiled down to two categories: The prophet and the magician. A

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prophet is someone who warns us about our current way of living and proposes that

we cut down on some of our excesses. A magician on the other hand is someone

who believes in the power of technology and the effectiveness it can have in

changing our way of living and our impact on the environment.

For my third interview, I met with Erki Ani, in order to understand how technology can

be utilized in our fight with climate change, and how societies like Estonia are able to

inspire and influence Magicians.

Cleantech ForEst Erki Ani, CEO

“I studied Environmental Technology and Management. In 2015, I went to the

Netherlands to live for three years. There, I started engaging with Cleantech. I

studied entrepreneurship and participated in various hackathons. When I came back,

I enrolled at the Tallinn University of Technology. I founded a student organization

called GreenTech Club. After that, I was proposed to be CEO of Cleantech ForEst.

Cleantech is an innovative way of bringing together technology, solutions and

services that promotes sustainable development, resource efficiency and contributes

to the circular economy and development. Basically, it is about innovative startups

that deal with energy materials.

The purpose of Cleantech ForEst is to engage as much as possible with various

organizations, institutions and ministries, in order to help achieve innovative

sustainable development. We have educational programs aimed at graduate

students and at whole organizations. Cleantech ForEst has five employees.

We also organize hackathons where we bring together various agencies such as

governmental organizations, industry representatives and open-minded students.

Through them, we are trying to create startups. We later develop these startups

through our other programs such as Climate Launchpad, the world’s biggest green

ideas business competition, and the Climate-KIC Accelerator.

We are now developing a scientific magazine called The Footprint, which will be

published in October 2019.

We are also developing one more project, which will be launched in January 2019. It

is called Smart Sustainable Districts. It deals with converting a plain city district into a

smart, sustainable city district. We are talking about refurbishing the apartment

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buildings, installing solar panels, providing electric mobility cars and even bikes.

Everything is supposed to be smart. Whether that is street lights or ventilation.

This March we went to Uzbekistan. We organized a high-level conference and now

we are initiating a project there which deals with innovation and clean technology

through the export of startups.

All in all, we have developed a whole pipeline for developing innovative solutions. It

starts with the students. We bring young scientist to hackathons and then we give

them the possibility, through Climate Launchpad, to develop their ideas into startups.

Later, through the Climate-KIC Accelerator we can ensure them funding up to

€90.000. Lastly, we export them to developing countries, like Uzbekistan, because

that’s where the biggest needs for clean technological solutions are.

The number of cleantech startups is increasing, and we’re also noticing an increase

in the level of their competence. The cleantech sector launched just four years ago,

in 2014. The first initiatives were organized from Startup Estonia. That’s were

Cleantech ForEst also grew out from.

Each year about ten or twelve new cleantech startup ideas are being developed.

Their life span is not that good. Less than half of them continue to exist after their

first year.

Since the Paris Agreement, the Ministry of Environment has become serious about

the topics of eco-innovation and circular economy. We have a great collaboration

with the Ministry. The seriousness of the topic has also grown a lot. We are seeing

more conferences on topics like eco-innovation and sustainable management.

The main bulk of investments that go into startups is in digitalization and in particular,

Information and Computer Technologies. My aim for this year is to bring about more

startups that are dealing with ICT solutions in Cleantech.

I understood however that it is not that easy. If you are talking about Cleantech you

are talking about technology that you can see and touch and produce prototypes, not

technologies that have a front-end and a back-end. Nevertheless, Cleantech startups

that use ICT products tend to be more successful.

Climate Launchpad started in 2014. It started in the Netherlands, in the living room of

just two people. The competition takes place in 51 different locations.

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There are some noteworthy Startups that went through the competition process. The

first one is called Dessert Control and is from Norway. They patented a nanotech

solution which attracts water, with the purpose of turning infertile land into fertile.

The second one is called Reverse Recourses and is from Estonia. They crated a

data base regarding textile left overs, so they can be reused by designers. They won

the H&M Global Change Award.

The European Finals of Climate Launchpad for 2016 were held in Tallinn. It’s like a

Eurovision Contest. There were 120 startups competing from all over Europe. We

had this startup called Gela-text. They are utilizing animal industry left overs in order

to create leather. It’s basically gelatin-based leather.

For this year’s Climate Launchpad there are already 1400 applications. Only a

handful of them will be selected. This years’ Climate Launchpad is the biggest so far

with 45 countries participating, including non-European ones such as Australia,

Kenya and India.

We send our startups to international pitching events because in Estonia,

investments in Cleantech are small. Investing in Cleantech is risky. It is no that

cheap. It’s more expensive than investing in ICT and the return of investment is

slower because of the scalability.

Europe is looking much better. The Finnish, for example, are doing great. They have

a Cleantech Venture Day in Helsinki where we try to send our startups. We’ve sent

six of our startups there for this year. Three of them came back with investments.

The topic which is most necessary in Cleantech is water. Water scarcity is a problem

for developing countries. That’s why we look for startups that deal with this problem.

Food production and agriculture are also important.

The topics that engage me the most are the ones that impact the most people. It

doesn’t matter if it’s in energy, water or waste management.

Each year we see a lot of innovative ideas. We know that 80% of them are not going

to continue the next year. We know however that, the more startups we engage with

each year, the more impact we are going to have. It is important that people think

about these issues and spread the world. The number of people engaged in

sustainable development is growing.

We need a systemic approach. For example, we don’t believe that you should cut

transportation off because it produces too much carbon dioxide. We need a systemic

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approach, which means new services, new products, new infrastructure and new

routines. Every single one of these are business opportunities. That’s why

sustainable development is not a step back. It is ten steps forward.”

On Governance

The Zeitgeist indicates that governments are useless. They’re bureaucratic, political

and at the end of the day the only thing they’re good at is wasting our taxes.

However, it is important to recognize that governments can be entrepreneurial too.

For example, the computer and the internet, the driving forces of the digital

revolution, were developed indeed by governments.

Estonians recognize that governments can play an important role in facilitating and

boosting innovation. It was their country’s government that kickstarted their

digitalization initiative and gave birth to one of the world’s leading info states.

What’s more they recognize that technology is currently redefining governance

around the world and is posing new challenged, whether that is democracy, cyber-

security or data privacy.

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I wanted to better understand how governments shape and are being shaped by

technological advances, so I met with Annela Kiirats, programme director of

Estonia’s eGovernance Academy.

eGovernance Academy Annela Kiirats, Programme Director

“I’m working for the eGovernance Academy for 14 years. My main task is to organize

study tours for international delegates, mainly government officials. Our target is to

mainly host officials from developing countries.

The purpose of the eGovernance Academy is to share the Estonian eGovernance

experience internationally.

At the moment, 26 people are working at eGA. If we also include external partners,

then we are talking about 100 people. We need knowledge from different sectors,

different levels and different point of views.

What differs us from the other countries that are ranked highly in eGovernance, is

that we have an architecture is place. Some countries are better than us but only in

specific fields. Estonia has the whole picture, that is the full architecture for

exchanging information.

Nobody knows what happens in twenty years. I would not go that far. If I had to

mention a future trend it would be seamless government. That means that end users

don’t have to give any additional input. In other worlds, for me to get services from

the government, I am providing my basic information once and they never ask about

it again.

An example would be Tax Authority. Now, we are still obligated to log in to an

environment even though every information is pre-filled. There is still something

extra that the user must do. Seamless government, on the other hand, would be

paying taxes without having to log into the environment.

I wouldn’t want to say that in ten years we will be like robots. Hopefully however,

services will be easier to handle than today.

Driverless cars are not just a wish. Estonia has already practiced a driverless bus.

These models exist but they’re not yet applied to everyday life. Driverless cars

demand an infrastructure and therefore we still have a long way to go for them to be

put in place.

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When foreign delegations arrive, we’re not only talking about Estonia. We’re trying to

be more international and bring more perspectives to the table in order to help the

countries that come to us.

We hear concerns all the time. The first thing we hear concerns about is transparent

information. Transparent information is when the citizen is able to see his log file, to

see who has been viewing his data and knows that there is a strong legal framework

that demands justification in order for officials to access his data.

Foreign delegations are usually concerned when they hear about things like

eSchool, where students’ grades are made transparent for parents, or eHealth, in

which the patient owns the data and can even prevent a doctor from accessing them.

A big problem is that foreign countries face is central coordination. I usually ask

delegations who is responsible for the development of eGovernance and every

Ministry replies that they are in charge.

There is no point to do something that has already be done. Therefore, horizontal

coordination is important. Having a strategy which is also sustainable is another

important condition for developing eGovernance.

Governments come here, and they tell us that the technology is in place but they

haven’t put in place the coordination or the legal frameworks. These are necessary

conditions.

The benefits of eGovernance start right at the basis of society. The first example is

the identification of population. Giving documents and releasing the number of

people that are in need is a process facilitated by eGovernance.

Administration and the exchange of information is also improved by eGovernance.

These procedures become transparent, convenient and trusted, from a citizen’s

perspective. Citizens can know what data the government has about them.

Governments don’t need to be digitized in order for them to hold your data.

Digitalization provides transparency and creates communication channels between

the state and its citizens. Data manipulation can happen on paper and it happens

more easily. It is crucial that we have data protection principles and monitoring in

place.

Some countries don’t want their citizens to be numbered. This happens either

because of religious or historical reasons. But for you to get something out of your

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government you have to meet them half-way. You must agree with the government

on something if you want functional services.

You have to consider the digital gap as well. In Estonia, not all government offices

are closed. I can go and talk physically to an official but at the same time I can do

anything online. Services have to be provided to everybody.

At eGovernance Academy we have a separate eDemocracy Unit. President Obama

brought light to this initiative. It can give citizens the opportunity to talk and

participate in different processes. In Estonia, people are involved on decision making

at a city level and can also participate in law making drafts. The purpose of

eDemocracy is to provide a civilized way for citizens to voice their concerns.

The eGovernment project is all about public private partnerships. The government

promotes the innovation done by startups. Many of the startups, while they begin in

Estonia, they end up elsewhere. It would be great if companies came back or

opened a branch here. The problem is that if the market is better elsewhere, startups

with good ideas will try to expand.

Foreigners without citizenship can apply for eResidency in order to enjoy the benefits

of Digitalization. These digital channels prevent people from having to go through the

hassle and cost of flying constantly in order to conduct business.

Right now, we are pushing for the Once Only principle. This is fundamental in the

communication between governments and citizens. If I have given my data once to

any government institutions, then it is up to them to exchange it. I just need to know

that my data are safe and are not being misused. Governments often let their

citizens enter their data time and time again. This is not wise.”

On The Economy

Estonia is the country with the most startups per capita in Europe. Four of these

startups have been evaluated at over $1 billion. For these reasons, Estonia has been

named The Silicon Valley of Europe.

Entrepreneurship is a critical factor of technological advancement. Startups are

continuously disrupting the current economic reality and as a result new markets are

constantly emerging.

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I wanted to learn more about Estonia’s achievements in the startup scene and about

the future of entrepreneurship, so I talked to Sander Sillavee, social media specialist

at Startup Estonia.

Startup Estonia Sander Sillavee, Social Media Specialist

“I’ve been active in the Estonian ecosystem for about a year. Before Startup Estonia,

I was working in marketing and I completed an internship in the United States, in San

Francisco. I came back and I’m happy that I’m here. I love Estonia!

My first year has been pretty crazy. It’s really cool and I’m really happy to be a part of

this community, helping startups and helping the ecosystem to grow.

Startup Estonia is a government entity with the aim to help boost the startup

ecosystem in Estonia. We bridge the gaps where the market doesn’t help itself. We

tend to be agile and work in collaboration with the community.

Last week, for example, we held an ecosystem summit with 80 people coming from

the startup scene. We had workshops and discussed various topics in order to figure

out where want to go next as a community.

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To help startups, we help supporting organizations. Startup Estonia is comprised of 7

people and it would be too much for us to provide help to every single Estonian

startup. Therefore, we help supporting organization.

We have some focuses. One of them is regulations. We have good connections with

the government and we try to create friendly regulations for startups.

We crated the Startup Visa initiative to helps bring foreign founders to Estonia. It

went from idea to execution in only 11 months. That’s one thing that we do. The

other part is working on social media and events. In a nutshell we focus on the

community.

An example is this conference that we have, called Refresh. It is about front-end

developers and designers. It’s a specialized conference but its content is really good,

and many foreign speakers are participating.

We also have Tech Startup Week Tallinn. It’s going to be an exciting week of

startups events. We want to educate people who have some vague knowledge about

startups but are not sure about what they’re doing.

Moreover, we are creating a track for children and youth called Future Founders.

The aim is to let children know about entrepreneurship and the opportunities which

exist out there.

In our community, we have around 550 startups. In our website you can find a full

database of them. We are observing a steady increase in their number. Last year,

when I started out, we had around 400. The whole sector grew around 30% in a

year.

We don’t promote ourselves as The Silicon Valley of Europe. It’s not that it’s a bad

thing. We’re just focusing more on building the best ecosystem possible without it

having to be that big. Per capita we’re doing pretty great and we’re also have a large

number of successful companies which is also pretty good.

When Skype launched in 2003, the founders brought some money from the

investments back in Estonia and that’s how the community got started. The

community is young, and it would never be a reality without the early founders who

kick starting it.

There is no direct funding for startups. We believe more in the venture capital money

than just giving hand-outs. The money finds its place through the market. We’re not

such a rich country and we have to be agile.

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We’re happy to see successful startups but we have to make one thing clear:

Estonia is so small that it cannot be a market. Estonia is just a starting phase. If you

want to scale you need to expand. However, you can leave your development team

in Estonia. That’s what TransferWise has done, for example.

Taxify is a whole another story. They’re keeping everything in Estonia. It started with

this student Marcus who wanted to go to a party but none of the taxies where

available. That’s where he got the idea. At first, he wanted to create an app for taxi

companies but that didn’t work out. When they shifted their focus to the consumer

side it became successful. Now they’re evaluated at $1 billion.

Let Estonian startups leave. We’re happy to see them grow and go to the markets

where they think they will succeed. The trend we see is that successful companies

always keep something in Estonia. They also tend to come back with more

knowledge.

It’s really excited to see foreign founders come to Estonia just to start a business. To

this day, we’ve had around 720 applicants from companies that want to come to

Estonia through Startup Visa.

First step is, if you want to come and start your business you are going to be

evaluated by the startup committee. These are not suit and tie people from the

government. They are people from our community.

We’re actively promoting our visa program. We’re going to cities all over the world

and we’re talking about it. The eResidency program also helps a lot.

If you want to physically come to Estonia, you need the Startup Visa. The

eResidency on the other hand is an easier way to conduct business. It’s not a permit.

As a small community, we haven’t focused on specific teams or trends. We want to

initiate the whole ecosystem. We have some initiatives however. For example, some

people from Startup Estonia worked on green technologies. Now, we also have a

person responsible for the cybersecurity ecosystem. However, in general, we don’t

see many trends standing out.

If you are a foreign founder and want to start a company in the easiest place

possible and you need a place in Europe to start, Estonia is the best place to do it.

Starting a business is easy, dealing with the government is easy. You can do

anything online and government stays in the background.

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If you are a young and ambitious entrepreneur, just be curious. You don’t have to

think about startups. Explore and try things out. There’s nothing wrong with

expanding your horizons.”

Instead of a Conclusion

Let us fight for every woman and every man to have the opportunity to live healthy,

secure lives, full of opportunity and love.

We are all time-travelers, journeying together into the future.

But let us work together to make that future a place we want to visit.

Be brave, be determined, overcome the odds.

It can be done.

- Stephen Hawking