Welcome to e-Estonia: Where Virtual Residents Outnumber Newborns published by IMF (2018).
“Estonians jokingly refer to themselves as e-Estonians, says Siim Sikkut, Estonia’s Chief Information Officer. But if ever a nickname were spot on, this might be it. Almost anything can be done digitally, Sikkut says. “It has penetrated into nearly all aspects of life we lead: as a citizen, an entrepreneur, a government official,” he explains. In this podcast, Sikkut talks about Estonia’s road to becoming a digital nation.
It turns out, becoming e-Estonia was all about efficiency. Efficiency was the desire and has really been the fruitful outcome of this digitalization across all different fields of policy and sectors of life, Sikkut says. “We see the improvements it makes in terms of how much time you can save, how much money we can save if you do things the digital way,” he says.
This efficiency has helped boost Estonia’s reputation as a stalwart for start-ups. But Sikkut says it’s not that start-ups are attracted to Estonia but rather born in Estonia. He attributes this partly to the investment in science and research that has created a fertile ground for entrepreneurs. “There is also the simple fact that founding a company and running it is easy in terms of the business environment and bureaucracy,” he says.
Then there is the Skype effect. Skype was born in Estonia, and Sikkut says there are more and more entrepreneurs with experience from Skype who realize that one can really conquer the world—even from Estonia…”
