Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is a vibrant high tech community masked by the Middle Ages. Beneath the surface of heritage buildings lays a community that is both entrepreneurial and persistent, an interesting combination that breeds success. I had the opportunity to visit Tallinn as part of ICF's site visit to the Top Seven Intelligent Communities. It is without a doubt one the finest intelligent communities on the planet. The buzz is everywhere despite that it may look like it is a set out of the movies. It is certainly among one of the prettiest cities and attracts a large tourist following, especially from the cruise ships that ply the Baltic Sea.
The City of Tallinn has a population of 400,000, which is a third of the national population, but represents 70% of its economy. Vibrant, with a tech savvy that has the international press calling it the Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea, Estonia endured over 50 years of totalitarian rule and central planning by the Soviet Union. While this clearly had an economic impact on Tallinn and upon the nation, it didn't crush its spirit. A country that has been used to domination over its many centuries, it waited out the Soviet oppression with patience and adaptability. Having little and making the most of it, was a common theme and a key ingredient for its most recent success. Estonia finally gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and more recently, in 2005, was admitted to the European Union and is looking toward a brilliant future.
Being a port city, it is open to accepting new ideas and being exposed to new ways of doing things. This is reflected in the many new and innovative ideas that are adopted by the city and its citizens at every turn. Estonia's legislation opened up its banking and telecom sectors to investment from foreign companies within a decade of its independence. Electronic commerce, privacy and public access to information soon followed. With a long history of domination by the Swedes and Finns, Estonia's communications and finance sector was quickly absorbed by these neighboring countries. The population, who seemed pleased to be moving on to the next phase of their future, easily accepted this. Instead of worrying about who was making the investment, they focused instead on digital mobility and the opportunities that this could achieve for them.
Visiting the factories in Tallinn where the Russian military once built warheads and supplies for Mother Russia, these have been converted into high-tech offices similar to the ones you would easily find in San Jose. The feeling is quite similar. In fact nearly 70% of the Tallinn population works in the service center, many of them in mobile technology-related services. Pay your parking by cell-phone. Use your Digital ID card for everything from participating in e-voting; issuing digital signatures; working in the Internet banking systems - all of these are businesses that have started and matured in Tallinn. This is the home of Kazaa, Skype and Hotmail. Companies that have evolved from these early roots, like Hemsel, are now developing dozens of new companies and spinning them off around the world. Other companies that depend on broadband from design firms, accounting and financial services to advertising consultancies are prospering in this environment.
Broadband penetration may only be 48% for households, but a whopping 98% for businesses and 100% for government. Government, in particular, is a model for the community. Everything that you see and can do has an online equivalent. Council and the Tallinn administration have an e-meeting mindset. Similarly, the education system is enthusiastic about its e-school platform. This is a long way from the early days when teachers were paid $100 per month and people had to be convinced to use ICT throughout the country. Innovation sprouted everywhere. Known as the "Tiger Leap", a program funded by the banks in Tallinn introduced e-banking. Newspapers published online editions. The National Library in Tallinn introduced the first public access Internet services, which today has spread to all public libraries. The Soros Foundation spread public access Internet. Today free WiFi is everywhere.
Government invested in computers to execute an education program that delivered computer literacy training to 100,000 adults and built a backbone network linking Tallinn to other municipalities, which now supports a WiMax network covering 90% of Estonia. The government also developed an electronic ID card, e-government platform and data security system to support safe e-commerce. Today, nearly everyone is able to do their personal income taxes online and many other e-commerce and e-government services are able to be performed over mobile telephones ranging from monitoring lessons in school to administering medical insurance to e-voting. In fact, there are so many services provided by so many organizations and government departments that managing them all became a logistical problem.
A unique "middleware" platform called X-Road has become the backbone of all the e-government services in Estonia, bridging dozens of databases and systems allowing hundreds of different systems and institutions and companies to talk to each other in a secure environment. The X-Road middleware platform dramatically reduces the time and cost of building e-government applications. So impressive is this system that ICF recognized the government in 2008 with one of its Founder's Awards. This experience has developed trust in these systems to the extent that the average Estonian fully works and lives in the virtual world without fear and hesitation to use wireless mobility as an extension of their daily activity, clearly creating one of the most e-culturally adopting societies of its kind. Despite the fact that the city center looks like it is still part of the middle ages, this community clearly lives very comfortably in the future!
The City of Tallinn has a population of 400,000, which is a third of the national population, but represents 70% of its economy. Vibrant, with a tech savvy that has the international press calling it the Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea, Estonia endured over 50 years of totalitarian rule and central planning by the Soviet Union. While this clearly had an economic impact on Tallinn and upon the nation, it didn't crush its spirit. A country that has been used to domination over its many centuries, it waited out the Soviet oppression with patience and adaptability. Having little and making the most of it, was a common theme and a key ingredient for its most recent success. Estonia finally gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and more recently, in 2005, was admitted to the European Union and is looking toward a brilliant future.
Being a port city, it is open to accepting new ideas and being exposed to new ways of doing things. This is reflected in the many new and innovative ideas that are adopted by the city and its citizens at every turn. Estonia's legislation opened up its banking and telecom sectors to investment from foreign companies within a decade of its independence. Electronic commerce, privacy and public access to information soon followed. With a long history of domination by the Swedes and Finns, Estonia's communications and finance sector was quickly absorbed by these neighboring countries. The population, who seemed pleased to be moving on to the next phase of their future, easily accepted this. Instead of worrying about who was making the investment, they focused instead on digital mobility and the opportunities that this could achieve for them.
Visiting the factories in Tallinn where the Russian military once built warheads and supplies for Mother Russia, these have been converted into high-tech offices similar to the ones you would easily find in San Jose. The feeling is quite similar. In fact nearly 70% of the Tallinn population works in the service center, many of them in mobile technology-related services. Pay your parking by cell-phone. Use your Digital ID card for everything from participating in e-voting; issuing digital signatures; working in the Internet banking systems - all of these are businesses that have started and matured in Tallinn. This is the home of Kazaa, Skype and Hotmail. Companies that have evolved from these early roots, like Hemsel, are now developing dozens of new companies and spinning them off around the world. Other companies that depend on broadband from design firms, accounting and financial services to advertising consultancies are prospering in this environment.
Broadband penetration may only be 48% for households, but a whopping 98% for businesses and 100% for government. Government, in particular, is a model for the community. Everything that you see and can do has an online equivalent. Council and the Tallinn administration have an e-meeting mindset. Similarly, the education system is enthusiastic about its e-school platform. This is a long way from the early days when teachers were paid $100 per month and people had to be convinced to use ICT throughout the country. Innovation sprouted everywhere. Known as the "Tiger Leap", a program funded by the banks in Tallinn introduced e-banking. Newspapers published online editions. The National Library in Tallinn introduced the first public access Internet services, which today has spread to all public libraries. The Soros Foundation spread public access Internet. Today free WiFi is everywhere.
Government invested in computers to execute an education program that delivered computer literacy training to 100,000 adults and built a backbone network linking Tallinn to other municipalities, which now supports a WiMax network covering 90% of Estonia. The government also developed an electronic ID card, e-government platform and data security system to support safe e-commerce. Today, nearly everyone is able to do their personal income taxes online and many other e-commerce and e-government services are able to be performed over mobile telephones ranging from monitoring lessons in school to administering medical insurance to e-voting. In fact, there are so many services provided by so many organizations and government departments that managing them all became a logistical problem.
A unique "middleware" platform called X-Road has become the backbone of all the e-government services in Estonia, bridging dozens of databases and systems allowing hundreds of different systems and institutions and companies to talk to each other in a secure environment. The X-Road middleware platform dramatically reduces the time and cost of building e-government applications. So impressive is this system that ICF recognized the government in 2008 with one of its Founder's Awards. This experience has developed trust in these systems to the extent that the average Estonian fully works and lives in the virtual world without fear and hesitation to use wireless mobility as an extension of their daily activity, clearly creating one of the most e-culturally adopting societies of its kind. Despite the fact that the city center looks like it is still part of the middle ages, this community clearly lives very comfortably in the future!
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