Participants from 115 countries gathering in Tallinn
From 30-31 May, Tallinn will host a e-governance conference, with participants from 115 countries gathering in the Estonian capital to seek answers to the challenge of ensuring sustainable e-state development in their countries. Representatives of African and European countries will also provide examples of public e-services that have changed people’s lives for the better.
According to Hannes Astok, Development Director of the e-Governance Academy, the large number of countries to be represented at the upcoming conference clearly indicates that e-state development has become a vital issue for many countries worldwide. “Relying on the 15 years of the e-Governance Academy’s cooperation with more than 60 countries, we can safely say that the key factor in e-state development is the availability of domestic initiators and experts. Purchasing services abroad or employing foreign experts is never sufficient. Estonia has evolved into an e-state through our own efforts, mistakes and successes. Doing things ourselves while also drawing on experiences gained elsewhere will also help other governments to develop their e-state solutions in a sustainable manner,” noted he.
The conference participants will discuss Estonia’s experience in the e-state sphere and compare it with the achievements of other countries. On the first day of the conference, knowledge transfer experiences will be debated, with representatives of different countries speaking about what has been learned and envisaged. This will be followed with a presentation on state-supported digital identity development, which is the basis for the creation of secure public e-services and communication between the state and its citizens. At the end of the first day, various examples will be provided of the public e-services implemented in Mozambique, Namibia, Cape Verde and Serbia.
The second day of the conference will focus on implementation of the once-only principle of data usage in the development of public and private-sector e-services, as well as ICT opportunities in the service of national sustainable development goals. There will also be a presentation of the mobile e-governance case studies that have become quite popular in African countries.
The conference will be opened by Kersti Kaljulaid, President of Estonia, Patrick Ignatius Gomes, Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, Doctor Amani Abou-Zeid, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union and Stefano Manservisi, Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development. The conference will be attended by ministers from the governments of Benin, Ethiopia, Guyana, Ghana, Mali, Republic of South Africa and Mauritania who are responsible for e-governance development along with other top state officials from over 100 countries.
The following are the speakers at the Tallinn e-Governance Conference: Sven Mikser, Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Siim Sikkut, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology at the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Linnar Viik, IT visionary, Luukas Kristjan Ilves, Counsellor for Digital Affairs at Estonia’s Permanent Representation to the EU, Gustavo Giorgetti, Argentinian e-state developer, Bernard Morvant and Stéphanie de Labriolle, digital identity experts of the Secure Identity Alliance, Antonio Fernandes, researcher from the University of Cape Verde, Jeremy Millard, researcher from the Brunel University, Professor Laurino Alberto Chemane, Eduardo Mondlane University, Professor Maria A. Wimmer, specialising in e-governance at the University of Koblenz, and several leading experts from the e-Governance Academy: Arvo Ott, Ivar Tallo, Mari Pedak, Hannes Astok, Raul Rikk and others.
Further information, the conference programme and a live broadcast of the discussions are available online at http://tallinnconference.ee/.
The Tallinn e-Governance Conference is organised by the e-Governance Academy in association with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. This conference marks the 15th anniversary of the e-Governance Academy. Since its establishment, the academy has successfully shared Estonia’s experience of building up an e-state with interested parties from more than 60 countries across the globe and has trained and consulted over 3,500 specialists.