Hannes Astok is the Executive Director and Chairman of the Management Board at the e-Governance Academy. Hannes is responsible for Cyber Security Programme, Smart Governance Programme, Project Development, Communication, and Associates and Subsidiaries.

He is an enthusiastic speaker for the information society, especially promoting the role of local governments and challenges of mobile governance and new technologies in government.

As a senior expert, he provides consultancy for governments in Central Asia, Caucasus, South-East Europe, Middle East, Africa and other transition regions. During the last years, he has been working closely with the governments of Ukraine, Namibia, Moldova, Palestine, Georgia, and Mauritius, among others.

Hannes served as Member of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) in 2007-2011, where he mainly dealt with the development of information society and issues related to regulation of intellectual property and electronic communication. Prior to that, in 1997-2005 Hannes worked for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor. Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing its citizens and businesses with a wide variety of Internet and mobile services.

In 2012-13, Hannes was Adviser to the President of Estonia on Information Society development.

He started his political career in Tartu, working for the decade for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor. Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing for citizens and businesses wide variety of Internet and mobile phone based services.

Hannes holds a journalism and public relations degree from Tartu University.

Hannes speaks Estonian, English, Russian and Finnish.