Estonia - The land of digital trust

A small, random group from the Scottish tech community visited Tallinn in late October 2017. The highlights and memories are on this page. I have also included links to some blog posts where I have shared the lesson the trip inspired. If you haven't yet been to Tallinn, get out there and see for yourself.

Fun things I learned in Tallinn...

You can do anything digitally in Estonia....
...except get married, get divorced or buy a house
You can file an Estonian tax return digitally in under a minute!
Everyone in Estonia takes their shoes off at work...
...including the British Ambassador
Playing the board game Secret Hitler is a great way to build your startup team

The Tour Party

Special thanks to Peter Ferry, Dianne Ferry and Chris Martin for making this all happen together with Neil Mathieson in Estonia. The group included:

Peter Ferry, Wallet Services
Dianne Ferry, Qikserve
Chris Martin, Waracle
Ian Spencer, First Minister's Policy and Delivery Unit
Jude McCorry, The Data Lab
Stuart Fraser, Wallet Services
Jeph Hamilton, Exception
David Low, Scotesq and Scotcoin
Graeme Taylor, Agile Energy
Richard Higginson, Scottish Development International
Plus the long suffering Mrs Sue Fraser

E-Estonia Government Showroom

No trip would be complete without a visit. Here Managing Director Anna Pirepal explains the principles behind X-Road and all the data sharing in the country:

Citizen owns the data
Once and only once
Total openness and transparency
Highest standard of security applies to everything

To E or not to E

We were lucky enough to hear from Linnar Viik. He is a bit of a superstar and his retelling of the Estonian story is brilliant. Watch the video and learn for yourself.

Old Town, Tallinn Estonia with the scottish saltire flag flying

Springhub co-working space Tallinn Estonia

Startup Buzz

Estonia is also home to exciting early stage tech companies. I was lucky enough to meet a whole variety of them including one in the Springhub pictured. Others included:

Tallinn for tourists

An ancient Hanseatic port, Tallinn is worth visiting for its own sake. Some of the highlights for us included:

The Old Town, city walls and the first snow of the winter
Viru Hotel and KGB museum
The Museum of Occupations
St Nicholas Church/ Danse Macabre
The British Ambassador's residence
The Scottish Room, Restaurant Lieb

Tallinn Estonia, Old town, St Nicholas Church

If you enjoy this, check out my blog post to find out more about the trip....

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Tartan in Tallinn