E-stonia

Estonia is often called E-stonia for thoroughly embracing the digital revolution and e-governance once it re-gained it’s independence in 1991. Estonia’s capital Tallinn has one of the most seamless wireless Internet networks in the world.

About 90% of our population pay their taxes online and Estonia was the first country in the world to offer nation-wide internet voting for government elections . “Our goal is to make Estonia so paper-free that the only place where you would need to use it will be in the toilet,” says Indrek Vimberg,  managing director of the Estonian ICT Demo Center.  Read the rest of this story on Newsweek.

Three Estonians, Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn, were responsible for creating the software behind Skype and the filesharing software KaZaa.  Skype maintains one its head offices in Tallinn and Tartu. Also based in Tallinn is NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.