AmCham Digital Council with Marten Kaevats: "Digital society is about building trust and an open-minded community."
The AmCham Digital Council, with the support of Microsoft, discussed how Estonia devised and implemented the digitization of its government with Marten Kaevats, who served as the country's digital advisor up until a few weeks ago.
The Estonians achieved the critical mass for public demand for digital services and government capability to deliver services online. "We no longer need to convince the public that digital services are safe and easier to use," Marten Kaevats said. "They are now the point of spear: they have so many requests for new digital services that we are now reacting to them."
Estonia managed to automate 90-95% of routine in bureaucracy. "Digital society is about building trust and an open-minded community; it is not about technology and gadgets," Marten Kaevats added.
Joining Marten Kaevats was Vladimír Dzurilla, his counterpart in the Czech government, and Ondřej Profant, the digital lead at Česká pirátská strana and a likely architect of the incoming government's digital plans. The Digital Council will be digesting Marten's insights, discussing them with government reps, and drafting a list of more specific questions for the next session with Marten.
For more info, contact Weston Stacey.
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