Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to be here. I would like to begin by thanking the organisers of the Sustainable Development Goals Business Forum, for the opportunity of being able to share our thoughts as well as Estonia’s lessons learnt from tackling the Covid-19 crisis.
Each member of the international community can perhaps agree by now that the reality in which we lived before the COVID-19 crisis, will not return, at least not any time soon. A crisis always means difficult times, but it is also an opportunity. We can use this crisis to reflect on questions such as “what can be done better?” “How can we build a more sustainable future for each and every one of us?”
Today, I wish to talk about digital transformation, which is one of the key components in building a future where inequalities do not have to be the main worry of most of the world’s population. If we manage to enhance digital transformation in key sectors, it can enable equal access to crucial services such as healthcare and education. When talking about digitalisation, I wish to emphasize two things: the importance of effective cooperation between the public and private sectors, and the importance of multilateral collaboration.
As a well-developed digital society, Estonia has managed to adapt to the crisis. As 99 per cent of all the public services in Estonia are online, the state could remain functional even during self-isolation times. Secure e-Health services, such as digital prescriptions, the possibility to ask an online sick leave in the national health portal, and multiple telemedicine solutions are parts of Estonia’s advanced e-health infrastructure. When it comes to education, most of our schools and kindergartens have been using Education Technology solutions for years, which made the transition to online home-schooling easier. Knowing that e-schooling has been a challenge in many countries, several Estonian edTech startups came together and offered their service for free globally until the end of the crisis.
The key element in building Estonia’s digital state has been successful cooperation between the public and private sectors. This cooperation should also be part of the new post-COVID reality. On the day that the government declared the state of emergency, a public-private initiative emerged to organize the very first online crisis hackathon “Hack the Crisis”. It turned out being so successful, that the Estonian team supervised more than 50 nations to help them organize their own online crisis hackathons. In the end, the movement of helping others grew from regional hackathons into Global Hackathon. Within 48 hours over 12 000 participants from over 100+ countries worked on 500 life-changing projects on health, environment, education, among others.
I strongly believe that the private sector is willing and able to help address the consequences of this crisis and to support digital transformation. Therefore, Estonia and the United Arab Emirates are going to co-host the Global Business Summit this December, to involve the Business sector in finding and presenting the best digital solutions in a multi-stakeholder manner.
Another important aspect of successful digitalisation is multilateral cooperation. On the 1st of July 2020, the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs
presented jointly a global digital declaration. The declaration emphasises crucial areas where digital cooperation is particularly important, such as secure internet access, protecting human rights in cyberspace, citizen-oriented e-governance and digital solutions in the health and education sectors, as well as improving people’s digital skills.
As of today, 67 countries have supported the declaration. The Global Declaration on the Digital Response to COVID-19 remains open for co-sponsorship. As the digital solutions to the crisis become even more relevant, I would like to, once again, invite all the countries to support the declaration.
I would like to thank you once again for letting me share Estonia’s experience and in making an effort to deepen international digital cooperation to overcome this crisis together.