In this episode of Digital Health Today, we are jumping over to the country of Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people situated on the Baltic Sea. Estonia borders Latvia and Russia, and is across the water from its Nordic neighbor, Finland. Here to talk to us today is Ain Aaviksoo, he’s the Deputy Secretary General of E-services and Innovation, at the Ministry of Social Affairs, Estonia. He tells us about Estonian business culture, their outstanding infrastructure, and the opportunities for outside companies and individuals to do research and business in Estonia.

Estonian companies have transformed our experience with telephony with Skype, and banking with Transferwise, and they have their sights set on transforming the way people experience health and wellness as well.

In his role as the Deputy Secretary General of E-services and Innovation, Ain works to combine medicine and informatics to disrupt healthcare in a great way. Estonia has a long history of digital innovation across public and private services. They’ve successfully migrated traditional “brick and mortar” activities to online, and they’ve implemented things like electronic voting and even an electronic residency program that is open to anyone around the world. Ain and I spoke about the various services and programs available in Estonia, and how they are positioned to help individuals and companies who would like to leverage the infrastructure they have in place.

Today's Topics:

• How Estonia emerged from the Soviet Union as a technology powerhouse
• The “e-Estonia Model” and the advantages it provides to private and public organizations in Estonia
• How the Estonian Genome Center is making personalized medicine accessible for research and companies
• The role of the Estonian President as he takes on the six-month rotation of the EU Presidency
• The startup culture of Estonia
• The Estonian ‘e-residency' program that is open to anyone to set up a EU business and ‘electronic residency'
• The three legal pillars to create a secure environment for secure data sharing

Links and Resources Mentioned:

• Information about Estonia
• Estonian Health Tech Cluster
• Estonia’s E-Residency Program
• Estonian Call for Proposals for Personalized Medicine (Closes 26 June 2017)
• Article about the World's First ‘E-Resident'
• Information about becoming an e-Resident
• General Data Protection Regulation coming into effect in May 2018
• eHealth Tallinn 16-18 October 2017 (#ehealthtallinn2017)
• Ain on LinkedIn
• Ain on Twitter
• Digital Health Events
• Join Digital Health Today

Video:

TED Talk - A peek into our digital future: Estonia's e-Residency program