Estonia:  Government Services Online On-Demand!
By   Shlomo Maital
  
    Hey, has anybody noticed little Estonia lately?  Time the world took notice.
As the whole world talks about the ‘digital revolution’ and ‘online government services’, Estonia has raced ahead and actually done it, quietly.
 Now they are offering to share what they did with the world.  “We have built a digital society”, Estonia says,  “and so can you.”
   What exactly have they done?
   Well – 21 years ago, it began with e-governance;  then paying taxes online in 
2000;  digital ID’s in 2001; voting online in 2005; public safety in 2007; blockchain in 2007; e-health in 2008; and e-Residency in 2014. 

     Basically – all the services you need from the Estonian government, you can get online.  You can pay your annual taxes, or file your annual return, online, in 20 minutes.  Now you can establish residency.
     I visited Estonia some years ago, on a benchmarking trip with Israeli managers.  I found the visit startling.  It all began with the Soviet Union.  Estonia once belonged to it.  The Russians feared computer science, and so banished computer science to the fringes, to Estonia.   Estonia now leverages that huge advantage.   Some 15 years ago,  a group of Estonians helped create Skype, along with a Swede. 
     Estonia offers to freely share what it knows and what it has done with the world.  I wish my country Israel, called Startup Nation, would visit Estonia and learn seriously what they’ve done.   Instead, my Prime Minister visits Brazil, praises the far right new President Bolsinaro, and plays soccer on the Copacabana 
 Beach. 

    Alas.