Countries without borders, countries without territory, and digital citizenship: The e-residency initiative.
COM2 Level 4
Executive Classroom, COM2-04-02
ABSTRACT:
In this talk, Mr Taavi Kotka will present his latest initiative of e-residency in Estonia. Through e-residency, foreigners will be receiving digital IDs which will be a secure Estonian e-identity, where they do not need to relinquish their current citizenship, and they do not need to physically live in Estonia. With this e-residency, they gain access to usable global services. The target is having 10 million e-residents of Estonia, by the year 2025.
BIODATA:
Mr Taavi Kotka is the CIO of the government of Estonia, one the leading countries in the implementation of electronic government worldwide. Since 2013, he has been the Deputy Secretary General - ICT for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. Mr Taavi also has a strong background in the private sector. He started his career as a programmer and rapidly rose to be a Managing Director of the largest software development company in the region AS Webmedia (now known as Nortal). In 2011, he was selected as Entrepreneur of the year (by Ernst &Young) and his company, AS Media, won the Company of the year award. In 2014, he was awarded the European CIO of the year (by ICT Spring) for his 'global strategies, projects implemented, his technical choices and management skills'.
Mr Taavi Kotka is a board member of many ICT initiatives in Estonia, such as Zeroturnaround and Plumbr, and has been the architect of many Estonian e-government innovations such as e-residency, data embassies, country in the cloud, and no-legacy policy.