Digital Nation

Digital identity is more than just technology—it’s a cornerstone for building trust in digital societies. At the Internet Governance Forum 2024 in Riyadh, Digital Nation’s Managing Partner, Siim Sikkut, joined a panel centred around the role of digital identity in enhancing trust in e-Processes. Here are his key insights: 1. Trusted Frameworks Matter: Digital identity is just the starting point; it is just a key to secure transactions and nothing more by itself. Building trust requires robust frameworks around the key, including mechanisms for personal data management, user consent, and control. Without these, trust cannot be sustained. 2. Leadership and Governance Are Essential: Successful digital identity systems depend on clear roadmaps and strong governance to align the many components needed for trust and usability. 3. Global Mutual Use: While global standards for digital ID may still be a future goal, countries ready to experiment should begin testing cross-border mutual use cases today to pave the way. 4. Usability Drives Impact: A trusted digital identity solution must also be user-friendly. Without usability, even the most perfectly engineered system won’t achieve the impact it was designed for. As Siim highlighted, achieving the United Nations #SDG target of providing digital identity for all by 2030 requires action now. By focusing on usability, trust frameworks, and global experimentation, we can accelerate progress and ensure digital identity truly empowers people worldwide. Thank you to IGF for enabling this insightful conversation between Siim, H.H Prince Bandar Al-Mashari (Assistant Minister, Ministry of Interior for Technology Affairs, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), H.E. Emma Theofelus (Minister, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT), Republic of Namibia), Sangbo Kim (Vice President of Digital Transformation, The World Bank) and Kurt-Erik "Kurtis" Lindqvist, EMBA (CEO, ICANN).

Digitalisation is no longer an "if" or "when" but a "how" for governments worldwide. At the 8th EU-GCC Business Forum in Doha, Digital Nation’s Director of Business Development, Erika Piirmets, shared insights on empowering entrepreneurship and startups through digital transformation: 1. Public-Private Partnerships: Governments can play a critical role as early adopters, helping innovative companies bring emerging technologies to market by aligning legislation with long-term goals. For instance, in a young and upcoming Estonia 30 years ago, the government was the first buyer of tech companies' products and services. 2. Collaborative Innovation: Building strong ecosystems that connect startups with accelerators, mentors, and investors fosters sustainable growth and drives innovation. 3. Upskilling for the Future: Equipping leaders and teams with digital skills ensures organisations can adapt and thrive in the fast-changing landscape of digital transformation. As Erika in agreement with Eman AlKuwari and Mikko Lavanti concluded ”Collaboration, not competition, is the way forward. By learning from one another’s successes and sharing experiences, we can build on existing achievements and foster stronger cooperation between the EU and GCC.” The forum showcased how collaboration between the EU and GCC can strengthen connectivity and foster sustainable growth. Congratulations to the State of Qatar on their 25-position leap in the UN EGDI 2024 rankings—a remarkable milestone in digital innovation!

Innovation is imperative for the public sector in delivering effective and efficient public services. Digital Nation’s partner Üllar Jaaksoo spent last week in Skopje with the Regional School of Public Administration and in his keynote addressed the key factors for success in public sector innovation: 1. Leadership Commitment: Strong leadership is essential to foster a culture that encourages experimentation and embraces change. 2. Collaborative Culture: Promoting cross-departmental and cross-sectoral collaboration enhances the sharing of ideas and resources. 3. Capacity Building: Investing in training and development equips public servants with the skills necessary to implement innovative solutions. 4. User-Centric Approach: Designing services with a focus on user needs ensures relevance and effectiveness. 5. Agile Processes: Implementing flexible and adaptive processes allows for rapid iteration and improvement. Üllar also touched on the subject of enabling and innovative legal and procurement ecosystems, which are needed to foster development. For efficient procurement to work you need a clear alignment between procurement goals and innovation objectives focusing on results-driven approaches flexibly.

What are failures every leader can learn from? How to launch nation-wide data exchanges or governmental virtual assistants? Tallinn Digital Summit brought together digital leaders from around the world and alongside it Estonia hosted Ukrainian digital officials to answer questions like these and exchange best practices for building resilient digital states. A consortium of Estonian experts from Digital Nation, Proud Engineers and Civitta put together a program featuring inspiring examples of digital transformation in social services, boosting innovation in the Estonian Police and Border Guard, and ensuring comprehensive cybersecurity across Estonia.   Digital Nation’s managing partner Siim Sikkut opened the study visit with a keynote on the lessons that he as a digital leader took with him from years in public office. He shared stories from his time as Estonia’s Government CIO, focusing on challenges in change management, funding, overly complex solutions, lack of ownership, and the courage to experiment. Panel discussions, led by Digital Nation experts Kristo Vaher and Sigrit Siht explored the importance of a strategic approach to interoperability, building a culture of interoperability, and managing legacy systems. The development of virtual assistants on a national scale raised important questions about trust among citizens and officials, with lessons from Estonia’s "Bürokratt" initiative taking centre stage.   The four-day study visit in Tallinn concluded a long-term training program for the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and CDTO Campus, aimed at exchanging expertise with Estonian colleagues on artificial intelligence, public services, data exchange, digital identity, and cybersecurity. The project was funded by the Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV) and procured by ITL Estonia.

How to deal with resistance to innovation and mitigate the risks it involves? Digital leaders from across the world pondered on this last week at Tallinn Digital Summit, moderated by Siim Sikkut, Digital Nation’s managing partner. Erika Kuročkina (Ekonomikos ir inovacijų ministerija/Ministry of the Economy and Innovation of Lithuania), Fawaz Alanazi (Digital Government Authority, Liina Vahtras (e-Residency), along with Siim shared the key challenges they’ve encountered while digitalizing their governments and shared potential remedies for mitigating these risks. Valuable insights into strategies that could help leaders navigate the pressures of cybersecurity leadership in today’s high-stakes environment were centred around applying  the ABC of good management and leadership: - Ambitious goals - Proper planning - Communication and community building To give future leaders a better understanding of this Digital Nation has created a digital leader competency model, which we will be launching in our upcoming Leaders Lab program.

In the grand-scheme of digital transformation, one question is more important than any other - how to deliver? This is what Siim Sikkut, the managing partner of Digital Nation set out to tangibly answer at the high level digitalization forum, held in Morocco this week. Siim Sikkut and Helena Lepp from Digital Nation were among a long list of Estonian digital government experts invited to share their insights for a crowd of Moroccan public sector representatives leading their respective charge in digitising their nation. Siim delved into how a nation should not only carry out tech project after tech project, but strategically improve the public sector’s administrative capabilities, in order for the tech to carry results. Helena in turn helped define what are good government services and how to create them, which in our book always encapsulate two elements: - Taking a whole-of-government approach - Service design should always be human-centric All in all - you have to design with the end client in mind, whether it is big business or a citizen - they don’t know the intricacies of the public sector, which institution to turn to and the processes within the bureaucratic system. The high-level visit to Morocco was led by the Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Margus Tsahkna and organised by the Moroccan Public Affairs firm, Consensus Public Relations (CPR) and ITL Estonian ICT Cluster, in partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Digital Transition and Administration Reform, the Crédit Agricole du Maroc Group and UM6P - University Mohammed VI Polytechnic.

Having sound regulations isn’t enough – effective public services are essential for a thriving business environment. This is the key takeaway from the recently published B-Ready 2024 report by The World Bank. We asked Digital Nation’s Director of Service Transformation, Helena Lepp, to assess the recently released report and guide you through it. The B-Ready report, which replaces the earlier Doing Business assessment, highlights two major shifts in approach by: - Extending the scope from SMEs to private sector development as a whole. - Adding two additional pillars – the quality of public services and operational efficiency – to the previous regulatory framework pillar. While the first Business Ready edition covers only 50 economies, with plans to expand to over 100 next year and 180 by 2026 to ensure accurate analysis and refine methods with each iteration. Despite this, the data already shows a major gap between countries in service delivery. Governments tend to do better at enacting regulations than at providing good public services needed to make the rules actually work. In fact, only Estonia and New Zealand stand out for scoring higher on service quality than regulatory framework among the 50 economies assessed. This reflects a reality we face too often with Digital Nation – the focus stops at getting regulations and policies drafted, while the design and delivery of user-friendly services that actually help to reduce administrative burden and business to grow, falls short in effort. The report also highlights that richer economies seem to be more business-ready, it’s not just about being wealthy. Economies like Rwanda and Colombia show that creating business-friendly services isn’t limited to rich countries. It’s about effective governance, high-quality policies and building impactful public services that work for everyone. Policy development should go hand-in-hand with transforming public services, yet too often service innovation stops at the regulatory framework. At Digital Nation we know a thing or two how to make your ambitious policies become an operational reality with good digital public services for businesses, so reach out and let’s find out how we can turn your country into the next digital nation.

Digital Nation’s Director of AI & Data Sigrit Siht took a look at the European Commission’s latest study encompassing the potential of AI in public services. She compiled a short conclusion as to what kind of progress the EU countries have made in AI strategy and implementation. An overall trend was that whilst there are numerous AI initiatives taking place across the member states, the vast majority of them are strategies, guidelines and frameworks. The study highlights that the 4 public sector areas with the most AI projects are: 1. General public services 2. Transportation 3. Police and public safety 4. Public health Likewise it is a clear trend that the vast majority of AI implementations are chatbots, not only in the number of active projects, but also in the amount of money that gets spent on different types of initiatives. Chatbots offer, in theory, great wins by alleviating customer service agents’ workload and being available 24/7, but in real life they need lots of high quality data to be able to answer questions correctly and adequately. With all this in mind, it’s interesting that chatbots are so much more popular than image recognition for example, that can also be used in various ways from traffic management to wildlife detection and with a more specific goal in mind. This, in turn, means that the AI project is not going to be that difficult to integrate with existing processes and technologies. Finally the study highlights that many governments are struggling with data governance. As AI enjoys the hype, data governance is the key to unlocking the promised benefits of AI. This link is still not understood by most governments as the lack of investments and interest on the topic are very prevalent. You can read the full unpacking of the study by Sigrit on Digital Nation’s website: https://lnkd.in/gRrzyuaq

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) should always be designed with Public Private Partnerships in mind, be it creating an X-road type of data exchange or an e-ID. The public and private sector can combine resources and knowhow in order to scale and reach financial sustainability whilst operating these services. “Partnerships like these don’t happen out of the blue - they have to be designed into the process of building infrastructure, but nations often overlook this.” said Siim Sikkut in his keynote to the Global DPI Summit taking place in Cairo this week. Thank you to Co-Develop for inviting Digital Nation to share our insights and for bringing together key stakeholders from the public sector, private industry, and civil society. The Summit co-hosted by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Egypt, International Telecommunication Union, Co-Develop, United Nations and The World Bank aims to underscore the transformative impact of DPI on national and global scales by spotlighting the extraordinary progress countries are making in adopting and implementing DPI principles.

Development funding for digital government doesn’t work - this is what the freshly released United Nations E-Government Survey 2024 results show to us. The report highlights that the gap between digitally developed and digitally developing nations is growing. For example, 39% of countries have achieved the “very high” E-Government Development Index score, a noticeable growth. However, the recent leaps have come from the high-achievers getting ever higher in their progress, whilst those at the bottom half have not managed to break out of their group. “The 2024 E-Government Survey showcases a wider problem in international digital development - the need for actually effective funding schemes and technical assistance through development aid. Ones which support tangible development of capabilities in countries by involving the highest level of hands-on knowhow in the world, not just some consultants and classic IT project funding” commented Siim Sikkut, managing partner of Digital Nation. Report results display that leaps still can be done! Digital Nation commends our friends in Saudi Arabia and Ukraine - both of whom show a purposeful and steadfast commitment to developing their digital societies (shoutout to Ahmed Alsuwaiyan - أحمد الصويان (Digital Government Authority) and Mykhailo Fedorov (Diia, Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine). However, if we zoom in, their hard work has been self-financed - an opportunity really for richest of countries - or using external aid in novel ways. Siim also said: “Indexes like these never present the full picture of where countries actual stand with their digital services, due to methodological choices and data barriers. More than a concrete spot in the ranking it’s the relative progress in scores against last time and the grouping of countries that is worth attention. For example, we can be very proud that our own native #eEstonia is #2 this year (highest ever) - but in reality it does not matter if it is #2 or #8 or #15, the differences between countries are small there and everyone is excellent. If actual hard work and progress relative to before has happened with actual services and foundations of digital government, then score will reflect that. But the place in ranking should not be a goal in itself.” Thank you to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Vincenzo Aquaro for continuously leading the effort in quantifying the work nations are carrying out across the globe on digital government.