Telecommunication company Ericsson recently released an hour-long, documentary-style film called “Life in a networked society” about e-services in Estonia.
“Life in a networked society” looks into Estonia’s e-elections, e-taxes, e-school, e-medicine and other innovative solutions in public services which cut bureaucracy and costs.
The film includes conversations with decision-makers such as Minister of Economic Affairs and Communication Juhan Parts, IT Technology College associate professor and board member Linnar Viik, and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
Ilves recounts how the e-tax system came about: “Probably the first big thing was doing your tax return online. By the end of the 1990’s, 97-98 percent of people were filing their tax returns online. It’s so much easier because all your numbers are handy there. You don’t have to sit there and add things up. And this had an additional effect of dramatically increasing compliance. People paid their taxes more efficiently, which allowed us to actually reduce tax levels and suddenly the Estonian government found out that they had budget surpluses because more people were paying taxes.”
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Photos: VisitEstonia
A great video showing how Estonia and Estonian people are on the leading edge of this new technology. All of the applications are interesting, but the educational applications are a great resource for Estonian children.
Estonian leadership in this field shows the way for countries like Canada to accept the challenge to catch up to participate more fully in the e-society!
Thanks for showing it!
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Interesting choice for a thumbnail…
How come they all speak such good English? Estonia is a very interesting place – I have been watching the development of several excellent young musicians on YouTube – they are exceptional! There is also a young woman who has Estonian language lessons on YouTube which are very well done. It seems to be a place in which people are very enthusiastic about the future – Australia would do well to look at some of the things Estonia is doing – especially with technology!
don’t forget that the people in the video are all very educated people (see their occupations and titles). but in general – people in a small country with a small amount of native speakers worldwide are “pushed” to learn other languages. behaving otherwise would mean being unable to read the newest books, to use newest software, to access specialized content… 🙂
Operaatoritöö on väga hea!
Natuke nagu aktsendiga härra. Paremat pole valida?! 😀
Very good film, especially for foreigners who would like to know more about e-estonia.
Anja krasotka!:)
Dakaak: Härra käis MHG-s, väga tore minu arust, demonstreerib ausat head eesti inglise keelt!
Well, let’s be honest, they have horrible accents 😀 But that is true. Estonian education system makes us study at least two foreign languages in compulsory school program(which is until the end of primary school).
But visual part of the film – in the beginning showing like it’s usual to use iPads in schools….. No! Every school is not equipped with iPads, I’m not even sure if the smaller schools have lap tops in their computer classes. But it’s great that they have made a film like this one and in English because I still find people all over the Europe who think we are a small Russian tribe.
So funny to hear them talking, such a strong Estonian accent, but the film is good and the accent has to be there, otherwise it would not be true Estonian film.