Many countries nowadays still seem like they are living in the past century, but one of the exceptions lies in a small part of Northern Europe. Estonia or, fancier, e-Estonia, is the place where digital blends with medieval.
The country with the capital at Tallinn has evolved in one of the most advanced digital societies since the start of the 20th century. And that is something we shouldn't overlook as Estonians have been under Soviet influence until 1991.
However, it is hard to think that a country with just over a million citizens can become so digitalized. A whopping 99% of the public services are offered online in Estonia. Bureaucracy is almost out of the picture, people can vote online, you can establish a company in under 30 minutes and much more. Everything works smoothly. Dreamy, isn't it?
Listen to our audio story and hear what we found out from Florian Marcus at the e-Estonia Showroom in Tallinn and from Ingrid Kressler, the Estonian ambassador in Romania. Chances are you'll want to pack your bags and head north straight away.
"In Estonia, you can't buy a house, get married or divorced online, but you can do pretty much everything else using just a simple internet connection. After all, Estonia is one of the world's most digitally advanced states and is the first country which held elections over the internet. To find out more, I headed into the e-Estonia showroom, the place where all the digital magic is explained (opening door)...
The showroom looked clean, minimalist, and a few gadgets here and there grabbed everyone's attention. I stopped my eyes over some tiny robots. There wasn't too much about them. They could detect and move, sing and dance, nothing out of the common. What's amazing is that hundreds of them... " — listen the audio for the rest of the story.
