IT Secretary Kotka: Critics Should Look More at Private Sector's Achievements
People who claim Estonia's IT "tiger" is asleep are forgetting the progress the private sector has made, said Taavi Kotka, former IT executive and current undersecretary at the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The IT sector employs 3.8 percent of the nation’s workforce and makes up 9 percent of GDP, Kotka added.
Kotka, a former CEO of Webmedia, added that the startup culture in Estonia began in 2007 and 2008, but has already given birth to companies like Creative Mobile, Fortumo, Transferwire, GradCAD and ZeroTurnaround.
He added that the combined market value of the five companies equals the value of Tallinn Kaubamaja group, which operates department stores.
Too much talk centers on problems with the ID-card or other countries' e-services, Kotka said, instead of focusnig on development of the whole sector.
By 2020 the number of IT personnel could be 50,000 instead of the current 25,000 and IT would become the nation’s main economic sector.
“If we achieve that, that’s the next tiger's leap. And in the course of the development, e-services will also improve,” added Kotka.
Kotkas comments come after the government's e-services came under criticism from Ivar Tallo, a board member of the E-Governance Academy.
"Over half of the population uses digital identity in their everyday affairs," Tallo told uudised.err.ee on "E-Day," Tuesday, a celebration of online public services. "Yet the development of the services themselves is stalled and there is no field-by-field approach. Many good initiatives are not actually yet in mass use, such as the digital patient history. I'm not satisfied with the pace."
Tallo added that he wanted to see more use of mobile apps and that the e-voting architecture would be used in other walks of life besides national elections, such as voting 'yes' for approving a report or electing a corporate representative.