Not so e-Estonia after all
Estonia is a small country by the Baltic Sea known by its so called techiness — where Skype was born, were first online elections took place, where people sign digitally over a decade.
Regardless of its once gained stereotype, Estonia has lost its edge.
Latest proof — 98 000 EUR spent on a parliament’s website www.riigikogu.ee is not only poor in design but doesn’t take into consideration even certain aspects that are required by law including option for people with disabilities to feel more comfortable in accessing information. Not less important is that the website doesn’t support mobile menu — like seriously; its 2015 and people are more mobile than ever.
Coming to think that all those brains who once helped Estonia pioneer in tech and think like an advanced digital society member — are now gone. Startups all over the world welcome them open handedly and reward them nicely.
So who is left to do the job in Estonia? The most creative and forward thinking talents are either freelancers or small companies — they work passionately and have time to innovate and experiment. Unfortunately, they are not in the loop — because of certain tender’s criteria a company that is willing to provide services for government has to have a certain amount of period of existence, certain amount annual revenue and so on. That was maybe great 10–15 years ago, but today most of Google and Facebook-like developers learn more in one WDC conference than in a year.
So where does it leave governments to source work from? From big corporations that stopped innovating and use the same techniques in programming like 5–10 years ago, and only maybe, catch up on design.
To me, that sounds sad — a small country which should be able to implement any changes of that sort sooner than any other country thanks to its compact nature. But we don’t even have a proper IT minister who overlooks major government developments and engages in ther course of progress.
Current situation is in general less satisfying than it could be — once you see finance minister becoming education minister who once insulted previous education minister you got to ask yourself — what kind of country we live in? I mean education minister should only be someone who wanted to be in the field of education, genuinely cares about education policies and what’s best for youth and everyone affected — not a person getting this job position just because he’s “in politics in a correct party”.
That said, information technology just happens to be the field that can be transformed with less time than any other field — good architects and talented developed are waiting for challenges that are not coming their way.
I hope to see this little country picking up where it once left itself at and get back on the right track — because continuing like that will not only disappoint, it will leave a mark as a country with inconsistent technological approach that doesn’t have a place in a modern technology driven society.
