Speakers

Andrus Ansip was appointed Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for the Digital Single Market in November 2014. Before moving to Brussels, he was a member of both the Estonian and European Parliaments. This followed almost nine years in Tallinn spent as Estonia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, when Ansip worked with both centre-right and centre-left parties to lead three different coalition governments. During his time as Prime Minister, he also acted as chairman of Estonia’s liberal Reform Party.

Ansip first entered national politics in September 2004 when he became Minister of the Economy. Up to this point, his career was spent in Estonia’s second largest city of Tartu where he was born in 1956.
Ansip was Mayor of Tartu for six years after working in banking and business. A chemistry graduate from the city’s university, Andrus Ansip is married with three children.

2014 – present:     European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market

2014:                      Member of the European Parliament, Vice-President for the ALDE group

2005 – 2014:         Prime Minister of Estonia

Fabrizio Hochschild of Chile served most recently as Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). He previously served as Deputy to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for the Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.  From 2013 to 2016, he was the UN Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Colombia. From 2010 to 2012, he served as the Director of the Field Personnel Division in the United Nations Department of Field Support, New York; and from 2005 to 2009, as Chief of Field Operations and Technical Cooperation in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Geneva.

Mr. Hochschild began his United Nations career in 1988 with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sudan.  He served in subsequent postings with UNHCR, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and in peacekeeping.  He was posted in Jerusalem (1990-1991), in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991-1992), in Geneva (1993-1996), in New York (1998-1999), in Timor-Leste (2000), in Serbia (2001-2003) and in the United Republic of Tanzania (2003-2005), and undertook shorter missions in Afghanistan, Albania, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and South Sudan.

A graduate of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, he has published studies and articles on leadership, on the protection of civilians, on transitional justice and reconciliation among other topics.

Mrs. Evelyna Wever-Croes, LL.M. is the current Prime Minister and Minister of General Affairs, Integrity, Energy, Innovation, and Government Organization for the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. During the last general election, Mrs. Wever-Croes’ party MEP obtained nine seats. Subsequently, she formed a coalition with the POR and RED parties. Aside from forming the first coalition government in over 20 years, she made history by being the first female Prime Minister of Aruba. After assuming the role of Prime Minister of Aruba, the big innovation gap and its impact on the Aruban economy became apparent.

Therefore, the vision of Aruba’s new Government is to achieve socio-economic resilience by accelerating the innovation capacity of the island through a human-centered approach, putting the Aruba people at heart of all policies. She is leading the national Digital Transformation agenda that will guide the Aruba Government to become a data-driven, pro-active, citizen experience-oriented institution of the future. A fierce advocate for integrity in governance, Mrs. Wever-Croes is also in the process of establishing an Integrity Bureau for the Government of Aruba.

The Integrity Bureau’s purpose is to safeguard integrity and establish good governance practices throughout government departments and state-owned companies. With much love and commitment, the Prime Minister’s ambition is to create better opportunities for all citizens and build a solid foundation for the younger generations that will have the task to carry Aruba into an uncertain future and rapidly changing world. She believes taking a human-centered approach to policy-making combined with significant investment in innovation is the only way to help build a more sustainable future for generations to come. She is an advocate for social (purpose-driven) innovation and for women in innovation and STEM. She believes in empowering women specially to reduce the gender gap in leadership roles.

Before assuming the role of Prime Minister of Aruba, she obtained a Bachelor of Law degree at the University of the Netherlands Antilles in 1986. She then moved to the Netherlands to pursue her master’s degree at the University of Leiden, specializing in tax law. Upon her return to Aruba in 1989, Mrs. Wever-Croes began her career as a tax agent at the Aruba government tax department. She served as head of the Aruba tax department since 1994 for ten years. In 2004, after a successful and fulfilling career in the public sector, Mrs. Wever-Croes took on a new challenge as a tax lawyer at the Croes Wever Tchong law firm leading many local and international corporate tax cases.

In 2009, she was approached by the leader of the political party MEP to become an official candidate for the party. After the 2009 general elections, she was sworn in as a member of parliament. In 2011, she was elected as the leader of the MEP party. After eight years serving as a member of the Aruban parliament, she was sworn in on November 17, 2017, as the first female Prime Minister of Aruba. Mrs. Evelyna Wever-Croes is devoted to her family, she is married and a mother of three children. More recently she became a proud grandmother of a baby boy. Additionally, Mrs. Wever-Croes is very passionate about giving back to her community and has served as a member of the civic organization Quota International, where she served as president of the Aruba board from 2009-2010.

Ms. Paula Ingabire is a Rwandan technology enthusiast and politician, who currently serves as the Minister of ICT and Innovation of Rwanda. Before her current appointment She was Head of the Kigali Innovation City initiative and the former Head of ICT at the Rwanda Development Board. She is part of Girls in ICT Rwanda and has also been at the helm of Transform Africa, a platform that brings together innovators and policy makers across Africa to shape Africa’s digital transformation agenda. She was a Systems Design & Management Fellow at MIT.

Hakob Arshakyan is the Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of the Republic of Armenia.

Being an active role player in socio-political life of Armenia, Hakob Arshakyan was tasked with the key mission to lead Armenia’s Technological Revolution after the Velvet Revolution in the country in 2018. One of the realized aspirations of the Minister is the transformation of the RA Ministry of Transport, Communication and IT to RA Ministry of Hi-Tech Industry with the view of having concentrated action on Armenia Digital Transformation Agenda, including promoting adoption and integration of digital disruptive technologies in economic sectors, as well as spurring the Armenian engineering and start-up ecosystem.

Hakob Arshakyan holds Master’s degree in Computer Systems from Armenian National Polytechnic University. His professional career has commenced in National Instruments, a multinational engineering company, where he has been leading a Regional Partner Program in the Emerging Markets, such as India, Russia and CIS, the Arab countries and Africa.

Capitalizing on this experience, Hakob Arshakyan successfully founded also his engineering and database acceleration start-ups, where he leaded the business and market development domains.

Hakob Arshakyan Chairs the State Award for Global Contribution to Humanity through IT.

Yogida Sawmynaden is, at 43 years old, one of the youngest ministers of the Republic of Mauritius. He has been in politics since his election as Councillor for the Municipality of Beau-Bassin/Rose-Hill in 2001. Two years later, he became deputy mayor.

In December 2014, elected as Member of Parliament for constituency No8 (Quartier Militaire/Moka), he integrated the government of Sir Anerood Jugnauth as Minister of Youth & Sports. He brought a new impetus to that ministry and yielded results very quickly, notably in 2015, with best-ever performances of Mauritius at Jeux des Iles (Indian Ocean Island Games) and Jeux d’Afrique.

Following the accession of Honorable Pravind Jugnauth to the post of Prime Minister on 24^th January 2017, Yogida Sawmynaden was given new responsibilities, notably the portfolio of Technology, Communication and Innovation.

After his tertiary studies in England and France, Yogida Sawmynaden came back to Mauritius and worked as management consultant. He has got a BA (Hons) in Accounting & Law and a Masters in Business Administration (UK). He also has a Diplome en Management International from renowned Ecole Supérieur de Commerce de Poitiers (France). With his entrepreneurial flair, he engaged himself in the import-export sector.

• Minister of State for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh since January 2014.
• Member of Parliament (National Assembly of Bangladesh) since January 2009.
• Chairperson of the Advisory Board, AIESEC Bangladesh Chapter.
• Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on ICT Ministry since 2009.
• President, Bangladesh Carom Federation since 2009 and Vice-President, International Carom Federation since 2011.
• Co-Chair, Parliamentary Committee on Climate Change from 2009 to 2013.

Mr. Talabani took office during an immensely difficult time. Receiving no fiscal transfers from the federal government of Iraq, coupled with rapidly declining oil prices, Kurdistan was in the midst of a severe financial crisis.
Moreover, the Islamic State was rampaging its way throughout Iraq claiming more territory resulting in a major humanitarian crisis forcing 1.8 million people to flee war and violence to seek refuge in the Kurdistan region.
During this period, Deputy Prime Minister Talabani has successfully oversaw the KRG’s economic reform plan.

A major part of this plan was improving oversight of government expenditures. To that end he successfully oversaw the design and implementation of the government’s biometric registration program. This program aims to eliminate ghost employees and eventually to right-size the government. He also launched the governments Services Program aimed at streamlining government services and citizens interactions with the government.

These initiatives are a result of Mr. Talabani’s clear vision for reforming the government to deliver better Services and create a thriving economy.

Previously, during the KRG’s seventh Cabinet, Mr. Talabani established and headed the Department of Coordination and Follow-up to facilitate inter-ministerial coordination and ensure that decrees are effectively implemented.

Prior to his return to the Kurdistan region, Mr. Talabani was the KRG representative in Washington from 2006. During this time, Mr. Talabani expanded the office into a quasi-embassy with various institutionalized departments and divisions.

Côme Berbain is French State Chief Technology Officer.  He has 15 years of experience in public and private sector on the topics of cybersecurity and digital transformation.

He has advised the State Secretary for Digital. Previously he served at ANSSI, the French national authority for cybersecurity as deputy head of the Expertise department and in the ministry of Defence. He also worked at Orange Labs on the security of 4G and at Trusted Logic, a small company specialised in smartcards.

He holds an engineering degree and a PhD in Cryptography.

Prior to that Mr Koné was Advisor to the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire for Digital Transformation and Public Reforms, also served as Advisor to the President from 2011-2017. Mr Koné has over 25 years of experience in technical and managerial positions in the technology industry, including with Booz Allen Hamilton and Intelsat, and has expertise in telecommunications, IT, satellites, and intelligent transport systems. Mr Koné earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Ajman University in the United Arab Emirates, a master’s degree from Brunel University in the United Kingdom, and an MBA at George Washington University in USA.

Liselotte Lyngsø is Managing Partner of the innovation and futurist company Future Navigator. Prior to that, she was Director at Fahrenheit 212 an ideas company owned by Saatchi. For 8 years she worked as Director of Research at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Since 2002, she has been a member of the Foresight editorial board in the EU (predicting Brexit back in 1996!) and she is a founding member of the Global Future Forum. Furthermore she is a futurist advisor at the Lifeboat Foundation and the 2018 NMC Technology Outlook. Liselotte works extensively with scenarios for the future, innovation, technologies and megatrends that have consequences for the way we think, work, feel and behave. She is in great demand as a keynote speaker all over the world as well as consulting for several global organizations like OSM, IKEA, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Ramboll, and NovoNordisk.

Born in Denmark, she has an M.Phil. in Economics and Politics from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, UK. Liselotte speaks Scandinavian, English and French.

Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi is Co-investigator & Head of Digital Planet — an interdisciplinary research initiative dedicated to understanding the impact of digital innovation on the world and providing actionable insights for policymakers, businesses, investors, and innovators  — at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Their research is widely cited around the world; hundreds of mainstream media articles and references in over 30 global languages. Ravi has written many influential articles in business and international affairs journals. He is the co-author of the third most read Harvard Business Review article in 2015, “Where the Digital Economy is Moving the Fastest.” His research interests are in the thematic areas of the global digital economy, inclusive growth, and technology for good.

Ravi has extensive experience in emerging and frontier markets, strategy and business management, and the payments industry. He served as a Member of the Advisory Group for the Estonian Government’s e-Residency. Prior to Fletcher, Ravi was the Head of Portfolio and Products for the Middle East and North Africa region at American Express. He also worked in various capacities in parts of Asia for a decade with organizations such as Standard Chartered, HSBC, and Hewlett Packard. Currently a Doctoral Research Fellow for Innovation and Change at Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context, he also holds the MIB degree from Fletcher, where he was an Emerging Markets Enterprise Scholar, and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management.

Kevin O’Neil is Associate Director for Data and Technology at The Rockefeller Foundation, where he leads the Foundation’s digital government research and grantmaking. He is also a member of the Foundation’s data science team. His team’s current projects and interests include capacity-building for government digital transformation in Africa, data governance, digital transformation of public safety nets in the United States, and government-led open source software development.

Kevin previously led a Rockefeller Foundation team that researched and developed new Foundation initiatives and informed strategic decision-making across the Foundation’s portfolio. Kevin has been a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town, a fellow of the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, and a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, and served as a firefighter on four continents. He holds a PhD in Public Affairs from Princeton University and a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College. 

Shauneen Furlong is a researcher and professor who teaches in the MBA program with the University of Ottawa, Canada. Over the last decade, she has presented and worked in the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Egypt, China, Canada, Morocco, Washington and Turkey, and with the United Nations, World Bank and Conference Board of Canada.

Shauneen was an executive with the Government of Canada for over 20 years, lastly as Executive Director General, Government On-Line, Government of Canada. She was nominated by IT World Canada as being one of Canada’s key eGovernment drivers, and was profiled by Computer World Canada.

Dr. Furlong has published peer reviewed papers for international journals, and participates on a number of peer review journal editorial boards. She was awarded an IBM Fellowship; has a Ph.D. in Computer Science; an MBA in Project Management; and is a Project Manager Professional (PMP).

Senior Research Fellow Dr. Erkki Karo is the Director of the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance. He has received BA from the University of Tartu and PhD from the Tallinn University of Technology. In 2015-2016 Dr. Karo was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan. He has also been a visiting PhD research student at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, University College London and University of Iceland. Previously he has worked at the University of Tartu. He teaches basic and introductory courses on public administration and public management both in the Technology Governance and public administration curricula. His research focuses on governance and public management of research and innovation policies in both developing and developed economies. He has worked on policy-related projects both for the local government and central government institutions in Estonia on different innovation policy issues (cluster policy, open innovation and innovation policy, innovation policy strategies and its’ governance). He is a co-organizer of the permanent study group on Public Administration, Technology & Innovation at the European Group for Public Administration (www.ttu.ee/pati). He was a principal researcher in the Research and Innovation Policy Monitoring Programme and coordinator of the ETF grant Institutions and economic development in East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.

Robert Krimmer is Full Professor of e-Governance within Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance within the School of Business and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia. His research is focused on electronic participation and democracy, as well as e-voting, the transformation of the public sector, and all issues further developing a digital society. He is Associate Editor of the international scientific journal Government Information Quarterly (GIQ), where he is in charge of participation issues. He coordinates CoDE (Costs of Democratic Elections) a research project researching complexities of multi-channel elections, including their costs.

General Secretary for Finnish Public Sector Digital Security Management Board (VAHTI), Chief Special Expert at Population Register Centre, 1.1.2020- Finnish Digital Agency, CISSP, CISM

The Ministry of Finance is responsible for developing information security in public administration in general and for steering information security in central government. Public sector digital security management board (VAHTI) was appointed by the Ministry to serve as the cooperation, drafting and coordination body for the organisations responsible for developing and steering digital security in public administration. Kimmo Rousku has been working as VAHTI expert since 2004 and as General Secretary since 2015.

He has worked in ICT sector since 1985 and he has exceptionally wide range of expertise in ICT and security. He has work experience as CIO, CISO and CRO in the Finnish government administration. Over the last 10 years he has specialized in developing information, digital and cyber security, risk management and data protection and developing and utilizing the potential of digitalization to public sector. He has co-authored over 20 books, two of his latest books are related to information security and cyber security. Kimmo was nominated as the Chief Information Security Officer of the year 2015 by The Association of Information Security in Finland, he has been listed as TOP 100 ICT influencer by Finnish TiVi Magazine yearly since 2011.

Mr. Mägi has served as Director General of Statistics Estonia since April 2017. He earned MBAs from the University of Tartu and University of Banking and Insurance in Warsaw in 2004.

Mr. Mägi worked for over 10 years in the field of insurance and banking as CEO at Swedbank Estonia Asset Based Financing and P&C Insurance and as CEO at CEE unit of Sampo plc. He has over 12 years of experience in leading service organisations in Estonia as CEO at PriceWaterhouseCoopers Advisors Estonia, CEO at Amserv Grupi AS (largest car retailer in the Baltics) and CEO at Südameapteek (a top 3 pharmacy group in the Baltics).

Mr. Mägi is a council member of different organisations and Chairman of Council of the University of Tartu Foundation.

Natalia Aristimuño Pérez is responsible for the Interoperability unit in the Directorate-General of Informatics in the European Commission since March 2017. The main purpose being to support the ISA² programme, which provides interoperability solutions for public administrations, businesses and citizens.

Before she was the head of the units delivering solutions on human resources, decision making, document management and knowledge management domains. Since she joined the European Commission in 2000, she has always been involved in providing solutions making users’ life easier and public administrations (including the European Commission) more efficient.

Luukas is a member of the Advisory Board of the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based thinktank where he previously served as deputy director and senior fellow. Luukas is also Head of Strategy at Guardtime, the world’s leading blockchain and digital integrity company.

Luukas is a recognized expert in digitsation in the EU and developing countries (with a focus on e-government, AI, cybersecurity, and telecoms and data regulatory policy). He also chairs the Council of Europe’s expert group on the ethics and human rights dimensions of AI.

Luukas previously comes from a career in government service, during which he held positions at the European Commission and in the Estonian Government, including overseeing the immensely successful priority digital dossier of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2017. Luukas is a graduate of Stanford University.

Arnaud de La Chapelle joined VFS Global in 2018 as Executive Board Member and Head of the Identity & Citizen Services vertical.

VFS Global is the world’s largest government services outsourcing specialist, managing visa, passport, identity and citizen services for 63 governments in 144 countries across 5 continents.

Prior to joining VFS Global, Arnaud spent 14 years working at Idemia, a global leader in Identity and Security, where he held senior leadership positions, namely President of Russia, Middle-East and Africa, and prior to this, Managing Director of the Solution Business Unit. Earlier, he served as Director, Business Development EMEA of Openwave, the US start-up which invented mobile internet. Prior he had worked for BT Group of UK and as Consultant in Strategy in Bossard Consultants, which is now a part of Cap Gemini.

Arnaud holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Stirling, Scotland, and a Master of Science in Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France.

Cigdem Ertem started her career working in IT departments of Public Sector organizations, after graduating from Middle East Technical University Computer Engineering Department. She worked at various positions mostly focusing on systems analysis, software development and IT procurement evaluation/selection area. Then she received her MBA degree and continued her career managing turn key solutions development and sales groups in various ISVs/SIs serving Public Sector (e-government projects, ERP systems, outsourcing contracts for utilities, building web services for government procurement bodies and mobile information systems), Healthcare (HIS, PACS) and other enteprise customers (ERP systems for Utilities). She joined Intel 14 years ago. And she managed field sales teams in Middle East,Turkey and Africa (META) for 12 years. Ertem was responsible from driving sales strategies for growing Intel business for 67 countries when she was serving as the GM for META. She supported  many country/continent wide initiatives and many Education and Government transformation projects during her tenure in META. In 2017, Ertem moved to headquarters and focused on enabling partners with GTM programs and also developing scaling capabilities for partners. She is managing Public Sector Sales Globally for Client Computing Group at Intel since beginning of 2019

Ertem used to play basketball during her education and was a member of Turkish National Basketball Team until she had to quit sports because of an injury. Ertem’s basketball career includes a Silver medal in Mediterranean Games and Turkish Women’s Basketball League championship for two consequent years. Ertem is married and has 3 children.

Vivian Loonela is a member of the Cabinet of Andrus Ansip, European Commission’s Vice-President for the Digital Single Market. The focus of her work is on cybersecurity, Digital Single Market outreach to third countries, as well as foreign and security policy and defence issues. Previously, she was heading the sector for international data protection issues at the European Commission, working on the negotiations with the US on Privacy Shield/Safe Harbour.  She has also worked at the Secretariat-General of the European Commission on economic governance and rule of law issues, and at DG Justice and Home Affairs, where she covered transatlantic relations and counter-terrorism. Until 2005, Vivian was a diplomat for Estonia, including a posting at the Permanent Representation of Estonia to NATO 2001-2004. She has graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tartu.

Toomas Sepp has worked as the administrative leader of Tallinn City Office since 1992 and has been actively involved in the process of administrative reform of local government in both in Estonia and Tallinn since then. He has also been the main initiator and spokesman of e-services and e-governance projects in Tallinn City Administration.

Graduating as a lawyer from Tartu State University (1983), Mr. Sepp started his public service career in the Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities and the State Chancellery of Estonia. Parallel to his present employment as a City Secretary of Tallinn, Mr. Sepp has studied civil law and participated in a number of seminars on local government issues in Estonia and abroad.

For the last two decades Nicolai has been working with IT and digitalisation in the Faroe Islands, both in private and public sector. For the first five years as a system developer at a local software house, and for the last 15 years with IT and digitalisation leadership and management in health care and in central public IT organisation.

He is currently leading the National Digitalisation Program. The Program started in early 2015, when the Government of the Faroe Islands decided to make its first National Digitalisation Strategy. The Government is considering Digitalisation as one of the Key Enablers in Modernisation and sustaining the Welfare in the Faroese Society. The Faroe Islands are facing the same Demographic Challenges as many other Western European countries, and on top of that are also challenged by depopulation. The goals for the Digitalisation is to make the Public Sector more efficient, to give the Industry and the Citizens better and more efficient services, to create more Jobs in especially the IT business, and to make it more attractive for people abroad (especially Faroese Students) to move back and settle down in the Faroe Islands.

Martrin Männil is ​the CIO of the City of Tallinn since July 2018. He holds a​n IT systems development and business administration degrees from Tallinn University of Technology.

Martin has more than 15 years of experience with ERP systems in City of Tallinn and has acted as project manager, analyst and developer in tens of digital transformation and process automation projects. For the 10 years he acted as a Head of ERP department in City of Tallinn.

Martin is a member of Council of Global City CIOs EU and was a member of MoF-s e-invoices workgroup.

Agnes has more than 25 years of experience in the IT field. For more than 20 years, she worked in the banking sector, contributing to the development of various information systems and products. In banking, Agnes also gained a strong international experience. For the past 6 years, Agnes has been managing the business and information technology department in Eesti Energia, where the main focus is on digitalisation and providing smart energy solutions to our clients.

Marko Turpeinen is the Finnish Node Director of EIT Digital, a Knowledge an Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Aalto University. He was previously a Professor in Media Technology at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm in 2006-2012. He has extensive industrial experience from the media industry, as between 1996 and 2005 he worked in various executive positions at Alma Media Corporation, a Finnish media company. His current academic research addresses issues in customized media content, human-centric approach to personal data, and the role of AI and algorithmic power in networked society. He has a Doctor of Technology Degree in Computer Science from Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University) and a Master of Science Degree in Media Arts and Sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Peeter Ross is a professor in eHealth and head of eMedLab in Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), Estonia. He also holds radiologists position in East Tallinn Central Hospital and is a consultant in The World Bank. He is a founder of radiology and eHealth consulting company SMIS International. Dr. Ross has previously been a member of the supervisory board of the Estonian E-Health Foundation and Estonian Health Insurance Fund.

Peeter is responsible for research and education of healthcare innovation and use of digital applications in health domain. He has participated actively in design and implementation of Estonian nation-wide Electronic Health Record. He is a consultant in the World Bank of national large scale eHealth projects and has been involved in several EU funded eHealth projects. Peeter is a member of Estonian and European Societies of Radiology.

Minerva Novero-Belec is a Policy Specialist in UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) based in New York. Her experience and expertise center on shaping and supporting efforts that advance inclusive governance and poverty eradication, with a focus on strategic policies and innovative use of new technologies in transforming societies and economies for sustainable development.

She manages the Estonia-UNDP Cooperation on Digital Transformation as Sustainable Development Pathway, which was launched in September 2018 by the President of Estonia with the Administrator of UNDP during the 73^rd UN General Assembly in New York.

As Policy Specialist for SDG16 and SDG Localization, she manages a portfolio that serves as central node for SDG efforts and includes co-focal point role for urbanization, which explores among others policies and strategies on “smart” technologies for addressing challenges in today’s cities and for building cities envisioned in the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda. She leads the digital transformation pillar of UNDP’s City2City programme, which supports the SDGs for cities and explores the impact of frontier technologies in the future of cities. As Policy Specialist for ICT for Development, e-Governance and Access to Information in UNDP previously, she managed a portfolio that continues in current post: as focal-point for UNDP’s role in the Broadband Commission, and UNDP’s permanent vice-chairmanship of the UN Group on Information Society (UNGIS).

Before joining UNDP, she was the Director for Policy, Communications and University Training/Information Programmes at New York University. She Holds a degree in Mass Communications from the University of the Philippines and a master’s degree in International Affairs with a focus on economic and political development from Columbia University in New York.

Tak Nagumo is the Managing Executive Officer at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, Co. Ltd., one of the premier think tank/consulting firms in Japan.  Tak is responsible for promoting digital government and smart cities at national local levels in Japan from research and consulting capacity.

Tak also serves as a Visiting Professor of Kyoto University and a Research Fellow at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence Center.

Tak has two master’s degrees, MBA from Georgetown University and MSc in Development Finance from University of London, SOAS.  Tak has LL.B in Political Science from Keio University, Tokyo. Tak also served as a Professional Fellow at Columbia University.

Doris Põld has been working as ICT Cluster manager in Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications for more than 8 years. She leads the collaboration and knowledge sharing between ICT companies in Estonia, supports companies internationalization and implementation of innovation projects.  Together with cluster partners Doris works with e-governance, industry digitalization and intelligent transport system topics.

The Estonian ICT cluster is a collaboration platform for Estonian ICT sector enterprises. Our main aim is to help countries and organisations build world-class digital societies. Our ability to simultaneously improve policy, organizational processes and technology sets us apart. Estonian IT companies operate on a one-stop shop logic, offering strategic consulting, change management, and IT development for creating reliable e-solutions.

Lembit has worked in ICT sector for a long time. Currently, he is EMEA director in Net Group. Net Group is a new generation software development and consultancy firm. Our goal is to boost efficiency and lower costs through excellent software solutions. We do not consider ourselves as purely programmers, but rather as consultants. Our aim is to understand your business, analyse the needs and provide the most suitable and profitable solutions.

Rait Raal is the Business Development Director in Reach-U, a technology company which is one of the biggest European Location Based Solutions provider. His role is to introduce innovation, e-Government solutions and latest technologies to African countries through co-innovation and capacity building. Rait is one of the authors of the very first Estonian e-Health Strategy.

During his more than 20 years career in the IT industry, Rait has been involved in vast different e-Government projects of Estonia including e-Health, e-Voting, Mobile Payments, Digital Signatures, and Secure Inter-Organisational Communication. His current interests are combining Visual and Location Intelligence with machine learning to support countries to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

Rait Raal has graduated Tartu University specializing in International Economics and Economic Theory and is the father of three kids.

Arne Ansper earned his MSc in System Engineering from Tallinn University of Technology in 2001. He joined Cybernetica (Institute of Cybernetics of Estonian Academy of Sciences back then) in 1994 and has designed and built many security-critical distributed systems, specializing in e-government systems. Arne designed the architecture of the X-Road – a secure communication layer to connect Estonian governmental institutions. The founding principles of X-Road were first described in his MSc thesis and later refined and implemented in X-Road, which is by far considered the most successful e-Government project in Estonia.

Hannes Astok is an enthusiastic speaker for the information society, especially promoting the role of local governments and challenges of mobile governance and new technologies in government.

Hannes is Deputy Director for Strategy and Development at the e-Governance Academy. As a senior expert, he provides training and consultancy for governments in Central Asia, Caucasus, South-East Europe, Middle East, Africa and other transition regions. During the last years, he has been working closely with the governments of Ukraine, Namibia, Moldova, Palestine, Georgia, and Mauritius, among others.

Hannes served as Member of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) in 2007-2011, where he mainly dealt with the development of information society and issues related to regulation of intellectual property and electronic communication. Prior to that, in 1997-2005 Hannes worked for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor. Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing its citizens and businesses with a wide variety of Internet and mobile services.

In 2012-13, Hannes was Adviser to the President of Estonia on Information Society development.

He started his political career in Tartu, working for the decade for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor.  Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing for citizens and businesses wide variety of Internet and mobile phone based services.

Hannes holds a journalism and public relations degree from Tartu University.

Hannes speaks Estonian, English, Russian and Finnish.

Kristina Reinsalu is Programme Director of e-Democracy at the e-Governance Academy. She has been involved in several local and international research and implementation projects related to open governance and the use of ICT in implementing its principles, focusing on e-participation and its implementation at the local level. She was also researcher and lecturer on social communication at the Institute of Media and Communication at the University of Tartu.

Kristina’s latest projects include promoting open governance in countries such as Estonia, Georgia and Moldova, consulting the City of Tartu on participatory budgeting, and working on the “Electoral Compass” produced for Estonia’s parliamentary elections. In addition, she has contributed to several publications, e.g. the “Situation Review on e-Democracy and Cyber Security in Eastern Partnership Countries.

Kristina holds an MA in Public Relations and a PhD in Media and Communications. Her articles have been published in various international scientific journals and newspapers.

Kristina speaks Estonian, English, Spanish, German and Russian.

Epp Maaten is Programme Director of National Cyber Security at the e-Governance Academy.

Epp Maaten has 20 years of experience from Estonian public sector institutions. She worked as Advisor and Deputy Head of the Electronic Voting Committee.

She has advised the President of Estonia and the Chancellor of Justice on information society related matters. Previously Epp served at Estonian Information System Authority and managed governmental policy and projects concerning critical infrastructure protection and IT risk management. Epp has been also auditor at Eesti Energia and National Audit Office. Until 2007, she coordinated the IT projects of the National Electoral Committee, including Internet voting.

She is a certified IT auditor (CISA) and graduated from the IT College of Tallinn University of Technology as an IT systems administrator and reached a master degree in public administration.

Epp speaks Estonian, English and German.

Mari Pedak joined the e-Governance Academy in September 2012. As a senior expert she is charged with the tasks of planning and implementing e-government and e-identity programme activities, participating in related international projects and consulting in the fields of e-government and e-identity in many countries and on many international programmes.

Previously she was a leading civil servant in the Estonian government for 22 years, including as Director General of the Citizenship and Migration Board for many years. Under her leadership and participation Estonia’s identity and authentication policies were developed and a digital identity card was introduced in 2002. In 2007 the consolidation of the ICT services of the Ministry of the Interior was carried out and the largest ICT authority in the Estonian public sector , the ICT and Development Centre of the Ministry of the Interior  was created under her leadership.

Marit Lani develops and manages international cooperation projects at the e-Governance Academy. She has been involved in creating national digital governance roadmaps and implementing interoperability frameworks. She also manages the National Cyber Security Index database and coordinates communication with stakeholders.

In addition, she is responsible for the coordination of the quality management system (ISO 9001:2015) and the implementation of the document management system at eGA.

In her previous jobs, she gained a comprehensive understanding of European cooperation programmes. Working at the Ministry of the Interior, she was involved in preparing various European territorial cooperation programmes at the national level and was in charge of the related communication activities. Afterwards, she moved to Germany to work for the INTERREG IVC programme as an information point coordinator, providing advice to applicants on project development, assessing applications and monitoring approved projects. She also coordinated the e-government services project cluster and implemented the programme’s communication strategy.

Marit holds a Master‘s degree in Public Management from the University of Tartu.

Marit speaks Estonian, English and Finnish as well as some German and French.