A record number of participants to take part in the e-Governance Conference this year

The sixth e-Governance Conference will be attended by more than 940 participants from 129 countries and territories. The conference will take place online from May 18 to May 21, on the web at egovconference.ee.

Participants are from all continents. The biggest number of participants outside of Estonia are from Ukraine, Japan, Brazil and Georgia.

According to Hannes Astok, Development Director of the e-Governance Academy, this year’s number of participating countries and participants exceeds previous conferences. “There are no restrictions on the number of participants for a web conference, so we can offer this experience to twice as many participants as usual.  We could say that the whole world is involved,” he noted.

“Restrictions on movement between countries provide a good opportunity to prove to those interested in e-governance around the world, that with e-services and the Internet no activities are hindered, including holding a conference.  With this, the conference will fasten Estonia’s leading position as an e-state and support digital transformation in the world,” Astok added.

The conference will feature 52 e-governance spokespersons and developers from 20 countries. The conference will be opened by the President of the Republic of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid. Keynote speakers include Amani Abou-Zeid, EU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Urmas Reinsalu, Estonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Rowan, Technology Trends and Business Innovation Expert, Alex Benay, former CIO of the Canadian Government, who took his country’s IT systems to the Public Cloud Service, and Siim Sikkut, Vice Chancellor of Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

This year’s conference topics focus on governments’ current challenges in helping their citizens organize their lives and businesses online. The conference days culminate in real-time interactive discussions that can be tracked in each time zone.

The e-Governance Conference is an annual event aimed at international digital development cooperation. It has been organised by the e-Governance Academy (eGA) in cooperation with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2015. This year’s conference is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish Government, the U-LEAD with Europe program, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the City of Tallinn, Intel, Google and Microsoft.

Last year, more than 400 participants from 110 countries participated in the conference held in Tallinn.