Kersti Kaljulaid: Pandemic has demonstrated necessity of digital solutions
In her remarks before participants from 134 countries attending an online e-governance conference hosted by Estonia on Tuesday, President Kersti Kaljulaid said that the coronavirus pandemic has proved the necessity of digital solutions for each country and each sector, which offer relief when it comes to movement restrictions during a quarantine period.
“Governments should change old rules and legislation to enable the permanent implementation of technologies hat have been shown to be efficient during the crisis, for instance, in remote learning, telemedicine and remote work,” Kaljulaid said, highlighting that the focus now must be on development after the crisis.
The Estonian head of state stressed that in order to maintain users’ trust in digital solutions, the implementation of new digital solutions must always go hand in hand with ensuring cybersecurity.
Canadian Minister of Digital Government Joyce Murray stressed in her presentation the need for openness and cooperation on a new level between countries to combat the pandemic. She described cooperation with Estonia and other digital nations as having been extremely important for Canada to develop open source digital solutions for better informing its citizens and in offering them safe online services.
The main speaker of the conference, technology trends and business innovation expert David Rowan, said that coronavirus has warranted the implementation of digital technologies on each level of society and the economy. He said that for the implementation of change, we need genuine innovation, which is expressed in the the way people and workers are treated, what the goal of a project is and how optimally the process of change is set out. It is also expressed in how we protect the people who dare to take big risks to bring forth change.
More than 1,000 participants from 134 countries and territories are taking part in the 6th e-Governance Conference hosted by the e-Governance Academy and the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that kicked off on Monday.
The highest numbers of participants from outside of Estonia come from Ukraine, Japan, Brazil, Georgia and Canada.
The conference, which takes place online from 18 – 21 May at egovconference.ee focuses on the current challenges of governments of helping their citizens organise their lives and businesses online.
The e-Governance Conference is an annual event in international digital development cooperation. The conference has been organized by the e-Governance Academy in cooperation with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2015. This year’s conference is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish Government, the U-LEAD with Europe program, the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the City of Tallinn, Intel, Google and Microsoft.
The news was published in the news.err.ee
