8 Estonia facts that explain why the country is several steps ahead of the rest

Estonia is a Baltic country with a population of just 1.3 million people. But despite this, it can be considered one of the most innovative in the world. For example, to participate in the elections, it is enough to enter a page on the Internet using an electronic identification card. Children, in turn, begin to study programming in primary school.

O awesome.club will tell you why Estonia can be considered a true country of the future.

In Estonia, since 2012 there has been a pilot project to teach programming to students from 1st to 12th grade. 20 teaching institutions participate in this program. From elementary school, children learn the fundamentals of logic and algorithms and to program with Scratch.

Since 2002, electronic passports have been issued in Estonia. It is a card that certifies the identity of the owner in two spaces: real and digital. On the integrated chip, information about the citizen is noted, in addition to the card containing a digital signature, which by law is the same as the common one. Other documents can be stored on the card and, if the person is not traveling outside the European Union, it is used as a passport.

Since the 2005 municipal elections, Estonians have been able to vote over the Internet, confirming their identity through a digital signature of their identity card. The country was the first to implement electronic voting in the 2007 parliamentary elections. In the 2014 European Parliament elections, 31% of Estonian voters voted using this system.

In 2013, Tallinn became the first city in the world to provide free public transport. for all residents. The capital’s authorities decided to change citizens’ transport habits and transfer them from cars to buses and trolleybuses. Before the cancellation of the transport tariff, a referendum was held in the city, in which 3/4 of the city’s residents voted to travel by public transport for free. A year later, Tallinn authorities said the program had caused a decrease in traffic on the city’s main streets.

According to the most recent data, Estonia ranks third in number of startups in Europe: 31 emerging companies per 100,000 inhabitants.

The country has created favorable conditions for new companies. Registering a start-up company can be completed in 15 minutes and there is no tax on income from undistributed profits.

Can you connect to the Internet while in a deep forest? In Estonia it is possible. Free connection to the network via Wi-Fi is available in the vast majority of hotels and almost all public places: parks, squares, cafes, restaurants, train stations, airports and even beaches.

Everyone can become an electronic resident of Estonia, and without much difficulty. It gives you an opportunity to become an entrepreneur without visiting the country, managing the company from anywhere in the world, putting your signatures and filing taxes. To do this, you just need to submit an online application. E-residence is advantageous for most entrepreneurs since they only pay taxes on the withdrawn capital.

For entrepreneurs registered outside the European Union, thanks to electronic residency there is a convenient opportunity to establish a company in Estonia and thus organize the procedure in the European Union. If you decide to become an e-resident, you can apply here.

Currently, there are more than 4,000 documents available in Estonia’s electronic system, from filing a tax return to a deforestation application. Any Estonian with an ID card can open a business without spending more than 20 minutes on it. Thanks to this system, people do not have to waste time standing in line, collecting documents, signatures and stamps, and the saved time, in turn, can be spent for their own benefit.