Estonia, having first introduced e-residency to the world, searches solutions for another extensive global challenges that would create new business opportunities and considerably simplify the business activities globally.
To create a highway for selected new market-creating ideas to be fully implemented a new project called accelerateEstonia has been initated by the state and in cooperation with a research and business campus Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol.
New public-private sector ideas that have entered accelerateEstonia project involve the simplification of “know your customer” process, digital convention for the carriage of goods, health and pension insurance for digital nomads and waste material flow platform. The investment from the state for four early-stage business ideas is in total of 600 000 euros (150 000 euros for each) and include public and private sector advisory support in testing and developing ideas during 9-month period.
The aim of the project is to fully exploit the capacity of the Estonian technology and startup ecosystem and e-state flexibility to accelerate the introduction of innovative solutions to the market and be at the forefront in setting the global challenges.
The ideas that have been chosen to the project are all with high potential and clear market need, also the state has the focal role in the possible solutions. Therefore, these are not classical startup companies with the marginal role of the state, but sectors where the implementation of innovation without the participation of the state is absolutely impossible. Just as in case of e-residency at the time, or role of the US government in creating the Internet, the impact of which is today perceptible for everyone.
Viljar Lubi, Deputy Secretary General for Economic Development of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications
“The principle of accelerateEstonia project is to do more with less, i.e. focus on turning the given ideas profitable. All initiatives in start-up business might not achieve full viability, but we consistently wish to focus on completing the projects and thereby considerably heightening the prospects.
To accelerate innovation, the public sector is responsible for taking the first steps to realise the new solutions, thereafter lead foremost by the private sector and which simplify the life of people also in 15 years. Considering that all four chosen ideas are supported, in addition to the state support, also by motivated and ambitious team, there is a high probability in case of such combination that e-Estonia could get another success story here to be introduced to the world.“
Kadri Tammai, Tehnopol Startup Incubator manager
“The system-changing innovation involving the next growth leap often requires changes from the public as well as private sector. This project has paved the way for the latter and our task is to help the team leads to involve supporters required for successful project, test potential market and find as scalable business model as possible.“
AccelerateEstonia projekti käigus lahendatavad probleemid
AccelerateEstonia project involves complex issues that presume joint effort of several establishments (ministries, government bodies). AccelerateEstonia creates a platform to find cooperation forms between sectors that have been rare in public sector up to now. Also, it is proceeded from the way of thinking of turning complex problem into competitive business advantage.
Cross-border “know your customer“ service
The increasing pressure to improve the “know your customer“ process to prevent money laundering is threatening to suffocate economy. The opening of bank account for the reliable customers has become often troublesome and time-consuming. Although the countries have most of the information to meet the “know your customer“ requirement, this is not accessible.
The solution is a legislative framework that enables to create single-principled “know your customer“ profile, application or portal and integrate the existing databases with the ones located in different countries. The fulfilment of “know your customer“ requirement becomes in times cheaper for the financial sector and the time spent on the process of becoming a customer decreases. At the same time the prevention of money laundering risks and their detection becomes more efficient.
Making the data required for KYC operations machine-readable and creating of necessary legislation and standards enables:
- the companies to optimize and digitalize several internal processes of the company and thereby save time and financial resources of people, considerably accelerate the conduct of KYC operations;
- to save time of private persons on multiple insertion and reproduction of one and the same data;
- to enhance the conduct of KYC operations in different establishments and thereby hedge the risks of the country and entrepreneurs;
- to involve the money of e-residents to the Estonian economy considerably faster, more and risk-free;
- to take steps in anti-money laundering activities.
Digital Convention for the carriage of goods, eCMR
Regardless of the technological development the international consignment notes, transit, export and import returns are still mostly paper-based. About 0.5 million international consignment notes are daily drawn up in Europe which means approximately billion papersheets a year (which is a considerable ecological footprint in itself).
The purpose is to make the relevant database electronically and in real-time available which saves time of logistics companies in submitting the data as well as avoids the check-up of useless papers on roads. An accurate and efficient logistics based on data, not documents, is needed besides smart industry and e-commerce.
If to make this process digital and traceable in real-time for all parties, this will make the whole supply chain based on modest estimates up to 10% more efficient and means 30-40% speed for the goods handling compared to the current situation. The target group of the solution are all parties of the transport service and transport-related service providers, but also the authorities performing supervision.
Health and pension insurance for diginomads
The majority of working people should not be concerned about access to social services. Health insurance and pension belong among the “automatic“ benefits, of which the person being employed as diginomad is deprived as a rule. Giving up a permanent residence for the work while travelling becomes more and more common. Technological development and increase of travelling opportunities make the life of diginomads much easier.
The aim of this project is to make health and pension insurance simpler available. The target is to set up a platform providing social benefits that do not settle only the current problems but also help to establish the increasingly digitalizing future workforce.
Waste material flow
The surplus material in production is called waste, as the given producer is unable to do anything else with this resource. At the same time, this “waste“ could be an essential production material for the next company who can increase the value of this and thereby decrease the wasting of resources. By the year 2030, the circular economy in the European Union could create 1.8 trillion euros and it is estimated that circular economy could establish 3 million new jobs in Europe.
The aim is to prove that by having a detailed overview of production waste materials and by providing the convenient and motivating solution for the companies and the state to access these data, we can measure the share of circular economy in our economy. By making the data on the production waste materials in good time centrally available, we can reduce wasting and enable the creating of new products and establishing new companies using resources sustainably.
Lisainfo aadressilt www.accelarateestonia.ee
