Kaspar Korjus presenting e-Estonia: E-residency, a new borderless nation
This article was written by Nardine B. M'barek, a Contributor Author with Startup Turkey / Startup Istanbul.
While attending Startup Istanbul 2017, Kaspar Korjus gave us the honor of presenting to us e-Estonia, an innovative idea thanks to which entrepreneurship became much easier. With the digitized nation, everything is easier and cheaper. E-Estonia is named the most advanced digital society in the world by Wired¹. In this article, we are going to discover what exactly is e-Estonia, and e-Residency, as well as how, did it emerge.
E-Estonia is mainly considered as a movement made by the Estonian government to facilitate the interactions of the citizens with the government and to make life easier through online tax-paying, and multiple other services offered. It was in 2014 that Estonia became the first country in the world to offer e-residency to non-Estonian citizens, making of itself a huge and powerful model in the domain of technological advances and innovation. We invited Kaspar Korjus during our annual Startup Istanbul in 2017. Mr. Korjus is the managing director of e-Residency. During this live meeting with Mr. Korjus, we got the chance to know more about this important, yet very interesting, and innovative idea, that made a symbolic transformation in the field of entrepreneurship and business.
E-Residency is now fully digitalized. E-Residency is described by Mr. Korjus as a “new borderless nation”. By ‘borderless nation’, it is meant that this initiative gets rid fully of the physical boundaries that entrepreneurs nowadays face while building up their businesses and startups.
By 2017, e-Residency counted 1.2 Million resident across the world. Thanks to its unique way of doing things, and to the multiple offers and services provided to its e-residents, it allows them to; not only create and run EU companies completely online, but also allows them to get government-issued legal, digital identities. e-Residency makes it even easier for their residents by helping them get legal documents signed within minutes online, making them forget about all the work and wait needed to do that physically.
E-Residency has launched hundreds of various services for its citizens during the last 15 years. When the digitized nation, that is powered by the Republic of Estonia, decided to allow people and citizens from all over the world to become e-residents, these people got the chance to enjoy these online services, and shine even more in the field of entrepreneurship through launching their own EU companies, and running them completely online.
The main goal was to make e-Estonia a borderless nation which anyone in the world could join and enjoy, without -of course- paying attention to anything physical that disrupts the will of these people to reach success. By doing that, and making e-Estonia available all over the world, anyone now can become a digital citizen, and an e-resident no matter where they live or come from.
Mr. Korjus mentioned that you only need a legal identity to have access to the platform. That legal identity could be acquired through a simple online application to become part of this digitized nation. The major reason why people actually apply to join e-Estonia is that it gives to its residents the opportunity to run a business online, and globally, without having to physically move to do it. It also offers certain services such as online secure banking, money transfers, and multiple other services that make the lives of its citizens easier, and more comfortable. This initiative is surpassing everyone’s expectation, especially that the services that it provides are satisfying its e-residents enormously.
¹Wired is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has been in publication since March/April 1993.
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