Since May 1st, the city of Shanghai in China has been host to Expo 2010. Estonian ICT solutions have been of great interest to visitors. Overview of the Estonian pavillion can be viewed from Reporter video (in Estonian).
Estonian IT solutions have also been covered by several dozen Chinese newspapers, such as the daily newspaper East Day:
Shop with ID card and turn the lights on with mobile phone - Estonian EXPO Pavilion displays comprehensive e-services
May 3rd, 2010, 20:19
East Day, Yinfei YOU
Shopping by swiping your ID card, remote controlling of electrical appliances on the touch of a handset button... Those things seem to be unbelievable, but in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn, they are becoming a beautiful truth one by one. Taking advantage of the Shanghai EXPO Estonian pavilion, this Eastern European country located on the shore of the Baltic Sea, is showing their advanced electronic life style to people from all over the world.
This afternoon, the Estonian Pavilion at the Shanghai World EXPO held the event “Tallinn - the e-Capital of Estonia”. The mayor of Tallinn (capital of Estonia), Edgar Savisaar started with a welcome speech. During the meeting, representatives from the Tallinn Municipal government and the Estonia Information Technology and Telecommunications demonstrated many advanced and convenient electronic services. Just by pressing his phone button, a lecturer turns on the electric light and TV in his house as far as in Tallinn. Later, he pays for remote parking via his cell phone. The whole scene is on live broadcast through the web. The lecturer also signs an electronic agreement with his friend in Tallinn through his mobile phone. He signs on the phone with an electronic pen through the network transmission. It is understood that such a signature has the same legal effect as one on paper documents.
The Tallinn Municipal government Secretary-General and director of the General Office, Mr. Toomas Sepp introduced computer software that integrates virtual services with the city administration. After careful planning and decades of development, the electronic services brought through the electronic network has covered every corner of society, such as e-government, e-banking, e-schools, e-payments, electronic medical services and so on, changing people's way of life. "Staying at home and enjoying various services, is not only green but also convenient and efficient.”
Will technology make people lazy? Would it affect interpersonal relationships if you stay behind closed doors all day long? Facing these problems, the chairman of board of directors of Estonian Network Media, Taavi Kotka told the reporter of East Day that "Electronic networks only provide people advanced types of services, and they don’t serve as alternatives to traditional personal relationships. E-services have shortened the time that people spend on traveling, shopping, working, medical treatments and other activities, in order to facilitate people to devote more time to do what they love to do - reading, fishing, singing, attending parties... enjoying life.”
Taavi Kotka told that China's present investment projects in Tallinn include China's container terminal and car assembly plant, the tram project, the Estonian airline stock etc. Estonia looks forward to have more joint cooperation with China on electronic services, in order to bring a convenient and comfortable electronic life to the people together.
