Estonia launched on Friday its country management software platform for other states, enabling them to benefit from the services like three-minute-tax-declaration or e-voting which are in use in the most digital nation in the world.
The new CountryOS service was built in the co-operation of the government of Estonia, tech entrepreneurs and Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol. The platform is a tailored version of the one that is currently used to manage Estonia.
Politicians and countries can sign up for the solution starting today on www.countryos.com
The new service will be priced per user, raising costs for larger countries like the United States or China, but the potential savings are enormous. For example the tax declaration industries could be the first ones to take a hit and there are many old bureaucratic processes which need a revamp.
“When we were developing Teleport startup, we understood how bad the base technology there is for public sectors globally, this made me invest into this project,” Teleport founder and ex Skype manager Sten Tamkivi, one of the initiators of CountryOS said in a statement.
The new initiative builds on Estonia's successful e-Residency project, which is available to anyone around the world interested in establishing and managing a location-independent business online. Through the platform, the e-Residents can for instance register a company online, perform e-banking transactions, access international payment service providers, declare taxes online, manage a company remotely, and digitally sign documents and contracts.
Countries will be able to combine the best practices for their mission-critical solutions with the flexibility and simplicity of an upgrade via the cloud.
“Today’s launch is an exciting milestone extending our tiny country into a global cloud offering. It’s now possible for governments to run their entire business in the cloud with CountryOS," Raido Pikkar, Chairman of Thorgate and one of the initiators said in a statement.
The platform will be publicly unveiled on the opening day of Arctic15 startup conference on June 2 in Helsinki.
More info: countryos.com
