Estonia's Tech-Savviness | Hacker News Reader

Estonia's Tech-Savviness

m.mic.com

22 pointssethbannon12 comments

I was really enthusiastic (especially about Estonia's flat tax) until this bit:

>The country is plagued by another issue that is all too familiar to the Silicon Valley: diversity. "We are still dominantly white and male," said Sten Tamkivi, co-founder and CEO of Teleport and a former early executive at Skype. "Estonia has a lot of work to do."

This isn't an issue unless you constantly try to make it one.

It's not relevant in the Estonian context -- a largely ethnically homogeneous country where the largest minority is Russians -- but could be relevant in a global context.

I don't agree with the article's slant on leading in that quote, but the person being quoted is right; they don't have the nature of diversity that other western countries have attained, and increasingly, have come to expect.

But in their case, it's not because of malice, but just a consequence of history.

In many ways it is much easier for a tiny country to achieve what Estonia did (fast internet, teaching every kid to code, gov't services online, pay parking meters by mobile phone). When the central gov't is in charge of a country the size of an American city, there can be less red tape. Online voting in the US, for example, would require the agreement and cooperation of cities, counties, states, and the federal government.

Is this about size, or about the number of layers in the administrative structure?

They go hand in hand...small countries (geographically) like Singapore or Estonia can arrange themselves in a single layer, where the central government controls everything down to the police and parking meters. Large countries like Canada, Mexico, or the United States tend to arrange themselves into states, provinces, counties, and cities with some degree of autonomy. I suppose there could be a large country with a single layer or a small one with multiple layers.

I'm not convinced that "posh designer suits" is at all a necessarily positive drawcard, but I really like the general gist of what's happened.

I'm surprised there aren't more countries looking to invest in this area. New Zealand will never be a major international in many areas due to proximity and size; however it could make a fantastic place to incubate tech companies. It's somewhat frustrating to see these opportunities not being embraced.

Didn't click link. Just came to comments. I would have guessed Japan.

It's not Japan. It's Estonia. Please don't comment without looking at the article first.

Japan is hardly "tiny".

TL;DR: low denominator.

Mods/Admins can you change the title to How Estonia Became the Most Tech-Savvy on Earth?

Edit: It seems to have been done. Please disregard.

The article is about Estonia. The title is linkbait in the same vein as "This One Weird Trick."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com