In this episode, Erika Piirmets and Carmen Raal explore how countries solve the issue of digital identity, how they can learn from each other and what's the future of digital identity. Their guest is a former government Chief Legal Officer (GLO) and CEO of Proud Engineers Laura Kask. She has been responsible for the legislative framework of the Estonian information society and created the legal architecture for the first data embassy in the world. Today she is helping other governments and large corporations solve complicated challenges and build a digital future at Proud Engineers.

The guest of our latest podcast episode is Kalev Pihl, CEO of SK ID Solutions and one of the key figures behind the Estonian ID-card project. He has played a crucial role in its planning and also has had a significant influence on the outcomes that are available today.

Sustainability, tokens, and the well-being of nature and the world were some of the topics Carmen Raal and Erika Piirmets touched upon with their guest Merit Valdsalu, founder and CEO of Single.Earth. A company with a mission to transform how we approach consumption and how to integrate nature protection into the economy.

Sandra Särav is a force to be reckoned with. Sandra has worked as the Public Policy Manager at Bolt (the Estonian unicorn mobility startup), becoming the latter's Head of Sustainability before being snatched up by Facebook, where she also served as the Public Policy Manager for the CEE region.  Luckily for our state, Sandra is one of our top civil servants with a bright future.

In the most recent episode of the e-Estonia podcast “The Art of Digitalisation,” Sandra Särav talks to the host Florian Marcus about:

• How Estonia is looking to be more human-centric in its public services;
• That Estonia will never be selling its citizens' private data;
• About the governmental Data Tracker and how it will be mandatory for all governmental information systems;
• How Estonian citizens can consent to give their data in governmental databases with private sector service providers;
• About Sandra's work as a lecturer and university researcher;
• About autonomous robots;
• Estonian startups and what has been their secret sauce (hint: a lot has to do with the government and regulations);
• Metaverse, and much much more.

Mari-Liis Kukk is the Head of the Innovation Department at the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority. She describes herself as a long-time fan of the world of finance, being into novel ways of making financial services work and ensuring more efficient experiences for everyone involved.

In the most recent episode of the e-Estonia podcast “The Art of Digitalisation,” Mari-Liis Kukk talks to the host Florian Marcus about:

• Whether Estonia has overregulated the crowdfunding and crypto industries;
• Tokenization and micro-shares;
• Her Ph.D. in finance;
• What her daily job at the Financial Supervision Authority entails and what their fairly new Innovation Hub does;
• Do fintechs depend on location or the ecosystem;
• What is her favorite public e-service, and much more.

Taavi Tamkivi is the founder and CEO of a startup called Salv that aims to kill an industry valued at a trillion dollars a year.  

Salv is an anti-money laundering platform that helps financial institutions, banks, etc., to be compliant and catch fraudsters simultaneously. Taavi likes to say that he is no longer building a product but a community of crime-fighters. Almost like a Marvel universe.

Merle Maigre works as the Senior Cyber Security Expert at e-Governance Academy.  In our podcast, Merle talks to Florian Marcus about:

• Resilience in cyberspace;
• Why the war in Ukraine is a 21st century war;
• The importance of backing up your family photos and data embassies;
• The lessons learned from the 2007 Russian cyberattacks on Estonian public and private websites;
• e-Governance Academy's digital transformation projects in the Balkans, Tonga, Kyiv, Armenia, Moldova, and many other places;
• The ongoing cyberattacks against Ukraine (since 2014);
• The Tallinn Manual and Estonia's role in NATO.

Tanel Sepp is the Ambassador at Large and Director-General for the Cyber Diplomacy Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia. He has been in the Estonian Foreign Service for 19 years - having served from Brussels to Kabul, Washington D.C. to Ethiopia. In this episode, he talks to our host Florian Marcus about the balkanization of the Internet, how he helped the Estonian troops to vote in Afghanistan and how half of them still preferred to do it online, and also about what does a cyber diplomat do every day.

Florian Marcus’s quest is  Jaanika Merilo, the evangelist of e-government, head of PR and Communication of Funderbeam, advisor to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and advocate of EU and Ukrainian relations.