Ukraine is setting the trend for digitalization around the world, so the number of international partners is constantly growing. Last year, a Memorandum of Cooperation in Digitalization was signed between Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Estonia.
The creation of the Digital Coalition launched the development and strengthening of cooperation in the areas of digitalization, e-government, artificial intelligence, and open data. In addition, bilateral cyber cooperation, information exchange on cyber threats, and the international format of the Tallinn Mechanism are actively developing.
Recently, within the framework of the partnership, colleagues have held a working meeting in London to strengthen international ties and discuss possible areas of cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence and digital public services.
Key results of the meeting
We share the key results of the meeting:
- Ukraine presented the innovative vision of WinWin.
- We identified potential projects for cooperation between Estonia, Ukraine, and the UK.
- They discussed ways to help other countries digitize.
- We shared our experience in building a digital government.
“We continue to share the best solutions and scale digitalization around the world. We thank the governments of the UK and Estonia for their strong support,” the Ministry of Digital Transformation said.
Estonia and Ukraine are a great example of synergy
Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Valeriia Ionan and Secretary General of the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications Ahti Kuningas met to discuss the results of Ukrainian-Estonian cooperation in digitalization. The focus was on the importance of exchanging experience in implementing digital practices and joint achievements in building digital states.
Estonia is a global leader in digital transformation and the first country whose experience in building a digital state was studied by Ukraine. In particular, based on the Estonian platform for the interaction of registries X-road, the team of the Ministry of Digital Transformation built the Ukrainian data exchange system Trembita.
The signing of the memorandum in 2022 launched a new stage of cooperation between the two digital states. Estonia has been studying Ukraine’s experience in building a smartphone state and implementing the mobile-first approach. Thus, Ukraine shared with its Estonian colleagues the experience of implementing Diia, working together in technical teams. This is the first case of such cooperation between Ukraine and another country.
“Estonia and Ukraine are a great example of synergy between two countries. Ukraine is striving to become the most convenient digital state in the world, so we are glad that our experience in developing Diia has given Estonia new ideas and a vision for the development of its own country in the smartphone. I am also grateful to the Government of Switzerland for supporting the Estonian-Ukrainian partnership in developing the mRiik pilot. I am convinced that in the future we will be able to implement joint projects in the context of digitalization of other countries,” says Valeriia Ionan.
Development of mRiik
The experience of Diia allowed Estonia to accelerate the development of the pilot version of the mRiik application. Before that, all public services in Estonia were available only in web format. The pilot proved to be successful, and our Estonian colleagues were convinced of the need to create an application for simple and convenient interaction between citizens and the state.
At the same time, during the implementation of the pilot project, Estonia has identified a different vector for the development of mRiik, where the application becomes part of Estonia’s new concept of digital transformation, which aims to create a personalized government. Estonia will continue to work on the development of the mRiik application, taking into account the joint experience with Ukraine, while completing all legal blockers to the recognition of digital documents and implementing certain tools that it has adopted from the Diia experience.
“Estonia sincerely appreciates the partnership with Ukraine in the field of digitalization. The mRiik beta test was successful, and we received a lot of positive feedback from users. The co-development process helped us understand where and how Estonia should move forward in the process of digital transformation and renewal of citizen-state interaction. We will continue to work with the Government of Ukraine in the future, but in new equally important projects together with ESTDEV and EGA,” Ahti Kuningas said.
