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If we want to achieve new growth, making things a little better is not enough. Neither will introducing euro nor a few supplementary programmes suffice. Our whole society needs to take a long leap forward!

The post-crisis GDP level we are slipping to is the doping-free (read: loan-free) ceiling of our current collective capacity - as entrepreneurs, politicians, officials, education leaders and media managers, as well as the entire society. "We need to wake up and do something fundamentally different," the recognised IT management professor Carlota Perez said once so pertinently when commenting on the success options of the countries battling with the crisis.

In order to move forward, we need a Big Plan - a shared long-sighted vision for the practical future of the Estonian economy and a coherent action plan for its implementation.

The successful Estonia of the future will definitely be creative, appreciative of knowledge and exporting much more sophisticated products and services than today, and doing so on a larger scale. But what kind of knowledge are we talking about, who will be the buyer and where and at which capacity will the products and services be produced, etc? The crisis is the time for a new kind of beginning for both entrepreneurs and the state.

We need to do our best for Estonia could be perceived as a small and smart Scandinavian country that has decided, by acting wisely, to exit the crisis among frontrunners. So that The Economist wouldn't ironically describe us and the other Baltic countries now in slump as suffering from the Baltic blues.

We are not starting out from scratch. Firstly, the percentage of resourceful people in Estonia is close to that of the Scandinavian countries, higher than in the countries sharing the same fate, and also higher than in the southern Europe. Secondly, the Development Fund has carried out a number of foresight projects during its slightly more than two years of existence. These have helped us to gain in-depth insight into the problems of the Estonian economy, perceive global trends and thus identify growth potential in different sectors.

Over a thousand entrepreneurs, decision-makers and thinkers from Estonia and elsewhere have been involved in analysing Estonia's options. About a hundred brainstorming sessions have been held. As a strategic initiative, we have started the Estonian IT Academy project, aimed at taking Estonia's higher IT education to an international level, and launched the Estonian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association together with 25 market players.

Within 14 months five venture capital investments have been made. Four new investments are being prepared while five new ambitious projects are maturing in our international business incubator SeedBooster.

All this has given us enough reason and the certainty to initiate the Estonia's Growth Vision 2018 project, which would give rise to clearly targeted coherent growth programmes to be collectively and effectively implemented. If a small country wants to be in the global picture in certain niches, it has no other option than to specialise.
The Development Fund can, must and wants to be the leader in that process. But we cannot and must not do it alone. There is no institution in this small country that possesses the potential to single-handedly work through all the options and propose and implement the best decisions for Estonia.

Therefore, I call on you, just as I proposed in my speech to the Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament), to jointly draft the Growth Vision for Estonia 2018 and set out in that direction. In fact, we have no other choice. Also in search of a new growth story are the pragmatic Singapore, the welfare state Finland, as well as Ireland, once a role model for many, let alone larger countries.

I am appealing to all Estonian leaders: by the next summer, let us discuss the choices that Estonia has and establish a new meaningful landmark. Then we can collectively put it to practice. This is the only way that gives us grounds to expect a new sustainable success story for Estonia that will bring well-being to our people. And so one day The Economist could be inspired to write laudatory feature stories - The Rolling Estonians are back and stronger than ever!

ott.parna[A]arengufond.ee, CEO of the Estonian Development Fund

The Estonian IT Academy is the umbrella name given to a joint initiative aimed at elevating Estonia’s higher education in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) to a new level so that it would be capable of an international breakthrough.

This entails world-class higher ICT education, which would:
- be interdisciplinary;
- appeal to talented Estonian and foreign students;
- attract top professors and researchers;
- contribute to international ICT or ICT-based business conducted by Estonian companies;
- prompt a new wave of foreign investments channelled into Estonia.

When pursuing the objective, Estonia will benefit from its international reputation as a successful IT country capable of implementing and developing new information and communication technologies. This is a foundation which makes it significantly easier to resume building up reliability as a significant provider of higher ICT education.

This initiative stemmed from the conclusions of the Estonian Development Fund’s EST_IT@2018 foresight project. ICT implementation has contributed to almost 50% of the productivity growth witnessed by the Western economies. Estonia possesses sufficient untapped potential for benefiting even more from ICT.

Regrettably, the shortage of thousands of ICT specialists does not enable to utilise the ICT potential in Estonia. Therefore, ICT companies find it impossible to expand their business activities in Estonia. The current economic crisis and an overall increase in unemployment have not brought any relief: according to employment agencies, there is a persistently high demand for ICT specialists and every tenth available job is being offered namely to computer specialists.

Problems are deepening in the medium-long term: the supply of highly qualified IT specialists will decrease further in the coming years due to unfavourable demographic trends persisting in Estonia. In 2014, the number of high school graduates will plummet by nearly a half from the current 12,000. The ensuing relevance to higher ICT education would be a decline to just five hundred students enrolled in computer sciences programmes compared to the one thousand students currently commencing their studies in this area. Should the efficiency of the education process remain unchanged, the number of ICT graduates would drop from some 350 today to just 190 a year.

Considering the deepening shortage of ICT specialists, the common goal of the signatories is to make sure that – regardless of the unfavourable demographics – the number of students commencing studies in the field of ICT in Estonia would remain AT LEAST at the current level and that most of the students would complete their studies on schedule.

A possible solution is to become significantly more active in bringing foreign students and lecturers to Estonia. In order to achieve that, needless duplication in Estonia's higher ICT education must be avoided and all efforts should be pooled towards co-operation outside Estonia. A purposeful engagement of foreign students from target countries relevant to us will also underpin the efforts of Estonian companies seeking to operate in these markets and increase their export revenues.

Within the framework of the co-operation agreement, we have decided to prepare a business plan by spring 2010 at the latest. We will try out different possibilities, agree on necessary steps and then mobilise resources into carrying out the vision.

We hope that the experience drawn from this pilot project will be of use in a broader context and contribute to finding effective and fast ways of making Estonia's higher education international.

We are inviting all interested parties to contribute to the success of the Estonian IT Academy!

The memorandum has been signed digitally by:

Taavi Kotka from the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Peep Sürje from Tallinn University of Technology, Alar Karis from University of Tartu, Rein Raud from Tallinn University, Kalle Tammemäe from the Estonian Information Technology College, Ott Pärna from the Estonian Development Fund.

Background slides by Ott Pärna on the cooperation agreement as the basis for the Estonian IT academy (pdf 2 mb)

Read also the EST_IT@2018 foresight conclusions.

• www.itacademy.ee/en

BBN: So far it’s not even known whether we met Maastricht criteria last year, not mentioning this year, Heido Vitsur, an economy expert at the Estonian Development Fund told ERR News.

“When last year’s gross domestic product is reviewed 0.5 pct smaller then we haven’t met the criteria. We overdramatize things. We must understand that getting euro is likely process, not certain arithmetical game where everyone knows what happens,” Vitsur said.

He said that nothing will happen if we fail to join euro next year.

“We live on just the same. Currently it’s hoped that euro brings more investments. If it is so then our efforts are justified,” he said.

Vitsur said that analysts and investors have different interests and principles, which is why no one knows whether euro will bring big investments at once.

“Euro is beneficial for one, not other,” he said.

Tigerprises.com TigerBriefs: Estonian start-up Fortumo, that offers possibilities to create your own mobile service in 5 minutes and earn money with it, is expanding rapidly.

Thus far the service has been very popular in Nordic countries, Eastern Europe and Asia. But now Fortumo “fever” is drifting towards Western Europe.

The company has entered French, Spanish and Portugese markets and promises to expand into neighbouring countries shortly. “France, Spain and Portugal are mobile-loving countries where SIM penetration exceeds population. At the same time, they are relatively well developed countries, creating good opportunities for internet businesses,” the Marketing Director of Fortumo, Martin Koppel says.

Reminding once again the fascinating qualities of Fortumo: no startup fee, no monthly fee, no need for any skills.

Over 65 000 SMS services has been created with Fortumo thus far and you can see from the following maps where.

Tigerprises.com: Estonian e-health software developer Raintree is anticipating what will be the outcome of Barack Obama’s plan to invest 17 billion dollars into electronic health information technology and records under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Raintree’s software is already related to over one million patients in US and used by over 14 000 medical doctors. The company is present in 49 US states and can rightfully call itself one of the market leaders.

Among market leaders

Contentedly said – the sales continue growing, Raintree is very well known among physiotherapists, but majority of the recent new customers are bariarics surgery clinics, that cure overweightness. Recently Raintree entered into oncology software market and now develops a tool for defining chemotherapy doses. 

“We can’t yet say that our sales are projecting Obama’s iniciatives, since the officials are specifying the terms regarding how the Act money will be allocated,” CEO of Raintree Estonia, Aleksei Udachny says.

“But it sure does make me proud if I enter a clinic in San Francisco or New York, Manhattan and see our software running in a computer!”

No marketing costs!

Meanwhile the company continues to work with existing and new clients and develop its software, presicely the patient’s web portal, automatic file administration and e-receipt solution. It’s kind of wonderful that Raintree doesn’t even have to bury money into marketing – one doctor advises another to buy the software, the product is are marketing itself. Believe it or not, but a study made last year showed that only about 4 percent of USA doctors use electronic patient databases, other 96 percent have adherenced themself to the old and already tried paper and pencil.

Terminator terminated the plan

In 2004 Raintree faced some bad luck when the “Terminator” bulldozered over their US ambitions. Raintree was about to have huge stake in the medicin system of California, after winning the procurement for building medicin insurance software that would cover 27 Californian counties. But Arnold Schwarzenegger acceded to become the Governor and conducted a sharp cutback in costs. As for result, Raintree’s mega deal was flushed down the toilet. “One political decision crossed out everything,” Udachny remembers.