The European Space Agency (ESA) chose Estonia to act as a lead partner in cooperation with whom the ESA will begin to digitise its administrative processes. Today the Minister for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology Urve Palo and the Director General of the ESA Jan Wörner signed a joint letter of intent.
Minister for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology Urve Palo said that ICT and e-government are areas in which we feel adept.
"Estonia is pleased to share our experience with the ESA and thus contribute to the development of the organisation. We hope that the Estonian ICT solutions will help the ESA to become more efficient and that thanks to that, space technology applications can reach ground use faster and in a more widespread way," said Palo.
The minister stated that Estonia will provide advice on how the ESA as an organisation could digitise itself and that the ESA wishes to recruit two experts from Estonia for a period of at least two years. One in e-government solutions and one IT lawyer.
"We can offer the ESA cybersecurity advice and our companies can provide the Agency with their digital solutions," says Palo.
Director General of the ESA Jan Wörner said that it is his first time to give a valid digital signature as an Estonian e-resident. Palo and Wörner will meet at the EU-ESA informal meeting of Space Ministers, taking place within the framework of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU, on 7 November in Tallinn.
The signed joint letter of intent states Estonia's progress in digital society and e-government development and the ESA-s interest in using Estonian experience. Signing an agreement demonstrates a continued interest in a mutually beneficial cooperation in the fields of e-government, open data, digital signing and cyber security issues.
Check more on ESA page: http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/First_digital_signature_between_ESA_and_Estonia_on_ICT_collaboration_for_space
/13.06.2017/