You don’t need to be a libertarian to believe that too many of life’s most tedious and infuriating moments involve the government. Perhaps because of our relative powerlessness, these frustrations can feel inevitable. But they aren’t.
I came back yesterday from Estonia. As well as (arguably) having the highest number of unicorns per capita in the world, it also has one the most advanced digital states. These two things aren't a coincidence.
I met President Kersti Kaljulaid and Prime Minister Kaja Kallas – both of whom talked eloquently and candidly about the country's limitations and strengths, with the latter born out of the former. Central to the country's identity is being an advanced digital state, which was built following their post-Soviet restoration of independence exactly 30 years ago today.
In the UK, there is a gap in the market of political ideas for politicians and parties to adopt the sort of techno-progressive policies that have come to define Estonia. Technological innovation offers the best prospect of meeting the progressive goals that all major British political parties now claim to want – but increasingly seem at a loss to achieve.
In healthcare, technology could reduce the substandard care poorer patients receive by putting them on a par with richer, more demanding patients. While in education, each student could receive more personalised learning (alongside traditional human-led support), as the late, great Clayton M. Christensen predicted in his 2008 book Disrupting Class, narrowing the difference between state and non-state schooling.
The UK party that delivers pre-filled out tax returns so they can be completed in a few clicks would get votes; the party that automatically directs welfare, training and job opportunities to the unemployed would get votes; the party that doesn’t require patients to fill in gaps in their medical history when talking to their doctor would get votes; and, the party that saves the UK equivalent of the 1,345 years of entrepreneurs’ time Estonia escapes in bureaucracy would get votes.
Estonia is also welcoming start-ups – including those from abroad – into the heart of government through Accelerate Estonia, “a test bed for moonshot ideas”. It’s different to the UK's Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (which entrepreneurs may also want to check out), with successful applicants getting more active support from the public sector. There are currently challenges open in green entrepreneurship, mental health and wild card ideas.
I’ve written before about the digital future the government should be delivering. Much of the failure to emulate Estonia is down to a lack of political will. That’s one reason why we’re in the very early stages of planning a project to link up businesses and governments from the two countries. The other reason is that the UK is also an incredibly successful country for entrepreneurship – after all, 319 of the 1,000 most valuable tech start-ups created since 2000 were British, compared to 149 for Germany and 143 for France – so while we have a lot to learn about their digital state, there is a thing or two that we can teach them in return.
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