Podcast: Bits and bytes crossing borders

Tuesday, 16 November 2021

The latest podcast of the Estonian office of the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) is entitled ‘Bits and bytes crossing borders’ and focuses on the latest challenges to digitalisation and data exchange in the Nordic countries and Baltic States. It asks what new cultural and economic models and partnerships are required in order for bits and bytes to move problem-free across borders.

The Nordic countries and Baltic States have set themselves the goal of becoming the most digitally integrated region in the world. While everyday digital processes vary from one Northern European country to the next, ways of achieving cooperation that actually brings societies together need to be investigated.

“Simply getting data moving across borders isn’t enough to unite societies,” cautioned Grete Kodi, an adviser on digitalisation and the creative industries at the Estonian office of the NCM and the person who came up with the idea for this latest podcast. “The cultural context is of decisive importance as well: for anything that people do together to succeed, there has to be social trust. How to achieve such an ambitious goal, where to start in terms of projects and where the problems and opportunities lie is what we look at and try to come up with answers to in this latest podcast.”

‘Bits and bytes crossing borders’ is anchored by GovStack co-founder and former Government Office Strategy Department digital adviser Marten Kaevats, who discusses these issues with the Estonian Information System Authority’s Mark Erlich, who has 15 years’ experience in the fields of electronic identities, digital signatures and related technical solutions, and Nordic Innovation COO Niina Aagaard, who has experience of the Finnish government system, within which she dealt with trade and investments, with a focus on sustainability.

The podcast is the seventh in the English-language ‘Sustainable Nordic Economy’ series, which looks at what sustainable economic systems are based on and what role the circular economy and bioeconomy have to play in this.

The podcast is available on our Soundcloud page.


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