Applied Artificial Intelligence in Estonia : A global springboard for startups

Today, Estonia has emerged as a global springboard for startups and Artificial Intelligence applications. It has gained such a prominent position in the Artificial Intelligence ecosystem of Europe that many representatives from technology giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Spotify attended a conference in the country’s capital city of Tallinn to discuss how organisations and startups with limited resources can benefit from data and AI adoption. The country became a global leader in technology by putting faith in the power of Internet and Artificial Intelligence. Today, the impact of technology on the country can be seen in the fact that 99% of their GDP ($1.8 trillion) is generated from automated services.

Today, state institutions of Estonia gather large amounts of data and with the help of the ongoing co-operation of Ministry of Economic Affairs and Statistics Estonia is helping the government in better analyzing the public data. Some of the current government applications are –

1. E-mapping: Map applications analyze satellite images to detect frozen roads and thus can provide the user with an alternative route.
2. E-tax: Using a secure id, a user logs on to the system, review the numbers are automatically fed into the system and just click on the confirmation button. Nearly 95% of the Estonian population files taxes each year using this system.
3. Job Searching: Laid-off workers feed their resumes into an application which matches them to an employer requiring a similar set of skills as the worker. 72% workers who get a job in this manner stayed on in the job for more than 6 months.

The government has also proposed an AI-powered judge. In concept, the two conflicting parties can upload the relevant documents and based on that the software can issue a decision. This decision can then be appealed in a human court.

The country has become a springboard for many startups and here are some startups which mirror the country’s digital values –

Starship Technologies: This company built the world’s first autonomous, last-mile package delivery robot. The robot has to understand it’s environment and predict what will happen next.

Taxify: Taxify has become a fast-growing company with passengers in more than 25 countries. It uses historical data to understand how people move around and thus improve its transportation system.

Veriff: It is a software used for online identity verification. It uses Machine Learning to detect identity fraud.

AlphaBlues: It is a startup which develops virtual customer assistants to help banks and telecoms provide customer support to chat on their website 24/7.

Estonia is rightly being called The Country of the Future.