Tallinn

Estonia has embraced advanced technology like no other county. It is the location of the first e-government and has created the world’s first e-citizens. These are steps other advanced countries will follow, making the residents of Tallinn the advance agents of technical change.

Computers and dreams

Estonia is tiny, the world’s 155th country in terms of population, comparable with Swaziland. In terms of digital technology and innovation it is a heavyweight, a frontier economy that is on track to have with world first fully digitised state and home to many of the world’s leading thinkers on artificial intelligence and robotics. It capital is full of men and women developing software and machines that would have seemed wildly futuristic just a few years ago. 

This is also one of the world’s most divided places, a country cleaved when the USSR collapsed and left with dividing lines—of language, education, race and culture—that can be seen everywhere. There is no county that has made a bigger bet on technology, yet very few have divisions this deep. How did this tiny state make such a jump, and will its future really be the unified technological utopia its brainiest residents are seeking?