Speakers

As European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Ms Jutta Urpilainen oversees the European Commission’s work on international cooperation and sustainable development.

Before joining the Commission, Ms Urpilainen served as a Member of the Finnish Parliament from 2003 to 2019. In 2008, she became the first woman leader of the Social Democratic Party of Finland. From 2011 to 2014, she served as Finland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister. During that time, she became closely involved in development issues, joining the Development Committee of the World Bank Group and IMF and chairing the Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development. She served as the Foreign Minister’s Special Representative on Mediation (2017-19) and chaired the Finnish National Commission for UNESCO (2015-18).

Mykhailo Fedorov was appointed the Minister of Digital Transformation on August 29, 2019.  Prior to that, he served as general manager  of his own digital agency SMMSTUDIO and operating officer of the educational project Superludi.

During the 2019 presidential election, Mykhailo Fedorov headed “the digital sphere” of the campaign of Volodymyr Zelensky, the current President of Ukraine. His crew became the first absolute champion in the number of victories per country in the history of the  EAPC Polaris Awards, a global competition for election campaigns and political communications.  They won 6 gold and 1 silver statuettes in seven categories including digital campaigns and creative use of data/metrics/analytics.

Heading the newly created Ministry of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov has taken digital transformation in Ukraine to a decisive new level. Fedorov’s team launched the Diia mobile app, that provides access to digital documents. Ukraine has become the 10th country in the world where citizens can use digital driver’s licenses, and one of 3 countries in the world where digital passport is implemented. Another important project of the Ministry of digital transformation is the web portal Diia, aimed to unite 100% of public services online and turn Ukraine into a convenient service for citizens.

Mr Andres Sutt is the minister of entrepreneurship and information technology since 26 January 2021. He was elected to Riigikogu on March 3, 2019 as a member of the liberal Reform Party. He served as a member of the Finance Committee and Anti-Corruption Select Committee of Riigikogu and as the chairman of Estonia-France and Estonia-USA parliamentary groups.

Prior to his role in public office, Mr Sutt worked for 17 years in the Bank of Estonia, for the last 8 years as a Deputy Governor responsible for financial stability (2001-2009). He has extensive experience in bank restructuring and crisis management. Mr Sutt has also served as a member of the supervisory board of the Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority. He was also a member of the Banking Supervision Committee of the ECB. Mr Sutt was a Member of the Executive Board at Eesti Energia (the largest energy utility in Estonia) in charge of client services, IT and government affairs (2017-2018). Mr Sutt has also worked for the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in Luxembourg as Head of Banking (2013-2016). He joined ESM’s predecessor European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) as Senior Advisor to the CEO of the EFSF in June 2012. Before joining the ESM, Mr Sutt was Senior Advisor to Executive Director and member of the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C.

Mr Sutt serves as a board member of non-profit organizations SOS Children Village Estonia, Estonian Maternity Hospitals Foundation and University of Tartu Foundation. He has master’s degree in economics and finance (cum laude) from Tartu University, Estonia and has studied management in INSEAD, France.

Trond Arne Undheim is a futurist, podcaster, investor, author, speaker, entrepreneur and former director of MIT Startup Exchange, based outside of Boston. He has helped launch over 50 startups.

Trond is currently a venture partner at Antler, the global early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the defining technology companies of tomorrow. He also serves as the industry ecosystem evangelist at Tulip, the industrial operations growth startup. He is the CEO and co-founder of Yegii, a search engine for industry professionals, providing collective intelligence. Lastly, he is a nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council with a portfolio in artificial intelligence, future of work, data ethics, emerging technologies, and entrepreneurship.

Trond hosts the podcasts Futurized, thought leadership on our emerging future, and Augmented, the industry 4.0 podcast.

Trained as a social scientist with a career in technology and innovation, he is a former MIT Sloan School of Management Senior Lecturer, WPP and Oracle Executive and EU National Expert, he writes for Fortune and Cognoscenti, and has been featured in print media and television.

Trond Arne Undheim is the author of Pandemic Aftermath (2020), Disruption Games (2020), and Leadership From Below (2008). His next book, Future Tech (2021) comes out on March 3 in the UK and March 30 in the USA and rest of the world.

Trond Arne Undheim holds a PhD on the future of work and artificial intelligence and cognition from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and was a visiting research associate at UC Berkeley.

Sir Geoff Mulgan CBE is Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London. Prior to that he was Chief Executive of Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation (an endowment which grew in worth to around £450m) between 2011 and the end of 2019. Between 1997 and 2004 Geoff had roles in the UK government including director of the Government’s Strategy Unit and the Performance and Innovation Unit, and head of policy in the Prime Minister’s office. From 2004 to 2011 he was the first Chief Executive of The Young Foundation. He was the first director of the think-tank Demos; and has been a reporter on BBC TV and radio.

He has a PhD in telecommunications and has been a visiting professor at London School of Economics, University College London and Melbourne University, a senior visiting scholar at Harvard University and President of the Innovation Design Department at the Italian University for Design in Turin. He has also been a regular lecturer at the China Executive Leadership Academy.

He has advised many governments, foundations and companies, chaired an international advisory committee for the Mayor of Seoul and has sat on advisory committees for the Prime Minister’s office in the United Arab Emirates, the Scottish Government and SITRA, the Finnish innovation agency. He will be a World Economic Forum Schwab Fellow from 2019-22.
Geoff’ has written several books, his latest is ‘Social innovation: how societies find the power to change’ – was published in late 2019 by Policy Press.

Geoff has given TED talks on the future economy, happiness and education ( He was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020
More information at www.geoffmulgan.com

Anthony Whelan currently works as digital policy adviser in the cabinet (private office) of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He was previously the Director for Electronic Communications Networks & Services at the European Commission since 2013, designing and negotiating EU initiatives on topics such as open internet, roaming reform, the revision of the telecoms regulatory framework, and the financing of advanced broadband networks. A barrister, he has lectured and researched in public law at Trinity College Dublin and has worked as a lawyer at the European Court of Justice and in the Legal Service of the European Commission. Between 2008 and 2013, he was head of the cabinet of EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes in the competition and digital agenda portfolios.

Ms. Bolor-Erdene Battsengel is a Chairwoman at Communications and Information Technology Authority, the Government agency of Mongolia, responsible for ICT policy development and implementation. As a chairperson of the ICT-related organization, she aims to bring better changes to the both public and government through the digital governance program, named E-Mongolia, enabling all public services accessible, transparent and prompt.

She obtained a Master’s degree with focus on Public Policy from the University of Oxford, the United Kingdom in 2017. After graduation, she implemented a project, “Nomads in the Digital Age”, with Pathways for Prosperity Commission, which is funded by the Gates Foundation, co-chaired by Melinda Gates, aimed to accelerate inclusive development through technological development and digital readiness. She started her career journey from international organizations such as ADB, The World Bank, Millennium Challenge Corporation, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, European Bank for Reconstruction Development from 2011-2019.

Ville Sirviö is the CEO of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS), a non-profit association with the mission to ensure the development and strategic management of X-Road® and other cross-border components for e-government infrastructure. Having international experience in leading digital business in organizations ranging from start-ups to Nasdaq listed companies, he is also a board professional and advisor, and keynote speaker on cross-border digital cooperation

Carina Paju is the Executive Director of Transparency International Estonia, the only non-governmental organization explicitly working on anti-corruption in Estonia.

In TI Estonia, Carina leads their advocacy efforts and a wide array of projects. The organization focuses on corruption prevention by designing learning materials, toolkits and conducting trainings on anti-corruption, whistleblowing mechanisms, business integrity, and ethics, to name a few. TI Estonia works with policymakers to improve legislation as well as soft measures to increase transparency across the board.

The NGO focuses on innovative technological solutions to detect and prevent fraud and corruption. In 2020, under Carina’s leadership, TI Estonia alongside four other organizations from Estonia and Latvia was selected among the final 8 of the International Monetary Fund’s Anti-Corruption Challenge in order to develop the platform Opener which automatically detects potential conflicts of interest in public procurement.

Carina is also serving as an independent assessors of the Estonian Civil Society Foundation and is the national expert on Whistleblowing Polimeter, an initiative tracking the transposition of the whistleblowing directive in the EU.

Róbert is a successful entrepreneur that introduced the web to Iceland in 1993 and in 1995 to Denmark. Before co-founding the nonprofit Citizens Foundation in the year 2008 he worked in the video game industry where his teams received many awards. The Citizens Foundation specializes in citizen participation and digital democracy. We have recently seen technology undermine faith in debate in the public arena; the Citizens Foundation believes that innovations in technology can be used to restore faith in democratic debate and institutions instead.

Aldo Merkoci is currently holding the position of Executive Director at the MJAFT! Movement. Aldo has an extensive experience in the Albanian Civic Society sector, especially in the fields of youth activism, environmental activism, policymaking, advocacy, and leadership. Aldo has led many national and regional projects regarding transparency and accountability in the Western Balkans. He is also a board member of the Albanian National Agency for the Support of Civil Society. In the recent years the MJAFT works has been focused on government transparency issues such as the FOI act implementation, the law on public consultations and the OGP program for Albania. Currently Aldo is serving as the National Coordinator for ICEDA, a program focused on the issues of Digital Agenda in the Western Balkans.

Peter joined OGP’s Country Support Team in July 2016. He provides guidance and assistance to civil society organisations and governments across Europe (primarily in the North Sea/Baltic Sea region), supporting the development and implementation of open government reforms. Prior to OGP, he worked with Transparency International supporting 15 national chapters across the Nordic, Baltic and Central European regions, as well as devising the movement’s global internal communications policy. Earlier, Peter had developed social enterprises and consulted on non-profit sustainability in emerging markets, also piloting the world’s first LGBT venture philanthropy fund. He also gained private sector experience working for a global marketing agency. Peter was Fulbright Visiting Practitioner at Stanford University in 2011-2012, holds an MA in International Relations and European Studies from Central European University, and a BA in Political Science from Yale University. Currently based in Berlin, he is an avid reader of history books and a blessed cheesemaker.

Nicolas Ruiz is currently a Senior Economist and the Head of the Estonia/Poland Desk at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Prior to this, he held several positions at the OECD, where he managed OECD flagship publications and contributions to the G20 and G7, and conducted analytical works on structural policies, inequality and poverty. Prior to joining the OECD, he worked as an Economic Advisor at the French Ministry of Finance and the French Prime Minister Strategic Council.

Nicolas Ruiz holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cergy-Pontoise (France, 2006) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Mathematics of Security from the University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona (Spain, 2018). Beyond Economics, his research interests are in cryptography and data privacy,  fields in which he has authored several publications in computer science journals. Since 2020, he is also an Associate Researcher at the University of Tarragona, in the Criptografia i Secret Estadístic (CRISES) Research Group.

Üllar Jaaksoo is the Founder and CEO of Greenergy Data Centers, having previously led banking, media, telecom, IT, start-up and companies.

Greenergy Data Centers with the investment from Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund is building the largest and most modern green data center in the region.

Last five years he has been the member of the Supervisory Board of the Port of Tallinn, a company that recently made a really successful IPO at NASDAQ.

Üllar is also the Founder of the DIGITAL NATION Ltd., a business development and project management company for digital society solutions. Üllar also leads the Digital Society Sandbox Project, a project started by the presidents of the Estonia and Ukraine to boost bilateral partnership for digital society agile development.

Over the past 25 years he has built considerable experience successfully leading the strategy, technology and innovation activities in multiple industries across the Baltics, but also in Europe and the US.

Üllar has served in multiple positions in different Estonian public institutions like a Advisor to the Office of the President of Estonia, a Chairman in Enterprise Estonia, member of Estonian Film Foundation Supervisory board and other.

His competency spectrum includes strategy, digital society fundamentals, ID solutions, business model design, digital common sense and consumer insights.

Lembit Loo is managing different EU digital development cooperation projects at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, most notably the Europe-Africa Digital 4 Development Hub. In past, he has held executive management, business development and sales positions in IT and gaming industries, having worked at Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Net Group, Olympic Entertainment Group and other companies. Regionally he has worked in Estonia, US, Ukraine, Poland and Sub-Saharan Africa.

He is a strong advocate and frequent speaker on topics of e-governance, digital society and conscious leadership,  and has been an active member of Estonian startup and venture capital eco-systems.

Mr. Riho Kurg joined Cybernetica in 2016. As Head of Data Exchange Technologies, he manages the eGovernment solutions portfolio, including Unified eXchange Platform (UXP), a secure interoperability platform based and improved upon the Estonian X-Road. Most recent projects where UXP is implemented as the foundation of digital public services include Benin Republic, Bahamas and Aruba.

Mr. Kurg has over two decades of experience in the design and implementation of data interoperability layers connecting multiple government agencies and activities. He started his career building Estonia’s first national data network, which enabled data sharing between different government institutions.

Hannes Astok is the Executive Director and Chairman of the Management Board at the e-Governance Academy. Hannes is responsible for Cyber Security Programme, Smart Governance Programme, Project Development, Communication, and Associates and Subsidiaries.

He is an enthusiastic speaker for the information society, especially promoting the role of local governments and challenges of mobile governance and new technologies in government.

As a senior expert, he provides consultancy for governments in Central Asia, Caucasus, South-East Europe, Middle East, Africa and other transition regions. During the last years, he has been working closely with the governments of Ukraine, Namibia, Moldova, Palestine, Georgia, and Mauritius, among others.

Hannes served as Member of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) in 2007-2011, where he mainly dealt with the development of information society and issues related to regulation of intellectual property and electronic communication. Prior to that, in 1997-2005 Hannes worked for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor. Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing its citizens and businesses with a wide variety of Internet and mobile services.

In 2012-13, Hannes was Adviser to the President of Estonia on Information Society development.

Hannes holds a journalism and public relations degree from Tartu University.

Hannes speaks Estonian, English, Russian and Finnish.

When traversing the European tech scene of the last 20 years, you’ll likely run into Linnar. He’s a former executive at Skype and Fortumo, advisor at the Nordic Investment Bank, and Board Member of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology. Linnar lectures innovation management in Estonian IT College and Tartu University and has been advising Estonian and many other governments on ICT and innovation policy. Linnar is co-founder and member of the board of Pocopay – all European everyday banking app and Mobi Solutions – active investment and holding partnership in European startup scenery. Not surprisingly at all – Linnar is one of the founders and early phase leaders of Estonian e-Governance Academy as well.

Kristina Reinsalu is the Programme Director of e-Democracy at the e-Governance Academy. She has been involved in several local, national and international research and implementation projects related to open governance and the use of ICT in implementing its principles, particularly focusing on e-participation and its implementation at local level. She was also a researcher and lecturer on social communication at the Institute of Media and Communication at the University of Tartu.

Kristina’s latest projects include promoting open governance and e-tools for democracy in EaP countries such as Georgia, Moldova, etc; consulting municipalities in Estonia, Latvia and elsewhere on open governance and Participatory Budgeting. She is an internationally acknowledged public speaker on e-democracy and has been involved as an expert in various EU Interreg, H2020, Urbact etc projects.

In addition, she has contributed to several publications, e.g. the “Situation Review on e-Democracy and Cyber Security in Eastern Partnership Countries”.

Kristina holds an MA in Public Relations and a PhD in Media and Communications. Her articles have been published in various international scientific journals and newspapers.

Kristina speaks Estonian, English, Spanish, German and Russian.

Annela Kiirats has been the Programme Director of e-Governance Training at the e-Governance Academy since 2004, sharing her expertise on e-governance and e-democracy with senior specialists, decision-makers and politicians from various countries, as well as with NGOs.

She is responsible of assessment of the training needs of different beneficiaries from various countries, based on which develops and conducts tailor-made training programmes. She also organises e-governance seminars in beneficiary countries, being the e-government expert, and leads different international cooperation projects.

In 2002-2003, Annela worked for the Estonian Newspaper Association.

Annela obtained her Master’s degree from the Department of Informatics at Tallinn University of Technology in 2005.

She speaks Estonian, English and some Russian.

Merle Maigre works as the Senior Cyber Security Expert at e-Governance Academy. Previously, she worked at CybExer Technologies, an Estonian enterprise providing cyber training.

In 2017 to 2018, Merle served as the Director of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, which is a multinational hub of cyber defense expertise for NATO.

Between 2012 and 2017, Merle Maigre worked as the Security Policy Adviser to Estonian Presidents Kersti Kaljulaid and Toomas Hendrik Ilves, being the President’s chief advisor on domestic and international security issues, including cyber defence.

From 2010-2012 Merle Maigre was at NATO HQ in the Policy Planning Unit of the Private Office of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Merle has also worked as a researcher at the International Centre for Defense and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn (2007-2010). She has also served as the Deputy Head of the NATO Liaison Office in Kyiv (2005-2007) and at the NATO Department in Estonia’s Ministry of Defense, in support of the country’s NATO accession (2000-2005).

Merle received an MA degree in war studies from King’s College London, a BA in international relations from Middlebury College (US) and a BA in history from Tartu University. She has also studied at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna Center and at Sciences-Po Paris.

Merle has been decorated with the Estonian Defence Forces distinguished service medal (2018) and the Order of Merit of the Estonian Ministry of Defence (2018), the Dutch Commander of the Order of Oragne-Nassau (2018), the Order of Merit of Poland (2014), and the Commander of the Order of Lion of Finland (2014).

Merle speaks Estonian, English, Russian, French, some Italian and some Ukrainian.

Marit Lani develops and manages international cooperation projects on smart governance at the e-Governance Academy. She has been involved in creating national digital governance roadmaps and implementing interoperability frameworks.

In addition, she is responsible for the coordination of the quality management system (ISO 9001:2015) and the implementation of the document management system at eGA.

In her previous jobs, she gained a comprehensive understanding of European cooperation programmes. Working at the Ministry of the Interior, she was involved in preparing various European territorial cooperation programmes at the national level and was in charge of the related communication activities. Afterwards, she moved to Germany to work for the INTERREG IVC programme as an information point coordinator, providing advice to applicants on project development, assessing applications and monitoring approved projects. She also coordinated the e-government services project cluster and implemented the programme’s communication strategy.

Marit holds a Master‘s degree in Public Management from the University of Tartu.

Marit speaks Estonian, English and Finnish as well as some German and French.

Heiko has worked in the Estonian public sector for 14 years by contributing to the digital revolution of organisations and the development of e-services. In 2013-2017, Heiko led the strategic management of the national data exchange layer in the Estonian State Information System Authority, being responsible for the implementation of X-Road principles and the international development of X-Road. Previously he worked at the Estonian Health Insurance Fund as an integration expert and service architect.

Heiko has contributed to the emergence of digital prescriptions and electronic certificates of incapacity to work, and has implemented other e-services for citizens. The biggest and most unique achievement of the cross-border co-operation under his leadership so far is the unification of the Estonian and Finnish national data exchange layers, and the creation of an ecosystem of cross-border services.

Heiko has extensive experience in managing international e-government development projects in Canada, Colombia, the Cayman Islands, and Germany, where he has helped to identify as well as overcome bottlenecks in building broad-based interoperability.

Heiko graduated from the Tallinn University of Technology with a master’s degree in engineering.

Heiko speaks Estonian and English.

Kristina Mänd is the Senior Expert on e-Democracy at the e-Governance Academy, helping leaders and organisations to understand the value of participation and use various tools to facilitate engagement for good governance.

Kristina’s passion is rooted in the role of civil society making and access to the quality of life. They grew out of Kristina’s experience from working with the public sector in Estonia and with various civil society organisations (CSOs) around the world, e.g. Civicus in South Africa, LIFEbeat in New York, Network of Estonian Non-profit Organisations and Policy Studies Center Praxis in Estonia, to name a few.

Kristina has been responsible for coordinating hundreds of volunteers, doing outreach, social mobilisation, advocacy and policymaking, managing projects, programmes and organisations, and their human and financial resources.

In the past 25 years, Kristina has managed CSOs and projects internationally. She has trained and consulted many others in management and governance: strategic planning, impact assessment, financial planning and management, organisational analysis and development, stakeholder engagement, social marketing, fund development and working with funders, board development, legitimacy and accountability, and public engagement and advocacy.

Since 2015, Kristina has been the promoter of responsible consumption and fair trade in Mondo, Estonian development cooperation and global education CSO. Also, she coordinates an EU-funded international project “I Am European”: Migration Stories & Facts for the 21st Century with a positive impact on achieving a more open, inclusive, and peaceful culture towards migrants and refugees in Europe.

Kristina has published several books and a lot of articles on the same issues. Her portfolio also includes tens of travel articles.

She has MSc in Management and Marketing from the New York University (NYU) in US and MA in English from Tartu University in Estonia.

Kristina speaks English, Russian, Finnish, Spanish and Estonian.