Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Back in 2017, I wondering around Tallinn, Estonia as part of Mozretreat. I came across a interesting structure not far from the centre on the coast. I didn’t know it was Linnahall.
When I watched Tenet I thought the opening scene with the opera house looked familiar. Then recently I finally looked it up.
The same place and what a difference!
I like to think of myself as a digital nomad, so maybe its time to test the logic? I know one thing for sure… Its been over 6 months since I was last in work. Besides my Ubuntu SSD issue (long story, but its something I can’t fix myself without wiping out the existing work settings) everything workwise has been fine.
Between a lot of cloud applications like Zoom, Slack, Google drive, Dropbox, etc. Its very clear I could do this from almost anywhere with a good internet connection. Of course with my personal cloud applications running on my server such as Plex, a number of docker apps, etc. I was recently checking out cryptpad.
I did notice thanks to the e-residency newsletter than Tallinn and Estonia featured recently in a episode of Netflix’s new science show called connected.
Estonia features in an episode of a new science series now available on streaming service Netflix, where the country is highlighted for its trail-blazing digital development.
“Connected”, a U.S. show hosted by science journalist Latif Nasser, looks at the various ways people are connected to each other and the world around them.
Episode 5 of the series, “Clouds”, visits Estonia and sees first-hand the country’s cloud-based digital infrastructure, as well as taking a turn in a smoke sauna.
The show has already received rave reviews, with the New York times listing it as their recommended show to watch Sunday, or at any time.
Presenter Latif Nasser notes that it is difficult not to get jealous of Estonians.
“Imagine you can vote in the sauna, register your company in the hot tub or declare taxes in the toilet,” he says.
A while ago I was in Tallinn and applied for the Estonian e-Residency as a result of what I heard and after deciding their was enough upsides to the residency.
Well Wednesday I got a email from the Estonian Embassy in London…
This is to confirm your digital identity card has arrived to the Estonian Embassy in London and is ready to be collected.
Excellent news… I hope to be picking it up sometime in June.
I was in Tallinn, Estonia most of this week for MozRetreat. Tallinn was a wonderful place and surprised me no end.
Listening to a talk about Estonia e-residency in Tallinn #mozretreat https://t.co/d9hQNsrJnL
Wondering about the benefits as a non business— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) April 25, 2017
On the first full day we had a Alex Wellman who filled us all in on Estonian’s e-Residency program (one which I wrote about a while ago). I was certainly interested and it was great to get the full details and answers to my personal questions.
Generally its mainly setup for businesses and freelancers wanting to work/trade within the EU. For myself theres few reasons to take part in the program but its highly likely after considering everything, I may go ahead and do it, mainly for these reasons.
The Alex Wellman made some good points but ultimately its a bit of a leap into the unknown with the chance of more advantages coming in years to come.
Being in the UK, I can do almost everything online and then do the interview and pick up my new digital identity in the Estonian Embassy in London.
Its seems all worth while for 100 euros, form filling and interviews.
Updated… I’ve applied…
I just hope the photos I sumbmitted were good enough for the process.
Mozfest the festival I have been in involved with for the last 6 years; is a collaborative event and of course there is some overhead to the collaboration. But Mozilla have ways to work through the usual issues with collaboration; be it collaborative tools first or subverting github to manage the open calls. Its quite amazing…
But sometimes you need to bring people together across the many different timezones we inhabit. 2 years ago it was Scotland, last year it was Berlin and this year its Tallinn.
Of course I was wondering like many others. I heard some great things about the place but it wasn’t hot on my list of places to go. But some more research has turned up some great stuff including the e-resident which I first heard about from Alex DS.
Ahead of Brexit, statistics reveal that almost 1,000 Brits have now applied to be e-residents of Estonia. Applications from the UK are being made twice as frequently as before the referendum, following an initial surge from three to 51 applications per week. More than half of all applications from the UK, 534, have arrived since the vote, while 231 arrived in the same period beforehand. Based on current trends, it is likely the 1,000th British application for e-residency will arrive this week, as Article 50 is due to be triggered.
Elsewhere, a website has been set up by the e-residency programme for British entrepreneurs called howtostayin.eu which explains how startups, established businesses and freelancers can use Estonian e-residency to continue their operations in the EU without leaving the UK.
I wish I had done it earlier, as I’ll be doing this for sure now…
Interestingly I also found the p0rnhub insights for estonia while searching, which was fancinating but slightly #nsfw, so you were warned! I was going to send it around to some of the Mozfest orginaisers but couldn’t find a way to explain why it was interesting or relavent.