We are the only country to have e-voting and also offer e- residences,” said Riho Kruuv, Estonian ambassador to India. He was interacting with city entrepreneurs, start-up businesses and industrialists at the Finolex board room, Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA), on Friday.
During the interaction, Kruuv highlighted the fact that Estonia is strong in cyber security and digital solution.
The IT (information technology) sub-committee of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture has prepared a 10-year strategic plan to take Pune’s IT sector from the current $8 billion to $15 billion annual turnover.
Commodore Anand Khandekar (retd), former head of subcommittee, along with IT expert Sanjay Kanvinde, has drawn a draft Pune IT 2.0 blueprint, which envisages Pune’s “pole-vault” to the next level in IT and close collaborations with five countries, namely Vietnam, Estonia, Poland, Hungary and Israel.
“Currently, Estonia has 336 companies set up by Indians and is a pioneer in block chain technologies,” he said.
“Almost all transactions are done digitally which offers ease of doing business and tax competitiveness.When you set up your business in Estonia, you can run your business for all of Europe. Also, there is zero tax on companies who reinvest their profits in business,” Kruuv added.
“Estonia is eager to cooperate with India in many areas,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“Estonia is eager to cooperate with India in many areas,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}He further said that Estonians are very hard working people with a very high emphasis on education and skill development.“86 per cent of the population speaks at least one foreign language of the total population which is less than 2 million,” Kruuv said.
Stressing upon education, Payal Rajpal, spokesperson, Study Estonia, said, “Many students who are interested in cyber security and e-governance opt to study in Estonia. Not only does it offer good education, but also gives students nine months to find work within the country.”
Talks of collaboration between COEP and universities in Estonia, underway
College of Engineering Pune (COEP) met with representatives of Estonia to discuss probable areas of collaboration.
Riho Kruuv, ambassador of Republic of Estonia and Payal Rajpal, spokesperson of study in Estonia visited the campus. Sandeep Meshram, associate professor and corporate relations officer at COEP presented a brief on activities of COEP, its industrial collaborations and memorandums of understanding (MoU) with various foreign universities.
Talks of signing an MoU between the two parties is underway.
“The agenda was to know more about COEP and to know the probable areas of collaboration with COEP. A robotics competition has been proposed by Rajpal to be held at COEP in May.” said Meshram.
Rajpal explained various activities Estonia conducts in India and how Indian universities can establish association with universities in Estonia.