Reliance opens research centre in Estonia to study digital society

Reliance Industries has set up a research centre in Estonia to understand the digital society in the Baltic nation. The centre comes after Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani became an e-resident of Estonia, along with other Indians including Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. "Reliance Industries has set up a research centre for Jio in Estonia. The research centre aims at understanding the digital Estonian society and the benefit it can offer to India and Indians," an official statement from Estonia's e-residency programme said Wednesday.

The centre is headed by Taavi Kotka, the former chief information officer of Estonia and also one of the founders of e-residency programme, it added.

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It can be noted that Estonia is one of the most digitally connected societies in the world, wherein almost the entire citizen-government interface takes place in the virtual world, including aspects like insurance renewals, and buying drugs for personal use, among others.

The Estonians, who number just about 1.32 million, have a single identity that's used to avail of services across the board. Experts say Aadhaar can technically help replicate the same success here.

The statement said Ambani has always been appreciative of the advancements made by Estonia in the e-governance space.

It can be noted that recently, Ambani made a strong pitch for data localisation as well after announcing RIL's plans to enter e-commerce through a hybrid model which will use merchants on the ground.

Estonia is the first country in the world to offer e- residency, through which foreign nationals establish a virtual identity that can offers trade and business access across the European Union, of which Estonia is a part.

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The North European nation has so far enrolled over 2,174 Indians as e-residents who have created 286 companies, the statement said, adding these include freelancers and location-independent entrepreneurs as well.

"Our goal in 2019 will be able to attract around 300 new companies from India," e-residency's head of public relations Arnaud Castaignet said in the statement.