Topic: E-Government

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as president of Estonia from 2006-16. Ilves is renowned for making Estonia one of the most digitally advanced nations through innovative policies that invested heavily in the future.

Ilves was born to Estonian refugees and raised in the United States. He holds a BA from Columbia and an MA from the University of Pennsylvania.  He moved to Munich in 1984 to work as an analyst and researcher for Radio Free Europe, eventually becoming Director of the radio’s Estonian Service.

From 1993-96 he served as Estonia’s ambassador to the United States. In 1996 he was appointed country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, a post he held until 1998, and again from 1999 to 2002. In that time he successfully steered Estonia into the EU and NATO in 2004

He ran for the presidency of Estonia as a joint candidate of the Social Democratic, Conservative and Liberal Parties and was elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2011.

Ilves used his office to further to the country’s leadership in digital governance as well as in cyber security. Since November 2016, Ilves has co-chaired The Global Futures Council on Blockchain Technology. Since leaving office Ilves spent three and a half years as a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University and the Center for Advance Study in the Behavioral Sciences, while lecturing all over the world on the digitization of governance and public services. Most recently he is also advising the WHO-Europe on technological solutions to the Covid-17 pandemic and cross-border health more broadly while teaching at Tartu University in Estonia.

Bruno Lanvin

Bruno Lanvin is the Executive Director of INSEAD’s European Competitiveness Initiative (IECI).

From 2007 to 2012, he has been the Executive Director of INSEAD’s eLab, managing INSEAD’s teams in Paris, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

From 2000 to 2007, Bruno Lanvin worked for the World Bank, where he was inter alia Senior Advisor for E-strategies, and Regional Coordinator (Europe and Central Asia) for ICT and e-government issues.

He was also heading the Capacity Building Practice of the World Bank’s Global ICT Department, and Chairman of the Bank’s e- Thematic Group.

From June 2001 to December 2003, he was the Manager of the Information for Development Program (infoDev) at the World Bank.

In 2000, Mr. Lanvin was appointed Executive Secretary of the G-DOT Force. Until then, he was Head of Electronic Commerce in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, and occupied various senior positions including Chief of Cabinet of the Director General of the United Nations in New-York, Head of Strategic Planning and later Chief of the SME Trade Competitiveness Unit of UNCTAD/SITE.

He was the main drafter, team leader and editor of ‘Building Confidence: electronic commerce and development', published in January 2000. Since 2002, he has been co-authoring the Global Information Technology Report, (INSEAD-World Economic Forum); he is currently the co-editor of the Global Innovation Index Report (INSEAD-WIPO-Cornell University).

He holds a BA in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Valenciennes (France), an MBA from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Paris I (La Sorbonne) in France.

A frequent speaker in high-level meetings, he advises a number of global companies and governments, and is a member of numerous boards, including that of the Tallinn e-government Academy.