The UK has handed over the presidency of the D5 group of the world’s most digitally advanced nations to Estonia, the news agency BNS writes.
The handover took place during a bilateral meeting between the Estonian and UK prime ministers, Taavi Rõivas and David Cameron, the Estonian government’s media adviser Ave Tampere told BNS.
“Estonia is honored to take over the chairmanship of the D5 and host the upcoming summit in Tallinn in November. We thank and commend the UK for initiating this valuable network for exchange of world-class digital government practices and stewarding its first year,” Rõivas said.
The inaugural D5 summit was held in London last year with this year’s summit to be held in Tallinn on Nov. 19 and 20.
A new project, UK Estonia TechLink, is expected to be announced at the Tallinn summit. The project is designed to create and support public and private partnerships between the two countries in technology, innovation and science. It will focus on areas such as financial technology, cyber security, digital government, biotech, smart city development and education.
The D5, set up in 2014, brings together the world’s most digitally advanced nations to explore and share ways of providing better digital government services. The founding members of the group — United Kingdom, South Korea, Estonia, Israel and New Zealand – all have a track record in digital government, including designing services around users’ needs and sharing open source solutions. Other governments are understood to have expressed an interest in joining the group.
