GEN has a long history of working with the Estonian entrepreneurial ecosystem and policy community.
Estonia was a relatively early-adopter of Global Entrepreneurship Week, with the University of Tartu Centre for Entrepreneurship leading a national campaign in 2012, and Creative Estonia engaging in the Creative Business Cup – a global competition that was launched as an anchor event in GEW.
With Startup Estonia doing such a great job in building the ecosystem, much of GEN’s engagement with Estonia has focused on policy and international development, beginning with the participation of Estonian Minister of Entrepreneurship Liisa Oviir in 2015 at the inaugural Startup Nations Ministerial, held as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Milan, Italy.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications subsequently hosted the Startup Nations Summit – an invitation-only event for entrepreneurship policymakers – alongside the EU SME Assembly in Tallinn in November 2017. Leaders from more than 70 different countries attended the Summit, exploring regulatory changes and policy ideas to help enable high impact entrepreneurship and stimulate entrepreneurial growth around the world.
One key outcome from SNS 2017 was the ‘Startup Nations Policy Hack Playbook’, a joint initiative of GEN and the Government of Estonia. Policy Hacks allow governments to beta-test new regulatory policies with their peers and apply the iterative processes that entrepreneurs use to test products and services to the task of keeping pace with exponential innovation. The Policy Hack was implemented for the first time during SNS 2017, with policymakers globally coming together in teams to tackle specific policy challenges. The Startup Nations Policy Hack has subsequently been implemented by governments and policy advocates globally, including in Botswana, Ecuador, Egypt, Australia, Indonesia, Bahrain, Chad, South Africa, Georgia, and the Philippines.
GEN President Jonathan Ortmans became an early adopter of Estonia’s Digital Nomad Visa and then connected several governments to Estonia, including Cyprus, which was interested in Estonia's digital government expertise. Further, GEN partnered with United Nations Trade & Development (UNCTAD) and the U.S. Department of State to launch Global Enterprise Registration (GER) – a program to help governments simplify and automate administrative procedures impacting entrepreneurs. The digital single window and trade portals that GER provides to developing countries was developed in partnership with RIK – the IT development center of the Estonian Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs. Under GER, the digital platforms have been implemented in Iraq, Lesotho, Benin, Bhutan, and beyond. GER also assesses and scores countries’ online single windows. In 2024, rescoring of all countries to coincide with the UNCTAD World Investment Report saw Estonia score 100%.
GEN maintains relationships with key Estonian ecosystem stakeholders, including the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, Startup Estonia, Accelerate Estonia, Latitude59 and Tallin University of Technology.
Many Estonian startups have used GEN programs to speed their growth over the years. Two Estonian startups have made their way to the finals of the Entrepreneurship World Cup, run by GEN and Monsha’at, where they had access to free training resources, mentorship and exposure to potential investors. Cyex and PowerUp Fuel Cells reached the EWC 100 and pitched for a share of $1 million at the EWC Global Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Others, including TicketO Mobility, Solarstone, and Insolito have benefited from membership of the GEN Starters Club.