New start-up brings the e-state closer to the people

Riho Oks, the owner of StateOS. Photo: Tairo Lutter / Postimees

The purpose of the start-up StateOS and its eponymous application is to reverse the current model of providing e-services – in other words, in the future people would not look for information and services, but vice versa.

“The state can find me when it wants to collect taxes, but cannot find me whet it could inform me of my rights or opportunities,” says Riho Oks, the owner of StateOS. “I think that there are many places in the society where people are unaware of their obligations or opportunities.”

Oks has a long history of working with the State Information System Authority and has helped to build up the Estonian e-state. He is now engaged in entrepreneurship and helps foreign governments in developing e-state. Ii is the same with StateOS – he wants to make it work in Estonia first and then expand to foreign countries.

The idea of StateOS is simple: instead of visiting the eesti.ee website, the patients’ portal or other sites to find announcements from the government institutions, an individual would receive them via a cell phone application. For instance, if a doctor issues a recipe, a message would arrive.

The entrepreneur is hopeful that the number of users of the application in Estonia could reach 300,000 within year.

Why did you decide to create the StateOS application?

I began to develop the e-state in 2002. I first joined the Ministry of Economy and Communications department of state information systems and later transferred to the institution which is presently known as the State Information System Authority (RIA). I mainly headed the X-road project in Estonia and later in Finland.

I have always believed that information and services should find the user at the right time in the right place in the right device and when we need them. After leaving RIA I spent several years looking for the way to contribute to the development of e-state as a private entrepreneur and so that it could be expanded globally. Step by step I came to the desire to create an individual-centred smart application which would concentrate the daily personal services and information from the state and private sectors, from Estonia and across borders.

And that was when the idea emerged?

The final push was a discussion with my neighbour when we went to buy fireworks for New Year’s Eve two years ago. He told me that his wife had called him a fool. I asked, why. He explained that he had participated in a Google lottery, where those giving the right answers could win an iPhone. I asked whether he had given the wrong answers. He said, no, the answers had been correct, but he had lost a euro. Apparently having answered correctly he had to pay a euro to take part in the lottery. I said that in this case his wife had been right and he was a fool indeed. If you cannot understand the logical error that Google owns Android and promises to hand out iPhones, something must be fishy.

I asked, whether he had used a PIN code before making the payment. He triumphantly said that he hadn’t. I said that if you can make a transfer over the web without a code and some criminal is watching you, then he can do the same transfer. He asked what to do. I recommended checking the bank account. He later found out that a further 29 euros had been taken from his account. Some days later I took some money from a bank account and had an automatic Swedbank announcement. I thought that if my neighbour had received a timely announcement, it might have been better for him.

What kind of announcements would StateOS pass on?

Here is an example. There was a land plot behind our home, which as auctioned off at some moment. If I and the other neighbours had known that we had the right of first refusal, we would have certainly bought it together. But we only learned about it later and then there was no opportunity. The state can find me when it wants to collect taxes, but it does not find me to inform me of my rights or opportunities.

On the one hand, people have obligations due to laws or contracts, e.g. to name a child. But they also have opportunities, for example to apply for support for the child’s hobby activities. This is no obligation. I believe that there are many things in the society where people do not know their rights or obligations and therefore they do not perform the obligation or the opportunity goes unused.

How would your firm earn money by mediating these announcements?

The application has two parts. One is announcements; the other is campaign information. Sending announcements is free, while campaign information would be sent for a fee. This would be the source of our income. The application must stay alive somehow.

While most applications have the rule that the user has to pay so as not to see advertisements and commercials, every user of our application can ban the announcements or campaign information of a specific service provider. The user can decide for himself which announcements or campaign information he is willing to receive.

Wouldn’t you worry that people are suspicious of the application, since announcements from the state contain personal information which comes through your platform? You could record these data.

First, we recommend the service providers to work their announcement so that they do not contain delicate personal data. Secondly, the user can delete his messages from the system. We shall only retain the logs to the extent of serving as evidence and we shall observe the data protection rules. We recommend that the announcements should be as neutral as possible. One could announce that “you have been issued recipe for blood pressure drug Triplixam..:” but you could also announce: “You have been issued a new recipe, please view it at ..:”

How many government institutions are you currently cooperating with?

The first client is the Amphora document management system. This is Estonian software, used by approximately 700 legal entities, including enterprises and municipalities. They will inform you when some document in the public system needs your signature.

I have informed all ministries and their subordinate institutions. I am also talking to representatives of the Tallinn city government.

How long will it take until all these institutions and a sufficient number of enterprises will join the platform? Until they are there, it would be difficult to attract users.

Absolutely. Without service providers there will be no users either. Without users there will be no service providers. We hope to gain up to three service providers every week.

You are also planning to expand abroad. Aren’t you afraid that you would not get very far since their e-state is not as developed as the one in Estonia?

It could be. But I have thought about it. I have been developing e-state on four continents. It is possible in quite a large number of countries to establish one’s identity electronically and exchange information securely. It is quite widely spread in Europe, but also in Central and Latin America. I think there are enough countries to expand to. We shall first begin to operate in Estonia, then in Finland and later in the rest of the world.

How many users and institutions you shall have within a year – what is the prediction?

The maximum potential number of users in Estonia is approximately 600,000. If we could involve 300,000 individuals within a year it would be good. I predict 50-100 service providers within a year and we shall operate in at least three countries after one year.