Study & Write T4 (Review of the report)
In this post I would like to review the 2004 Information Society Report to the Parliament of Finland by Pekka Himanen. This report briefly describes what is information society, what challenges Finland and Europe may face during the adoption of information society model and how these challenges could be overcome. As the report is also a vision of the future in some way, I would like to evaluate, what has come true from these predictions and what hasn't. Though, I will mostly focus on Estonia, as it is my home country and I can fully observe the life of the country from the inside. Taken into account that Estonia is in Europe, the information given in the report covers Estonia as well.
First of all, I would like to state that Estonia has definitely become a great information society country with the developed tertiary sector of the economy, even though manufacturing and agriculture also play an important role. The main focus is put on information technology, which can be seen in such solutions, as active usage of digital signatures, e-voting, special digital portal, where almost every action connected to your life in the country can be done (eesti.ee) and many more.
So, what recommendations from the report helped Estonia become a successful information society country? One of the reasons is a welcoming culture approach. Estonia is always open for immigration. The process of becoming an Estonian citizen is not so hard, so foreign specialists can also become full-fledged residents of Estonia. What's also important, unemployment compensation in Estonia is pretty low, which means that all the foreigners coming to Estonia will work hard.
The second reason is in equality. In Estonia, everybody has equal opportunities, for example, a right for a free higher education. If you are hardworking enough, it costs nothing to obtain a higher education and get a decent job in Estonia. Also, our educational system is open to exchange and foreign students, who can possibly become future workers in Estonia.
The third reason I'd like to provide is a successful welfare society model. Medicine is at high level in Estonia and it is free for all the students and workers. A lot of sports opportunities, including gyms, walking and cycling paths help Estonian citizens to stay healthy both physically and mentally. However, some sports opportunities, such as gyms and swimming pools are not free as described in the report, but they are still quite affordable and many enterprises offer their employees free sports opportunities.
As we can see, quite a lot of predictions have come true, but there are of course these that has not. One example is a total creativity at work. Working process still requires (and always will) some sort of orders following. Despite the recommendation of the report to shape a bigger community, some people tend to work alone (e.g. freelancers), since they understand that their full creative potential can't be realized at a traditional work.
To conclude, the report quite accurately described the information society of the future, even though it is almost 17 years old. And Estonia is a great example of one such information society.
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