Our Experts

You will hear true stories, not theory, directly from those involved in Estonia’s digital transformation. 


Our experts will also draw from their experience gained from assisting more than 130 countries with their digital transformation challenges.

In our training courses, seminars, and interactive webinars we tell transformation stories of various countries, highlighting best practices and lessons learned.

Moreover, eGA cooperates closely with various government agencies, academic institutions, private sector companies, as well as civil society organizations to offer you full support in implementing various digital transformation projects in your country, based on your ideas and inspiration gained from the training.


Hannes Astok

Executive Director, Chairman of the Management Board

Mr Astok has worked as Deputy Mayor of the City of Tartu (Estonia) and has coordinated ICT implementation at the municipality level. Moreover, he has been Member of the Parliament and Adviser to the President of Estonia. For many years he has been advising governments of several countries on digital transformation.

Arvo Ott, PhD

Architecture Competence Center Lead

Having been the first government CIO of Estonia in 1993-2002, Dr. Ott coordinated the digital transformation processes in Estonia. Dr. Ott has been a member of different e-government related committees and councils. For many years, he has been advising governments of several countries on e-government policy.

Annela Kiirats

Head of Trainings

Annela Kiirats has been the Programme Director of e-Governance Training at the e-Governance Academy since 2004, sharing her expertise on e-governance and e-democracy with senior specialists, decision-makers, and politicians from various countries, as well as with NGOs. She is responsible for the assessment of training needs of different beneficiaries from various countries, based on which she develops and conducts tailor-made training programmes. She also organizes e-governance seminars in beneficiary countries, being the e-government expert, and leads different international cooperation projects.

Katrin Nyman-Metcalf, PhD

Senior Expert on Legal Framework

Katrin Nyman-Metcalf works as Senior Expert of Legal Framework at the Estonian e-Governance Academy and is an Adjunct Professor of Communications Law at the Department of Law, School of Business and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology. She is also involved in international consultancy, primarily in the area of information and communication technology law. Her projects include regular legal analysis of media and communications legislation for e.g. the OSCE and the European Commission.

Piret Saartee

Head of Competence Center

Piret Saartee works at the e-Governance Academy as a Senior Expert on Smart Governance. Piret has a legal background and more than 12 years of experience as an e-government expert. She has an excellent knowledge of transforming paper-based services and registers into digital together with business process optimization (e.g. implementation of electronic Land Register and related e-services, digitalization of Marital Property Register, Succession Register, and Ship Register). Piret has significant experience in legal analysis and drafting, creating strategies and roadmaps, conducting training courses, and supporting change management. She has participated in different projects within the European Union such as STORK2.0, implementation of eIDAS, and the Land Registers Interconnection (LRI) platform.

Mark Erlich

Senior Expert

Mark Erlich is a Senior Expert at the e-Governance Academy. He has more than 15 years of experience with electronic identity, whereas he has been helping the Estonian Government to build a sustainable and secure eID solution for more than ten years. Since 2010, Mark has been the key person in eID management at the Estonian Information System Authority. Among many duties, Mark has been contributing as PKI Area Manager, Head of eID Department and lately, as eID Business Architect.

Kristina Mänd

Senior Expert

Kristina Mänd is the Senior Expert at the e-Governance Academy, helping leaders and organisations to understand the value of participation and use various tools to facilitate engagement for good governance. Kristina is deeply interested in how civil society can improve the quality of life and broaden access to those improvements. Her interest grew out of Kristina’s experience working with the public sector in Estonia and with various civil society organisations (CSOs) around the world in the past 25 years, e.g Civicus in South Africa, LIFEbeat in New York, Network of Estonian Non-profit Organisations, NGO Mondo and Policy Studies Center Praxis in Estonia, to name a few.

Kristina Reinsalu

Senior Expert

Kristina Reinsalu has been involved in several international research and implementation projects related to open governance and the use of ICT in implementing its principles, particularly focusing on e-participation and its implementation at local level. Her latest projects include promoting open governance and e-tools for democracy in EaP countries such as Georgia and Moldova; consulting municipalities in Estonia, Latvia, and elsewhere on open governance and Participatory Budgeting. She is an internationally acknowledged public speaker on e-democracy and has been involved as an expert in various EU Interreg, H2020, Urbact, etc projects.