Meet 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 300 countries and territories with their digital transformation challenges.

In our online courses and study visits 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 organisations to offer you full support in implementing various digital transformation projects in your country, based on your ideas and inspiration gained from the training.


Meet the eGA experts featured on our online courses. Additionally, our courses include insights from experts across various organisations, providing a comprehensive learning experience.

Hannes Astok

Executive Director and Chairman of the Management Board

Hannes Astok served in the Estonian Parliament (2007-2011), focusing on information society and issues related to regulation of intellectual property and electronic communication. Prior to that, in 1997-2005 Hannes worked for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor. In 2012-13, Hannes was Adviser to the President of Estonia on Information Society development. Hannes holds a journalism and public relations degree from Tartu University. He is an enthusiastic speaker for the information society, especially promoting the role of local governments and challenges of mobile governance and new technologies in government.
Hannes Astok

Ingrid Toonekurg

Member of the Management Board

Ingrid has worked at Microsoft as a Sales Manager in more than 25 countries. She has worked with both the public and private sectors. Her previous IT experience is from IBM as a Software Sales Manager. Before that she worked in education, developing Concordia University in Estonia for new curricula and educational breakthroughs. She has experience from the Ministry of Finance of Estonia, optimising the state budget process and setting up the Estonian State Treasury in the early days of the Estonian digital journey. Ingrid holds an MBA in International Business, where she researched different business cultures.

Arvo Ott, PhD

Head of the Digital Architecture Competence Centre

Arvo served as the Head of Department of State Information Systems (head of e-government office) at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications for more than 12 years. He was responsible for the Estonian information society and e-government strategy planning and implementation. For the last several years Arvo has taken part in many international projects and programmes on e-governance – information society policy and e-participation advice, e-government interoperability aspects and more. Arvo has been awarded the Estonian Order of Merit of the White Star IV Class (2014).

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.

Piret Saartee

Head of the Digital Services Competence Centre

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 optimisation. She has participated in different projects within the European Union such as STORK2.0, the implementation of eIDAS and the Land Registers Interconnection (LRI) platform. She holds a master’s degree in law from the Institute of Law, Estonia.

Heiko Vainsalu

Head of the Infrastructure and Solutions Competence Centre

Heiko has worked in the Estonian public sector for 14 years by contributing to the digital revolution of organisations and the development of e-services. In 2013-2017, Heiko led the strategic management of the national data exchange layer in the Estonian State Information System Authority, being responsible for the implementation of X-Road principles and the international development of X-Road. Previously he worked at the Estonian Health Insurance Fund as an integration expert and service architect. His most notable achievement in cross-border cooperation is unifying the Estonian and Finnish data exchange layers and creating a cross-border services ecosystem.

Merle Maigre

Head of Cybersecurity Competence Centre

Merle has previously worked at CybExer Technologies, providing cybersecurity training. Merle served as Director of NATO CCDCOE (2017-2018) and was National Security Policy Adviser to Estonian Presidents Kersti Kaljulaid and Toomas Hendrik Ilves (2012-2017). She held roles at NATO HQ, ICDS, and the NATO Liaison Office in Kyiv. Merle contributes to several organisations, including CyberPeace Institute, Estonian Council on Foreign Relations, and Estonian Information Security Association. She holds degrees from King’s College London, Middlebury College, and Tartu University, and has been honored with awards such as the French National Order of Merit and the Estonian Defence Forces distinguished service medal.

Mark Erlich

Senior Expert

Mark has more than 15 years of experience with electronic identity. 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. For the past eight years, he has been strongly involved in eIDAS workgroups at the EU level and also in the implementation of the regulation at the national level. Mark graduated from Dalarna University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Carry Kangur

Senior Expert

Before joining eGA, Carry worked at the NATO Cooperative Cyber ​​Defense Center of Excellence (NATO CCDCOE) as head of cyber exercises, where he was responsible for the planning, organisation and execution of the internationally recognised Locked Shields and Crossed Swords cyber exercises. Before that, Carry held various roles in public sector IT institutions. Carry has obtained a bachelor’s degree in educational sciences at the University of Tartu and is currently continuing his studies at Tallinn University, where he is obtaining a master’s degree in information technology management.

Kristina Mänd

Senior Expert

Kristina helps 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.

Toomas Mölder

Senior Expert

Toomas focuses on cross-border, cross-sectoral, national and organisational secure data exchange solutions. Previously, Toomas worked at Estonian Information System Authority (RIA) where his tasks were related to one of Estonia’s e-government cornerstones, X-Road (X-tee) development and management. Toomas has more than 35 years of experience in IT development, management, and lead. He has led the development of Tallinn City/municipality IT systems, Baltic Stock Exchanges, various private and public information systems, and registries in domains of citizenship and migration, education and health.

Kristina Reinsalu

Senior Expert

Kristina is a senior expert on citizen engagement and open governance. She researches, consults, and trains public authorities and civil society organizations on involving people in decision-making. Her passion is local democracy – she sees it as a playground for testing democratic innovations. In her current work, she designs and leads workshops on citizen participation in Latin America, supports rural communities in Georgia in enhancing their digital skills, and assesses the impact of e-participation initiatives. She is also involved in projects exploring how citizen engagement and co-creation can help cities become more resilient in the face of green transition challenges. Kristina holds an MA in Public Relations and a PhD in Media and Communications. Kristina speaks Estonian, English, Spanish, Russian, and some German.

Radu Antonio Serrano Iova, PhD

Expert

Radu manages the National Cyber Security Index database, maintains stakeholder communications, and he has contributed to an anti-corruption web platform and analysis of governmental e-services in Moldova. Previously, Radu served at the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Ministry of Commerce and Industries. He also worked as a Trade Specialist at the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AmCham).