Estonia’s internet ‘Tiger Leap’
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2021
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Estonia started connecting all its schools to the internet very early. In 1996 less than two percent of the world’s population had access to the web but Estonia’s initiative, known as ‘Tiger Leap’ captured the imagination and the hopes of the whole country. Estonians became early adopters of all sorts of digital services, from online banking to digital ID cards. However, a decade later Estonia was one of the first places in the world to suffer a sustained cyber attack. Caroline Bayley has been speaking to one of the founders of ‘Tiger Leap’- former government minister Jaak Aaviksoo. Photo credit: Getty images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
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| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
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| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. This is the Witness History Podcasts from the BBC World Service. I'm Caroline Bailey. |
| 0:41.6 | In 1996, the Tiny Republic of Estonia on the Baltic Sea |
| 0:46.0 | launched a program to connect all of its schools to the internet. |
| 0:50.0 | It was a radical move in the early days of the web. |
| 0:53.0 | The initiative, known as Tiger Leap, |
| 0:56.0 | came at a time when less than 2% of the world's population |
| 1:00.0 | had access to the internet, |
| 1:01.0 | and just a few years after Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union. |
| 1:06.0 | It captured the imagination and the hopes of the whole country. |
| 1:11.0 | I've been talking to one of Tiger Leep's founders, Yark Avixel. |
| 1:15.0 | The Tiger Leep generation or the generation of the 90s, |
| 1:19.0 | they grew up in Estonia and they of course wanted to conquer the world in a way. They became to be called |
| 1:27.6 | Estonian mafia. This is the nickname of Estonian young IT entrepreneurs. |
| 1:34.0 | But they're not like the mafia as some of us think of the mafia. |
| 1:37.0 | No criminal connotations, actually. |
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