Promotion of ESIS II - Tiger Tour Estonia

One of the most important recent communication activities concerning ESIS II in Estonia has been the participation of the Estonian ESIS team in the Tiger Tour.

The aim of Tiger Tour is to introduce the positive and negative aspects of the information society in a popular manner, to inspire people to make use of the opportunities that technology offers, and to assist in the creation of equal opportunities for integration with the information society. It is never too late, there are no "lost generations" – this is the message for people who are giving up in disappointment. The Tiger Leap Foundation together with a special project team working in cooperation with the Foundation is organizing the conduction of the Tiger Tour.

Tiger Tour road-show was started as one day event on August 31, 1997, when 100 Internet-connected computers were set up for public use in old city square in Tallinn. One day full with lectures was public success and next year the countrywide road-show of best IT practices with lecturers support became reality. Objective of Tiger Tour is to support integration of all members of Estonian society into the information society. At the present 2/3 of people have not used computers and haven't had opportunity to learn about the IT in easy and informative form. Tiger Tour was targeted to the first time users and encouragement - there are no lost generations in information society, highest barrier of entry is in one’s head.

In the end of August 1998 the 8 days road show, covering different Estonian cities was set up to provide opportunities for all people for free to use computers, Internet and participate in lectures. Every day had full day lecturing program, covering the basics of computers and finishing with user applications, Internet banking and information search. Special program for pre-school children, mobile computing and wireless data communication, public services via net etc. were supporting the main hall. 30 professionals, volunteering to the tour were setting up every day in new city the 750 sq. meters scene, equipped this with computers, connected to the Internet and carried out presentations. More that 400 people, mostly local students were supporting as trainers for those, taking first steps with computers.

Tiger Tour had over 25.000 visitors and was widely recognised as public event of 1998 in Estonia.

Tiger Tour was nominated in the end of 1998 to the Global Bangemann Challenge (http://www.challenge.stockholm.se) – international ICT and innovation award. Tiger Tour was awarded with the highest trophy in Category "Equal Access Opportunities".

Thanks to the huge demand from the different regions of Estonia, Tiger Tour was again conducted in August 1999 (22-29 August), covering again 8 Estonian cities, 6 of them new ones. In 1999 the focus was more on the content available via the new media tools and applications. In addition to the event on the stage, local ICT development seminars for Chief Executive Officers and Chief Information Officers were held in each city to gather professionals in the region together with programme hosted by top specialists of Estonian ICT companies.

The ESIS II project was promoted at the Tiger Tour in the following ways:

Presentations on the main stage to a large target group. The overall trends of Estonian developments towards information society were described.

Presentations in the smaller tent (specialising on education issues) to discuss in a more detailed way the socio-economic and legal environment in Estonia and other countries.

Article about ESIS in the Tiger Tour Newsletter. There were ca 25 000 copies of the Newsletter distributed for free to the visitors of the Tiger Tour.

There was also information letter concerning 5^th Framework Programme and IST distributed in strategy seminars in eight cities. The newsletter contains a special paragraph dedicated to ESIS as the Project provides background information on the socio-economic and legal situation in different countries and the developments about information society projects.

Distribution of ESIS questionnaires and pre-questionnaires.

Distribution of labels with the address http://www.ist98.ee (redirects to www.esis.ee) and the contact details of Archimedes Foundation.

Special Tee-shirts with ESIS logo and the web address www.esis.ee on the back were distributed during the Tiger Tour.

More information:
ESIS Estonia - Project manager Tarmo Kalvet
Tarmo.Kalvet@ut.ee
Tel: (27) 30 03 31
Fax (27) 30 03 36
http://www.esis.ee

Tiger Leap Foundation:
www.tiigrihype.ee

Tiger Tour Web site:
www.tiigrituur.ee