Tiigrihüpe

Tiigrihüpe logo

Tiigrihüpe (Estonian for Tiger's Leap) was a project undertaken by Republic of Estonia to heavily invest in development and expansion of computer and network infrastructure in Estonia, with a particular emphasis on education. The project was first proposed in 1996 by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, then ambassador of Estonia to USA and later President of Estonia, and Jaak Aaviksoo, then minister of Education. The project was announced by Lennart Meri, the President of Estonia, on February 21, 1996. Funds for the foundation of Tiigrihüpe were first allocated in national budget of 1997.

An important primary effect of the project was rollout of Internet access to all Estonian schools, which effectively ended UUCP usage in Estonia, combined with installing computer labs in most schools, and replacing those that already existed with IBM PC based parks. Due to an economic and technologic lag effected on Estonia by the Soviet occupation, CP/M based 8-bit computer systems were not yet a rare sight in Estonian schools in the middle of the 1990s.

After the Cyberattacks on Estonia 2007, Estonia combined network defence with its common military doctrine. Success of the process led to NATO creating the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn. This project has been nicknamed Tiger's Defence (Estonian: Tiigrikaitse) by analogy with Tiigrihüpe.^[1]

External links

• Official website

See also

• Noored Kooli, a somewhat similar, somewhat related project
• Estonica, a project on creating Estonian encyclopædia partially funded through Tiigrihüpe
• EstWin, a project to connect all Estonians to internet with 100 mbit/s speed by 2015

References

1. ^ Office of the President of Estonia June 25, 2007: President Ilves kohtus Ameerika Ühendriikide riigipeaga

Further reading

• Farivar, Cyrus. 2011. The Internet of Elsewhere: the Emergent Effects of a Wired World. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. p. 109-149. Covers the history of the Internet and public WiFi access in Estonia.