At the opening of the Baltic Dynamics innovation conference in Tartu on the 4th September, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves spoke about the need for a society which fosters innovation: (full text)

To make it crystal clear. If you are a bright software developer from India, Pakistan, Turkey, where will you go if the choice is between Tartu, Estonia and Boston, Massachusetts? The weather is more or less equally dismal, the salaries can even be competitive, at least with companies like Skype. But those things being equal, where will you go? This is the broader and more ineffable challenge in promoting innovation.

He also highlighted the unique contribution made by Skype to Estonia’s economy:

In Estonia … the share of private capital in R&D investment is 45% (in 2006), which in numbers terms is ‘Denmark in reverse’, as the government’s share in innovation investment is still larger than the private sector, or 50/50 at best. So now we can ask: has our business community done enough? I should add that one company in Estonia, Skype, has contributed 10% of all investment in innovation. This means that almost a quarter of all private investment in innovation comes from just one company. While this is commendable for Skype, it should also be a lesson to the rest of the private sector.

It’s exciting news, and we’re delighted that President Ilves singled out Skype as a rising star. As Skype’s President Josh Silverman said in his interview with Om Malik the other day, innovation is a priority for Skype. Of course, in order to carry on innovating, we need to keep hiring, so check out the Skype Jobs site for details of our current vacancies

As it says:

What others consider to be innovation is boring and daily stuff for us. Technology gurus were laughing at us couple of years back, but they haven’t been laughing that much lately. And there’s always something new cooking in our Secret Labs.

Nudge nudge wink wink

Sten Tamkivi, Skype’s General Manager for eCommerce and Estonia, shares some of his thoughts on President Ilves’ speech on his own blog (the photo above is from Sten, too), and for those interested in more from President Ilves, here’s a great interview with blogger Johnny Ryan from April this year: