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    What's building?

    Discover how Otto, a Data Specialist at Nortal Finland, finds success in both data and fatherhood through flexibility and balance.

    Balancing data and dad life

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    What's building?

    In this video, Otto Sassi, working as a Data Specialist at Nortal Finland, shares how raising kids and working with data both come down to flexibility, patience, and making sense of chaos. For him, success is not only about building better solutions at work, but also about being fully present at home. 

    Raising kids and working with data have more in common than you might think, says Otto Sassi, a Data Specialist at Nortal Finland. Both are full of unexpected messes, constant change, and the need for patience, structure, and flexibility. In many ways, they are both joyful kinds of chaos.

    At home, Otto likes building things, everything from sandboxes and terraces to managing daily routines with his two children. At work, he’s building something too: solutions that organize complex data, clear away the clutter, and bring structure to uncertainty. Whether with wood and nails or numbers and code, he’s creating order from chaos.

    For Otto, success isn’t just about what he builds at work, but also about being present for his family and the life he’s building with them. Flexibility is what allows him to show up fully in both worlds, making the building blocks of work and home come together.

    Want to hear Otto’s full story? Watch the video below.

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    Personal government is a vision that considers the next stage of already developed digital societies to provide more human-centric public services, considering the complexities where traditional digital government approaches do not necessarily provide a straightforward solution.

    Revolutionizing government: Turning the traditional view inside-out

    For the past several decades, the gradual adoption of new technologies in society and the digitalization of public services have allowed many nations to increase the efficiency and approval of public services. However, the maturity and impact of digitalization vastly differ based on the extent to which society has adopted new technologies and services in everyday life.

    The most significant differentiator in various maturity levels is how society has established trust in digital services and fostered high cooperation between authorities and citizens to build a robust data-based society and governance.

    In societies where the fundamentals of digital governance have been reasonably resolved, new types of services that cut across governance domains begin to emerge. Typically, these services do not have direct traditional analogs.

    The full realization of the possibilities of public services in the era of personal government requires the adoption of emerging technologies and the reorganization of the government’s working principles in terms of service provision and cooperation between institutions. Achieving high cooperation, enabled by interoperability and a whole-of-society approach to service delivery, is essential.

    All these capabilities are either well within today’s technological development or within reach and can be realized in the foreseeable future.

    About the speakers

    Andres Raieste

    Senior Vice President of Public Sector at Nortal

    As a Senior Vice President at Nortal, a leading global government consulting and tech powerhouse, Andres Raieste is responsible for innovation and growth in the public sector across markets. Andres began his career in Estonia, one of the most digitalized countries in the world, and since then has been responsible for many high-impact, large-scale government transformation programs and reforms globally. He has also (co-)authored white papers and other thought leadership pieces on digitalization and public administration.

    Mihkel Solvak

    Associate Professor, University of Tartu

    Mihkel Solvak is a Senior Researcher in Technology Studies at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Tartu, Estonia. His research primarily centers around legislative studies, electoral behavior, predictive modeling, and impact assessment of e-governance.

    Ville Sirviö

    CEO of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS)

    Ville Sirviö is the CEO of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS), known for the X-Road® open-source software with hundreds of millions of end users worldwide. He is also a board member of the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud. Sirviö has international business experience ranging from startups to Nasdaq-listed companies in the technology industry. He is a recognised expert in digital government, interoperability and open-source software and has been a frequent speaker and panellist at various technology conferences and events.

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