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President Ilves about to commence work visit to the United States of America
23.09.2015
Today the President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, will commence his visit to the United States of America, the focus of which will be his speech at the opening week of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly and top summit. This session will establish goals for the sustainable development of all the world's countries for the next 15 years. At the UN, President Ilves will lead a high-level digital development panel discussion with the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, and Chief Economist of the same institution, Kaushik Basu. At Stanford University, Silicon Valley, President Ilves will take part in a public discussion with Francis Fukuyama, the writer and political scientist, to discuss security policy and information technology; at New York State University, the Estonian Head of State will hold a debate with acknowledged security policy expert Mark Galeotti on global security issues.
The Head of State will start his work visit in San Francisco, where the the highlight of his stay will be a public discussion at Stanford University at which President Ilves will discuss the current global security situation and role of technology in democracy with the American political scientist and writer Francis Fukuyama.
At Silicon Valley, President Ilves will pay a visit to the "Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley" event for European start-up companies, which takes place at Apple. He will also introduce the success story of e-Estonia at the top CloudFlare Internet Summit and discuss the future of e-society with Matthew Prince, CEO and one of the founders of CloudFare.
Following San Francisco, the Head of State will continue to New York for high-level meetings at the UN. On the second day of the opening week of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly, President Ilves will speak about the global security situation and the challenges that development co-operation are about to face, including the role of the UN and its member states in solving the problems and crises that most acutely affect the world.
At New York State University, the Estonian Head of State will discuss global threats to security along with acknowledged international crime and security expert Mark Galeotti.
Within the framework of the high-level UN week, President Ilves will hold a bilateral meeting with the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis; they will focus on regional security and trans-Atlantic co-operation.
At a joint high-level discussion at the UN between Estonia, the USA, the World Bank and the Global Economic Forum on the influences of the digital era, the President will speak about the development of e-solutions and the positive influence of technology on the development of countries.
President Ilves is also one of the speakers at the top summit on sustainable development, which is one of the most important development sphere meetings of the last 15 years; at this event, the heads of states and governments are expected to agree upon sustainable development goals. The President will speak, among other things, about the importance of human rights, corruption, a state based on the rule of law and good governance practice, and information technology for the purposes of sustainable development.
The Head of State will speak at a sideline event, organised by UN Women and the President of China, about Estonia's contribution to the implementation of the Beijing Declaration for the purposes of the promotion of gender equality at both domestic and international level. The purpose of the event is to mark the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in China and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
At the Estonian Consulate in New York, President Ilves will present Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, Class I, to Timothy John Berners-Lee, who is an acknowledged computer scientist and developer of the WorldWideWeb.
Traditionally, President Ilves invites the local Estonian community, in co-operation with the Estonian Consulate and the Estonian Educational Society, New York, to the Estonia House in New York for a reception. For the second year, the Estonian Head of State will also acknowledge enterprising young Estonian persons who are pursuing their activities on the US East Coast at a reception organised in co-operation with the Estonian Consulate in New York and Enterprise Estonia.
From New York, the Head of State will fly to Washington to take part, along with the President of the Republic of Latvia, Raimonds Vejonis, in a conference organised by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), at an "Ensuring the Security of the Baltic States During Putin's Reign" panel, which will be moderated by Edward Lucas, editor of The Economist newspaper.
In Washington, the President will also deliver a greeting at an event by the World Bank to introduce Estonian IT companies and our e-solutions.
The Head of State will return to Estonia on 3 October.
Office of the President
Public Relations Department
