Day #36: Top 50 Most Influential Projects of the Last 50 Years

A couple of weeks ago, PMI announced the top 50 notable and influential projects of the past 50 years. It is the first time that PMI publishes a ranking of this kind, and the goal is to highlight the relevance of PM.

The idea was to recognize projects that have transformed their sectors and the business landscape, from healthcare to technology and from entertainment to finance. There are iconic achievements such as Apollo 11 or the Human Genome Project, but the top place of the list is for the creation of the World Wide Web.

50 projects were chosen from more than 1,000 projects identified by 400 experts in PM, including PMI members, academic and industry experts. The list is part of the PMI 50th anniversary celebration, and there are some extra runner ups apart from the main list. 

More information together with the full list can be found here, but some of the most "unexpected" ones are:

• Alibaba® Singles Day – For creating the largest e-commerce day in the world and fundamentally shifting how people shop.
• Burj Khalifa – For standing tall as a symbol of economic diversification in the Middle East
• Harry Potter® Books – For making reading cool – and that’s just the beginning of the magic
• Chernobyl Cleanup – For mitigating the world’s worst nuclear plant disaster – twice

and one that we already mentioned in this blog!

• E-Estonia – For building the world’s first digital country

Sydney Opera House, one of the awarded projects. Image from tripadvisor.com

Panama Channel, one of the awarded projects. Image from britannica.com

Day #2: Estonia: best example of digitization?

After knowing that one of the topics this week is the idea of "digitization", I remembered a piece of news that I read some months ago about Estonia. Their impressive system of e-government is a model for many developed countries. I don't recall exactly the article I read, yet there is plenty of information when googling "Estonia" + "digitization", such as this, this or this.

They all talk about the same: e-Estonia. That is the name of the approach taken by the government to incorporate electronic solutions to the interaction cititzens-state. That includes many aspects, from voting (i-Voting) to taxes (e-Tax Board), from schools and universities (e-School) to telemedicine.

One of the most interesting aspect is the idea of e-Residence, started in 2014. Estonia became the first country to offer electronic residence to people from outside the country. Although it doesn't grant physical residence or the right to enter the country, it lets non-residents access other Estonian electronic services, as well as signing documents over the Internet.

But perhaps the most surprising fact is that 20 years ago, just after Estonia became independent, under half of the population had a phone line. It proves that a strong commitment with technology makes the society advance towards full digitization.

However, I think that this kind of revolutionary changes can only work in small places, like Estonia or Singapore, another country with a high index of digitization. Or at least nowadays. In my case, I really feel the difference between the level of digitization in Spain, my home country, and Sweden, where I live. And I consider that one of the many reasons for this difference is the number of inhabitants, in the sense that  services like these are easier to implement and controll with a low number of users.

Anyway, that is not a excuse, and I feel that Estonia's effort should be an example for all countries interested in digitization. Actually, the former Estonian president credited for this digitization process, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, will help the Greek government to prepare the digitization of the Greek public administration. 

e-Residency kit, from e-resident.gov.ee