Tarvi Martens, born in 1969, has been a key figure in the Estonian IT and information security field for the past decades. He has an MSc degree from Tallinn Technical University, with his thesis being on the theme "On Evidential Value of Digital Signatures".

 

Tarvi has been building governmental internet (1993-1997), developing information security and PKI products (1997-2001) and being actively involved in various aspects of developing Estonian e-government in a whole.

 

Tarvi was among the originators of the Estonian ID card project in 1996 and has been a supporter and dedicated evangelist of it ever since. In 2002, Tarvi joined SK where he laid down the original concept of DigiDoc, the national de facto standard in Estonia for digital signatures.

 

In 2003 Tarvi started with the e-voting project with National Electoral Committee in order to provide Estonian electoral system with Internet voting capability. Till now the system is used in total nine times in pan-national elections from 2005. In the last 2017 local government elections the number of Internet voters reached almost one third of all votes casted. Currently he assumes post of head of e-voting with State Electoral Office.

 

Tarvi is a frequent speaker at various international events to popularise electronic identity deployment, electronic signatures and Internet voting in particular.

 

On 2007, Tarvi received the “Top Outstanding Young Person of the Year” award from JCI (Junior Chamber International) for the achievements in technological developments.