Tallinn, one of the smaller cities in the world that many people have never heard of, sits quietly in the town of Estonia just south of Finland and bursts with rich history and UNESCO heritage status found in its incredibly preserved medieval architecture.
With its ancient history, you'd never guess that Tallinn is one of the most technologically advanced cities and is even dubbed as the "Silicon Valley of Europe". With the highest number of startups per head of population in all of Europe, Tallinn loves all things technology and boast in their important contributions as the birthplace of the popular online video call service, Skype (44% of the company's employees are based in Estonia's 2 cities: Tallinn and Tartu).
Booming with several modern developments, Tallinn is a city that greatly utilizes online technology for a number of things, including paying for parking, voting, sending packages via mail, and riding public transit, where the latter is completely free for residents as long as you carry with you a digital card everywhere you go.
And there's a good reason for the increasing dependence on technology. The entire country of Estonia sits at a considerably small population of around 1.5 million people, and as a result, there are not enough people to run the daily services needed by its residents. Transitioning services into a more digitized form ensures that the general infrastructure in Estonia and its efficiency are maintained.
As the city of startups, keep a lookout for Tallinn -the next important technological advancement may just come from this small, medieval city!
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