Linnar Viik: part of the new EIT board.
The board, which includes some of the biggest names in European science, research and business, will begin the task of choosing research subjects after the official inauguration of the EIT at its headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, in mid-September.
Commission President José Manuel Barroso, architect of the whole EIT project in early 2005, said he was “delighted” with the nomination of the 18 members of the governing board.
“The EIT is soon to become a reality. Europe needs more than ever a strong commitment to innovation and technology,” Barroso said.
The nominations were made by a team of Commission officials after a public consultation that threw up 130 names of potential candidates.
The criteria for selection were that the members must be academic, scientific, or business leaders and innovators with outstanding forward-looking abilities and a broad view and practical understanding of “overall European innovation goals and systems, global market trends and both academic and business environments”, the Commission said.
Viik was instrumental in turning the former Soviet republic of Estonia into one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, where almost half of all parking meter payments are made via mobile phones, and the government conducts a large part of its activities online.
He obtained an MSc in Information Technology, Estonia, and Informatics at the Tallinn Technical University and an MSc/Postgraduate diploma in International Economy at the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.
Having worked as a management consultant at KPMG in the early 1990s Viik became chairman of the board of the IT company Meediamaa and chairman of the supervisory board of Netexpressbefore becoming a board member board and head of the multimedia department of Levicom.
In the late 1990s and early years of this century Viik was an advisor to the prime minister of Estonia. In 2001 he co-founded Mobi Solutions Ltd stayed on the board there until 2007. In 2004 he founded Keelevara Ltd, whose supervisory board he still chairs.
Viik helped start Skype Technologies together with Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis and a team of mostly Estonian technicians. Viik is currently director of Skype Access, a division of the company.
Since 2000 has also been lecturing at the Estonian IT College, where he was made member of the board in 2003.
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