The Estonians’ love for efficiency found a natural output in doing almost everything online, and the first letter of the country’s name — E — seemed oddly prophetic, as people began to talk about an “e-Estonia” phenomenon. So when Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, asked then Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas in 2016 if it was possible to pay taxes online in five minutes he was swiftly corrected. ” It used to be,” Rõivas told Noah. “Now it’s three minutes on average.” The Estonians’ entrepreneurial, self-sufficient spirit has also manifested itself in a bevy of world-class startups that have changed the way people communicate, such as Skype, or transfer money, such as TransferWise, leading global tech industry observers to dub the country “the next Silicon Valley.”