OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2016. The Estonian Head of State has departed for a working visit to the United States of America, where he will take part in The Sedona Forum, an influential North American foreign and security policy conference.

From Friday until Sunday, discussions will take place in Sedona, Arizona. Many shapers of US foreign policy and the trans-Atlantic security axis will be present at the event, which will focus on the security challenges around us, including international terrorism, the refugee crisis in Europe, the situation in the Middle East and Africa, and the uniformity and responsibility of democratic countries.

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves will give a presentation on cyber security at The Sedona Forum, which in European terms is comparable to the Munich Security Conference. One of the partners of the Estonian Head of State at the "Cyber Security: Securing Our Unseen Borders" discussion will be Admiral Michael Rogers, Director of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Commander of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command.

Ieva Ilves, as an expert on security and foreign policy, will also take part in The Sedona Forum at the invitation of Kurt Volker, one of the key organisers of the conference. Some years ago, Ieva Ilves and the former US Ambassador at NATO, Kurt Volker, wrote a book together entitled "Nordic-Baltic-American Cooperation: Shaping the U.S.-European Agenda".

Next Tuesday, in New York, President Ilves will meet with representatives of the World Economic Forum who prepared a report on the importance of e-governance. "Where should a state that wants to develop e-governance start?" is one of the key questions of the report and Estonia is one of the countries whose answer the authors wish to include in their report.

On Wednesday, the Estonian Head of State will present this year's World Bank development report at Columbia University. "World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends", which the President helped to compile, analyses information technology solutions that will contribute to the development of countries and examines possible ways for such solutions to be introduced by different countries. President Ilves will also take part in a conference that analyses digital development at Columbia University, which ranks among the top higher education establishments in the USA.

President Ilves will leave the United States of America next Thursday.