Cyber-savvy Estonia, an ex-Soviet republic that has embraced information technology with the velocity of a Baltic Sea storm, will now teach other former communist states to do the same

The government said it will launch an academy to help other former Soviet states use information technology to provide better government services. "For us, this is a kind of foreign aid -- our way of being able to help other countries. It's also a way to highlight how far we've come in e-governance and e-business," Estonian government spokeswoman Hanna Hinrikus told The Associated Press. She said the Internet academy is expected to start later this year. The academy's cost for three years -- US $250,000 -- will be paid by Estonia, the United Nations and the privately held Open Society Institute, Hinrikus said. Estonia's population of 1.4 million residents took hold of Internet technology after regaining independence amid 1991's Soviet collapse. According to the Global Information Technology Report released last month by the World Economic Forum, which cited the need for a good Internet infrastructure as key to a country's competitiveness, Estonia ranked eighth of 82 countries in putting the Internet to practical use, the highest of any former communist country. Hinrikus said ministers formally approved the e-academy project Tuesday. Officials from Ukraine and Georgia as well as countries like Uzbekistan and Mongolia are expected to attend one- and two-week courses at the school in the capital, Tallinn, said Linnar Viik, who helped put the project together.