TechPlomacy: Denmark Appoints World's First Ever Digital Ambassador

The Danish government has decided to create a new — and so-far unprecedented in the world — position of a digital ambassador. The primary duty of the ambassador is to act as a state representative, but not to a specific nation or international organisation as is commonly seen, but to international tech companies such as Google and Facebook.

The creation of the new ambassadorial position follows Facebook‘s announcement that it will open a new data centre in the Danish city of Odense, the third such facility to be built outside of the US. Last year, Denmark also saw investments from Apple, as the company set out to fund a data centre and biogas research. The new ambassador will be involved in negotiations over further investments in Denmark. 

The Washington Post spoke with Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen in this interview that reveals some insights about the yet-to-be filled post. In a highly progressive fashion, Samuelsen emphasised that the position reflects the social and technological changes of the digital age.

"Instead of just leaning back and looking only at the world as it was yesterday, we have to think of the world as it will become tomorrow — and perhaps as it is already today," he said.

However, with the new post being created, Denmark also equalled tech companies with nations. "If you just take Apple as an example, it has a higher value than all Italian companies on the Italian stock market today," Samuelsen said.

The question that now arises: is it progress or just business as usual, when multimillion dollar corporations are granted special political status and preferential access?