A world without passports, with entrepreneur Karoli Hindriks

According to Karoli Hindriks by 2035 passports will be obsolete. Why? Are there any alternatives to them? Hindkiks joins My Wildest Prediction to share her views on mobility, the job market and digitalisation.

My Wildest Prediction is a podcast series from Euronews Businesswhere we dare to imagine the future with business and tech visionaries. In this episode, Tom Goodwin talks to Karoli Hindriks, founder and CEO of Jobbatical, the company helping employees relocate around the world.

Free movement of workers is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union (EU).

This right allows EU citizens to move freely across borders without requiring a work permit, seek employment, enjoy equal treatment and working conditions as nationals of their new country, and remain in the country even after their employment ends.

The concept of freedom of movement in the EU has evolved in response to the job markets’ needs for labour mobility, thus becoming an engine of European integration.

According to Karoli Hindriks, the world is now at a similar crossroads, as Western countries grapple with a growing demand for skilled workers.

To better develop her views, the founder and CEO of Jobbatical joined the podcast My Wildest Prediction and shared her boldest opinions on passports and workers’ mobility.

Overcoming the passport system to boost global employment

“My wildest prediction is that by 2035, the passports as we know them will be obsolete,” Hindriks told Euronews Business.

Hindriks pointed out that the passport system introduced during the Second World War by Western countries to defend their borders is not only outdated but also inefficient.

Hindriks argued that traditional paper passports are not secure and reflect a lack of technological advancement.

Furthermore, she claimed that the current system is highly inefficient as it fails to respond to the job market needs.

“We are in the biggest talent shortage in human history, so all countries are trying to figure out how to get skilled people in,” she told Euronews Business. “At the same time, the most highly educated immigrants come from countries with the least travel-friendly passports, like India, China and the Philippines”.

Hindriks noted that countries are increasingly aware of their needs for workers, and are trying to overcome the old passport system with new solutions like the digital nomad visa.

“I pitched the idea of the digital nomad visa in 2016 to the Estonian President, and my prediction was that if one country like Estonia will do it successfully other countries will follow,” she told Euronews Business. “Now over 60 countries have it”.

The digital nomad visa allows remote workers to live and work in a foreign country while being employed by a company outside the same country.

This visa gained significant traction during the COVID-19 pandemic and, according to Hindriks, it represents one of the first steps to the realisation of her prediction.

How AI could eliminate the need for passports

Karoli Hindriks founded her start-up Jobbatical in 2014 to help companies worldwide relocate their workers using technology.

Hindriks explained that her company gathers employees’ data and inputs it into a system, which automatically fills bureaucratic forms. In this way, artificial intelligence (AI) and technological tools free workers from some necessary and time-consuming paperwork.

Depending on the destination country and its level of digitalisation, the employee is then led to take care of the final steps to obtain the visa or not.

“In some countries, we have managed to create a link with the national system,” Hindriks said. “In other countries, the digitalisation is not enough to create this connection, so there’s a final level of bureaucracy to complete the relocation”.

Jobbatical can now relocate employees in 40 different countries and, according to Hindriks, its use of technological tools contributes to the gradual elimination of passports and the creation of a less discriminating world.

“What we aspire to do through our technology is take down the discriminative barriers for which people can or cannot move based on where they were accidentally born,” Hindirks told Euronews Business.

Hindriks also highlighted some of the countries that, according to her, have made the biggest technological advancements in the direction of making mobility easier. Among them, she included her home country Estonia, Finland and Germany.

Which measures have these countries put in place to make talent mobility more flexible?

Find the answer to this question in our podcast My Wildest Prediction.