In May 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Estonia's Ministry of Social Affairs unexpectedly announced that vaccinations would be opened to all Estonians over 16 years old – 500,000 people – in just one week's time. Up until then, the ministry had gradually made vaccines available to smaller age brackets, with citizens signing up for appointments via the existing national digital patient portal, Digilugu. Even with this staggered approach, the platform had crashed. 

Estonia's Chief Information Officer (CIO) Siim Sikkut worried that this larger influx of users would again stall the system. Another crash not only threatened to delay vaccinations, but also to disrupt regular healthcare services and damage citizens' trust in digital services. Sikkut had raised his concerns with the social affairs ministry and proposed an alternative solution: to work with a group of start-ups that offered to build a new platform. But the ministry, generally considered a digital laggard, believed Digilugu was the best option for delivery in a complex health system on a tight deadline. As CIO, Sikkut did not have direct authority over the digital decisions in the social affairs ministry, but he had to determine what, if anything, he could do as the government's digital services seemed headed towards another failure.