Category: News

Take part in compiling citizen initiatives for defending digital rights

Posted on by Comunicació

Barcelona is aiming to increase the general public’s knowledge of the new digital reality and, together with Xnet and the Citizen’s Group on Digital Policies (GCPD), it is setting in motion a campaign to compile initiatives launched by Barcelona’s civil society in defence of digital rights.

We want this citizen ecosystem to drive change and guide Barcelona’s participation in the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights.

Cities are their inhabitants

This project involves Barcelona City Council, Xnet and the GCPD undertaking a mapping process to give greater visibility to everything city residents are doing to defend and promote digital rights.

The compiled information will be made available through an open web repository.

The process will end with a public presentation to showcase the initiatives and create synergies among the various active groups and individuals involved. The event will allow the ecosystem to be recognised and become an example and inspiration to other civic organisations. All initiatives will be made public and five or ten will be highlighted in particular.

The entire list of initiatives will also be presented to all the other members of the Cities for Digital Rights network, so that they can become a reference for other cities and collaborations are established.

Citizen’s Ecosystem for Digital Rights

Whether you are an individual, a group, an organisation or a company active in the area of digital rights, you can form part of Barcelona’s Citizen Ecosystem for Digital Rights by helping with this campaign to compile initiatives.

All you have to do is send in details of a maximum of three initiatives, carried out in or from Barcelona, which help to understand or develop one or more of the following areas*:

  1. Equal and universal access to the Internet – Net neutrality.
  2. Digital privacy and data protection.
  3. Algorithm ethics.
  4. E-democracy and distributed digital governance.
  5. Access to knowledge and information for open digital protocols. Digital as a means of access to and expansion of fundamental rights.

How you can take part

Take part by filling in the following form (CA).

Applications are open from 19 January to 21 March 2021.

*Initiatives with entrepreneurial purposes or concerning online entrepreneurism will not be accepted, not because they are unimportant, but to delimit the framework of the project. However, if the initiative is from a company and serves digital rights or involves digital rights expansion, it will be included in the list.

The pandemic highlights inequalities in the use of ICT

Posted on by Ana Tapia

Use of information and communication technologies (ICT) has risen by 62% in recent months as a result of the Covid-19 health crisis. Teleworking, online schooling and remote administration procedures mainly account for the increase, which has been slightly greater in areas with average and above-average incomes, and lower in areas with below-average or low incomes.

These are the main conclusions from the Report on the digital divide in Barcelona in 2020, conducted by the Fundació BitHabitat with the collaboration of Mobile World Capital to analyse the evolution of the digital divide in the city and the impact of Covid-19 on the use of ICT. The report is based on a survey of 2,542 people in the autumn of 2020.

The vast majority of people in Barcelona have an internet connection (92%). Just 8% of households have no connection and most of these, some 55%, are made up of people over the age of 74. Notably, the divide in terms of connections and household incomes has been significantly reduced in Barcelona over the last four years. The number of low-income households with internet connections has risen from 75% to 91%, closing the gap to just 6% with high-income households, which have gone from 91% to 97%.

Teleworking

Teleworking has gained ground during lockdown. Some 59% of employed people have been able to do their work remotely over this period, while 39% were unable to as their work could not be done remotely.

The survey shows some significant differences by income: some 56.3% of people living in low-income areas were unable to telework, compared to just 24% who were unable to do so in high-income areas.

Education

Online schooling has mainly been possible thanks to ICT. Some 73.2% of schoolchildren under 16 have been able to continue their studies online during the lockdown, according to people surveyed living in the same home, while 26.8% have been unable to.

However, in low-income homes, in over 50% of cases where children did not continue their education online the reason was because they did not have sufficient devices, a decent connection or the necessary training. In the highest income bands, these causes represented 20-22% of cases.

E-administration

At the same time, the lockdown and the social and health crisis have seen e-administration procedures rocket. Over 75% of people living in average or above-average income areas have conducted e-procedures with the administration, compared to 63% in low-income areas.

Some 81.9% of people with university qualifications have conducted procedures online, compared to 28.7% of people without studies. Over 80% of people under the age of 55 have conducted e-procedures, compared to just 34% of people over 75.

Qualitative analysis of the ICT officer programme

The ITC officer programme was launched by the City Council as part of the Shock Plan for Digital Inclusion to help people conduct e-procedures with the administration. In the period from 21 September to 27 November 2020, the service helped resolve 3,068 e-procedures and attended to more than 1,904 people in person, devoting 30 minutes to each of them on average.

Two out of three people required support to apply for economic support: 33% for unemployment benefits and subsidies, 21% for income support and 7% for the guaranteed citizen income.

The digital divide, which is not only linked to equipment but to digital skills, is wider among the most vulnerable.

Want to know more?

At Ca l’Alier, the urban innovation centre and headquarters of the Fundació Bit Habitat, you can see an exhibition on the digital divide in the city. Full data from the survey can also be found on the Open Data BCN website.

New domains up by 20% in Europe due to the pandemic

Posted on by Ana Tapia

The pandemic, and in particular the lockdown in the spring, has prompted an increase in the creation of new domains.

The recommendation for people to work from home and the impossibility of attending to customers in traditional establishments mean that so far this year the number of newly created websites is up by 20% in Europe, with e-commerce accounting for a large volume.

The data for the whole of Europe is handled by the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), whose goal is to promote and participate in the development of high standards for Internet Country Code Top-Level Domain Registries (ccTLDs), in other words, the two-letter domains corresponding to countries.

For instance, .es domains (Spain) reached the same levels as in 2013, while .it domains (Italy) reached record figures, with over 60,000 new domains registered.

With the exception of August (summer in the northern hemisphere and consequently in Europe), the volume of registrations was high and averaged 0.9% in the last quarter (some 3.4% over the last 12 months).

At the peak of the first lockdown, newly created domains rose by 20% compared to the same period last year. Though some doubt remains as to whether this can be attributed to the pandemic, if it was the case, it would be a matter of checking whether these domains are renewed once the health crisis is over.

The average number of .barcelona domain renewals is up by 10% compared to last year, and 3% compared to 2018. This figure means we can affirm that although domain loyalty is reasonably high, there is still room for it to improve.

‘Barcelona Accelerates’ its backing for innovative start-ups

Posted on by Comunicació

The new ‘Barcelona Accelerates’ initiative will invest up to ten million euros in six private venture capital funds with the intention of providing a boost for innovative start-ups in the city and keeping the digital enterprise ecosystem competitive. The investment companies selected will have to invest at least three times the amount awarded and make a commitment to investing an equal amount in companies led by women.

Companies from the Barcelona metropolitan area belonging to the sectors defined as strategic in the Barcelona Green Deal will be able to benefit.

These sectors have the greatest capacity to generate added value, create quality jobs and position the city brand at a global level: digital economy, creative industries, the green economy, 4.0 industry, health and bio, sport and sports tech, food and food tech and the blue economy.

The measure corresponds to the strategy to reactivate the city economy and help it grow, to tackle the effects of Covid-19 and strengthen Barcelona as southern Europe’s digital capital.

Smart City Week returns with a new edition focusing on digital inclusion

Posted on by Ana Tapia

The third edition of Smart City Week is being held from 9 to 15 November with the slogan ‘Reconnecting Barcelona: City, Society and Technology’. Jointly organised with the municipal foundation BIT Habitat, the programme includes over thirty free online activities reflecting on digital inclusion in the city, a priority for improving the situation of people for whom technology is still a barrier.

This edition broadens its outlook to open up the debate to citizens and analyse the opportunities offered by technological advances for fairer, more sustainable and more inclusive cities.

The activities being offered include lectures, debates, exhibitions, documentaries and initiatives for families, with three itineraries providing the common thread for the programme:

  • The city we see: activities relating to access to technology, connected spaces and the explanation of urban space.
  • The city we don’t see: infrastructures which make digital interaction possible, linked to related activities through an explanation of the digital city and skills acquisition.
  • The city we imagine: the city of the future, presenting activities linked to the innovation ecosystem and the projection of the future.

BIT Habitat, the urban innovation centre housed in Ca l’Alier, is also inaugurating an exhibition on the digital divide. Under the slogan ‘An analogical vision of digital inequality’, the display explores the race towards total digitalisation.

Welcome to the new .barcelona web!

Posted on by Comunicació

We are introducing the new .barcelona website, a gateway from physical to digital Barcelona. Events, entities, small and large shops, small and large businesses… There is room for everyone in this space, a place dedicated to .barcelona, the domain that links your product and/or service to one of the most innovative cities in the world.

This website aims to afford a voice and visibility to those spaces that are committed to the city domain, thus creating a strong digital community.

This new website is more visual, dynamic and intuitive, more accessible and user-oriented. The web design can be adapted to all types of screens and devices, as this has been one of the requirements when developing this space. In addition, it features the ability to interconnect all related contents in order to simplify the search for information.

Among the new contents on .barcelona, ​we would like to highlight the following:

  • The Tours: Different thematic tours around digital Barcelona are suggested. Websites with similar topics are grouped together and can be browsed by means of an interactive and infographic point map. Each point includes information on that .barcelona domain.
  • Projects: The most representative projects that are being developed within the framework of .barcelona are shown. In fact, the domain benefits are reinvested in society.

New edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress

Posted on by Comunicació

From November 19 to 21, there is the ninth edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, one of the leading international events on intelligent cities.

Under the claim “Cities made of dreams”, the edition of this year highlights the progress achieved by internationally promoting the concept of smart cities to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future.

The ninth edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress focuses on 5 themes: digital transformation, the urban environment, mobility, governance and finance and inclusive cities.

The city of Barcelona is at Smart City Expo with the stand of the City Council of Barcelona, explaining its smart city model structured on three pillars:
• The architecture of transversal information systems.
• Data as a fundamental element for the governance of the city.
• The objectives of sustainable development that guides municipal actions.

New Edition OF Smart City Week

Posted on by Comunicació

A new edition of the Smart City Week, a space for reflection and dialogue on the model of city we want, is to be held from 11th to 17th November with the participation of public and private players and the collaboration of academic institutions and neighbourhood associations from Barcelona.

Ca l’Alier, an urban innovation centre in the city of Barcelona, is to be the epicentre of the event where many of the scheduled activities are located.

Under the slogan “City in action”, the Smart City Week strives to encourage collective reflection on how to modify the technologies of our city together with the intelligence of its locals. The programme is structured around subjects such as culture, citizen participation and the gender-based perspective, and is divided into three itineraries:

Transforming the city today: Activities on innovations and initiatives that improve the present-day city.

Transforming the city tomorrow: Activities on innovations and initiatives that improve the city in the near future.

Transforming the city of the future: Activities on future innovations and initiatives that involve structural changes to cities. In other words, shaking some of the foundations on which present-day cities are built and sharing improvements to the city for a distant future.

More than 50 activities spread around Barcelona seek to encourage reflection on how technologies modify our city, how we interpret it and relate to it. They all support the notion of a city that uses technologies along with the collective intelligence of its locals to ensure a more sustainable, fair and inclusive urban environment in the long and short term.

Smart City Week
11 – 17 November
See the programme

Barcelona Tech City was the setting for the second session of the DSIPLAY digital social innovation experiences cycle

Posted on by Comunicació

The DISPLAY digital social innovation experiences cycle seeks to promote the most noteworthy social innovation projects, their impact, and social returns and their feasibility. The cycle also strives to promote synergies among urban players and citizens in order to generate Mutual learning in areas such as technology entrepreneurship, participation and the maker world, the collaborative and circular economy or the use of data.

Discussions at the second session of the Display cycle focused on how to fund and incubate innovative projects with a social impact.

The session was moderated by Albert Cañigueral, a representative of Ouishare, who chose Holaluz – incubated at Barcelona Tech City- as an example of a socially responsible company that generates an impact and is financially sustainable.

Other cases of tech-based companies with a social impact and that work financially-speaking could be seen during the session, such as Worldcoo, Migranodearena, Capital Cell or The Collider, among others.

One of the key points of the session was the method of funding for innovative social projects. Participants agreed with generating business models that are sufficiently attractive in terms of investment in order to obtain shares.

20 companies from Barcelona are taking part in the IOT World Congress

Posted on by Comunicació

Barcelona Activa has selected 20 companies based in the city and that use state-of-the-art IoT devices to take part in the IoT World Congress. The event is to be held during Barcelona Industry Week taking place from 29th to 31st October at Fira Barcelona’s Gran Via venue.

The Internet of Things is already present in many companies from Barcelona that apply artificial intelligence, blockchain and algorithms to automatic processes and improve production.

The companies from Barcelona that specialise in IoT and are to showcase at the Barcelona Industry Week are Cigo!, Xamiot Bitmetrics, Sinapse Energia, USE IT Health, AEInnova, ,Ctr4 enviro, Digital Smart Group, IN2, Innovum Solutions, IOTIP, Mycelium, PickData, Slash Mobility, SLB Systems, Tedeloc, Thingtia, Tracktio and Sensing Control. The UPC Centre of Innovation and Technology (UPC CIT), the tech transfer instrument of the UPC, will also accompany the companies on the stand.