The GeoTLD Group’s annual meeting was held in Cologne on 11 and 12 September. The meeting was also attended by the.cat, .bzh, .paris, .amsterdam, .nl, .eus, .gal, .wien, .hamburg, .berlin, .denic, .fsl and .alsace domains, to name a few, as well as the main registrars.
The meeting was organised by ECO.de, a German association representing several digital organisations and enterprises, to ensure a sustainable, responsible and safe digital transformation.
Roger Serra and Beatriz Guzmán, from the .cat Foundation, an Enterprise in charge of managing the .barcelona domain, was commissioned with sharing the main initiatives planned for the city’s domain. An opportunity to present the Elmeuclubesportiu.barcelona project to other city domains and invite them to create local-digitalisation projects.
Common strategies were also established during the GeoTLD meetring, on issues such as the NIS2 Directive and co-marketing, allowing us to discover experiences of other city domains which could be used as an inspiration for new initiatives for the .barcelona domain.
Tag: digitalisation
New programme to digitalise the social and solidarity economy
The MatchImpulsa programme has been conceived to promote the digitalisation of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and the collaborative economy. The goal of the first programme by the Open Chair in Digital Economy, offered in collaboration with the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), is for organisations and businesses in this sphere to fully enter the digital economy at a time of change which has accelerated since the start of the pandemic.
The new programme follows the lines set out in the city’s 2030 SSE strategy, which identifies the challenge of digitalisation and the creation of digital platforms as one of its main goals. Along with these goals the idea is to include the feminist perspective, redress the increase in gender inequalities in digitalisation processes and speed up the adoption of equality measures in digital environments in companies.
The new Open Chair involves a cost of 701,500 euros between now and the end of the year, with the City Council to contribute 55% to fund SSE and collaborative economy projects, provide advice and mentoring, strengthen ties in specific sectors and foster collaboration between projects.
The programme is structured into three strategy areas:
- Digitalisation of organisations and businesses, the creation and strengthening of digital platforms: three programmes to providing varying degrees of support for companies and organisations, to help develop their digital strategy, adapt their organisational and teleworking strategy and start working with digital platforms or create their own.
- Boost for key SSE ecosystems in Barcelona: in particular, agro-ecology (in a year when Barcelona is the world sustainable food capital) and digital feminism, which aims to build an ecosystem of practices with feminist values in Barcelona’s digital economy and create a resource for empowering women and promoting alternative masculinities.
- Groups of experts in technology, equality and university-business ties to offer resources for moving forward with digitalisation under the guidance of those who know most about it.
MatchImpulsa will run from 25 May to 31 December. Those wishing to participate should sign up on the website matchimpulsa.barcelona.
Smart City Week returns with a new edition focusing on digital inclusion
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.