Social developments and technological advances call for innovative approaches to regional development. The digital event series Regional Forum addresses various future topics, provides options for action and highlights suitable funding programs to make it easier for local authorities to take their first steps on the road to the future.
The second regional forum focused on smart regions: Shaping tomorrow’s rural regions today. Digitalization is currently one of the biggest challenges for local authorities in regional development, but at the same time it opens up great opportunities for progress in society as a whole. How can this potential be used to shape the future? What strategic and integrative approaches are possible and necessary for this? How can connectivity be ensured in rural regions? These and other questions were the focus of the event.
On the basis of Smart City – Strategy Development for Rural Areas, the invited initiators DKSR GmbH and Smart Village Solutions GmbH presented possibilities for designing smart rural regions. The Data Competence Center Cities and Regions DSKR gave a practical insight into data-based solutions for rural areas. The keynote speech by Smart Village Solutions GmbH highlighted the potential of apps for municipalities on the path to digitalization in rural areas. Finally, suitable funding programmes for the development and implementation of measures to shape digitalization were presented. In addition to the Smart Cities Model Projects funding program, the Climate Protection Initiative – Municipal Climate Protection Model Projects funding program was presented, in which, among other things, smart city approaches for controlling environmental infrastructures are also eligible for funding.
The next Regional Forum in November 2022 will be dedicated to the topic of the municipal heating transition: Heat planning as a building block for a sustainable heat supply. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.