More than 50 CORA partners and stakeholder met in Groningen and Winschoten, Netherlands, on 6-8 November for the CORA Annual Conference and the Partner Meeting. Digital infrastructure, skills and services in rural areas were at the heart of the event.
Overcoming the digital divide in remote rural areas in the North Sea Region is the main goal in the CORA project. Project partners implement pilots that test methods & approaches. E.g. in Sweden-Norway pilot partners are working with digital inclusion by both deploying digital infrastructure and increasing digital skills in Hedmark and Värmland. “Selling” the pilot ideas & activities to the stakeholders and decision makers is an important step in their implementation. Therefore CORA partners tested elevator-pitching their pilot activities in 2 minutes on camera, reviewed and discussed the content and methodology behind the pitching. There was an excellent opportunity to implement the improved skills: the local radio RTV Noord enquired about the CORA conference and broadcasted a 3 minute interview in the northern dialect during its “verassende mix van actualiteit, muziek en informative”.
‘Hub, CORA, Hub!’ was the motto of the interactive day on hub approaches. Partners looked into the types of hubs and methodology. We learned the practical “10 steps to setting up a rural digital hub”, received insights into lessons learned from operating an Impact Hub in Scotland, as well as shared experience on running Digital Hubs in other CORA partner regions.
To check-up and learn from the digitalisation on the spot in Groningen, partners visited a datacentre & data-lab of Bytesnet Group at Zernike Campus.
The overall implementation of the CORA project is proceeding well. Multiple training materials for rolling out broadband, improving digital skills & services are available online and the 9 pilots are being implemented successfully in the partner regions.
Impressions from the CORA Annual Conference & Partner Meeting, NL
