Donegal County Council will be working alongside Derry City and Strabane District Council and organisations from seven other countries looking at how to convert the use and application of new technologies into economic and social opportunities.
The new Digital Innovation Ecosystems project known as CARPE DIGEM is an Interreg Europe funded project and held its first meeting in Nevers, France in September.
The meeting looked at regional digital innovation systems in various countries and Colm McColgan, ERNACT General Manager presented 'Derry EU Digital City Challenge', an EU initiative to help achieve sustainable economic growth in Derry (Northern Ireland) through the integration of advanced technologies.
ERNACT is currently using Interreg and Local Authority cross-border cooperation policies. However, the ambition is to achieve a 'Cross-border Innovation and Digital Transformation Strategy and methodology with a Governance structure and Action Plan' through the project.
"CARPE DIGEM fosters synergies between existing policies involving digital priorities and the newly planned policy actions supporting digital transformation", explains Colm Mc Colgan. ERNACT is the only partner region working towards the improvement of a cross-border policy instrument.
Partners visited the Summit of Innovation in Medium-Sized Cities (SIVIIM) event in
Nevers which focused on reinventing the appeal of middle-sized cities through digital innovation and transformation and met with participating businesses and public sector organizations. The summit had a particular focus on ‘free open-source city’.
CARPE DIGEM will see 10 organisations from France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Ireland, Bulgaria and Sweden explore the potential of building sustainable digital innovation ecosystems and this will include enhancing inclusion and coaching capacity to provide universal access to the integrated digital solutions that citizens and enterprises need. The project will end in January 2023.
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