The use of modern digital information and communications technologies opens up new opportunities for rural areas. Village communities can become more interconnected, while locational disadvantages and long distances can be compensated for, which brings major benefits for living and working in the countryside.

Trialling 61 digital solutions for rural areas

Within the scope of the support scheme "Land.Digital: opportunities provided by digitisation for rural areas", the Rural Development Competence Centre (KomLe) at the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) has supported the implementation of 61 model projects throughout the federal territory on behalf of the BMEL since 2017. The innovative projects aimed to improve rural life through the smart use of information and communications technologies. The model projects were spread over the seven subject areas of "Economy and Labour", "Volunteering and Involvement", "Mobility", "Education and Qualification", "Health and Care", "Local Service Provision" and "Information and Communication Platforms (ICT platforms)". The funding period ended on 31 March 2022.

At the last digital networking meeting in March, the experiences and success factors gained through the projects were shared and recommendations for future initiatives were made. Two of the major success factors are the stakeholders’ motivation and their prior knowledge about the thematic area. It is essential to precisely identify the target group and incorporate it into the implementation process as early as possible. This results in tailored solutions that can be built upon and that enable long-term success. In addition, in order to be able to continue the projects, it is crucial to look into what funding options will be available once the funding period has ended. Ideally, the projects are not only continued but also expanded.

One of many exemplary projects is Bremke.Digital – connecting a village through the "DorfFunk" app and the digital "show-case". The project was launched in the village of Bremke. It has now been implemented in another 16 villages, following the same pattern.

Projects presented at symposium

At the end of March 2022, the first results and experiences gained through the support scheme were presented at the 22^nd Munich Days for Sustainable Land Management. On behalf of Land.Digital, the following digitalisation projects were presented: Bremke.Digital, DICTUM-Rescue App, Dorfkonsum Plus and BOLD.

Bremke.Digital shows how a village community can work together to make a change. Within the scope of the project, local residents identified locational disadvantages and began to take steps to make their village more digital. The result is a village homepage, the DorfFunk app as a common chat tool and a digital “showcase”. Through these three different options, all of the village’s residents can participate in the digital project.

As part of DICTUM Rescue, an app was developed that functions as a medical language assistant. This app facilitates communication between rescue services and non-German-speaking patients in rural areas. The high number of downloads shows that the development of a tool for overcoming language barriers with regard to rescue services struck a chord. This project was also successfully expanded to include other regions.

Dorfkonsum Plus has set itself the objective of digitalising village stores in order to make them into online shops. To this end, a data base has been developed which allows the stores’ portals to provide information on their current stock. This project takes action to prevent village stores from closing and enables regional products to be offered digitally and to thus make the stores fit for the future. This was thus another exemplary project that showed how digitalisation can open up new paths.

The BOLD project demonstrates how the digital transformation can work in youth services. After participating in a career guidance programme, BOLD supports students in finding internships. The students also receive individual, job-oriented coaching that is tailored to their intended educational qualifications and available whenever and wherever they may want it. The training options available in the district of Schwalm-Eder are mainly offered by small and medium-sized enterprises. BOLD contributes to having more students consider “dual training”, which combines training with vocational education, and thus to counteracting the predicted skills shortage in the region.

Outlook

The support scheme will now be systematically evaluated and the insights gained will be made available to the (specialist) public. These insights provide the required knowledge and practical recommendations for expanding successful concepts to other regions. This is how good ideas can have a supra-regional impact and reveal a further need for tests, action and research.

In spring 2023, a closing and transfer event will be held, combined with the publication of results.

Published as an article on 8 February 2023

Released 13. Feb 2023 as basetext