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Culture | 15/06/2021

L’Hospitalet is committed to digitalisation in the conferences it organises as a prelude to MWC21

The Mayor of L’Hospitalet, Núria Marín; Laia Ripoll, Head of Events Europe at GSMA, and the Secretary of State for Digitisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Carmen Artigas, have this afternoon opened the conferences “Connected impact: a technological transformation on a human scale”, organised by the City Council and GSMA on the occasion of the celebration of #MWC21.

The conferences are part of L’Hospitalet 6.0, the new digitalisation and connectivity strategy for the whole municipality L’Hospitalet City Council is launching.

In her speech, Mayor Núria Marín highlighted the fact that all the speakers “are women with immense talent. Because technology does not understand gender and it is our responsibility to pass it on to girls and young people so that there are no gender stereotypes with STEM vocations”.

Marín has insisted that the democratic use of technology is “the best bet for equal opportunities that we can do” and has expressed her satisfaction that the topic of the first session of the conferences focuses on social access to technology and digital skills as a factor of inclusion. “Reducing the digital divide is one of our main goals. Today, for example, there will be residents of the city who will not be able to follow this debate because they do not have access to devices or connectivity. Or our seniors, who don’t know how to use technology. We can’t let this happen”.

The mayoress reiterated that people must be at “the core of these digitisation processes. It is a necessary requirement for them to be successful and contribute to an equitable recovery”.

Martín also referred to the L’Hospitalet 6.0 project, a digitisation plan that will turn L’Hospitalet into a fully connected city where there is no digital divide, with a digitised and accessible administration and a productive fabric that takes advantage of the opportunities of digitisation, where talent, training and job opportunities are encouraged. “L’Hospitalet 6.0 is not a mere declaration of intent, it is a plan drawn up with concrete actions and reflected in the City Pact”, the mayor concluded.

For her part, the GSMA representative, Laia Ripoll, expressed GSMA’s commitment to “act as a catalyst for this social change”, which must come at the hands of new technologies, and highlighted the fact of having 14 brilliant women at the conferences, experts in different areas of technology.

Finally, Carmen Artigas congratulated the organisers for the conferences and stressed that the Government of Spain will allocate a third of European funds to “digital investments with social impact”. She also gave the example of the L’Hospitalet 6.0 project as “a commitment to promotion and innovation at the service of the city’s residents”  in line with the strategy of the Ministry of Digital Transformation to “make digitalisation a key piece against inequality gaps, in order to make our country a fairer, more competitive country in the face of the digital revolution that is already underway”.

The second session, “Connected, sustainable and resilient Cities”, will take place tomorrow, 16 June, and will address how technologies can positively transform the present and future of urban development with people at the core. With Areti Markopoulou, Academic Director of the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), and Rosa Suriñach, from UN Habitat Outreach. Pilar Conesa, curator of the Smart City Expo World Congress, will moderate the session.

All the sessions of the conference are in streaming format and can be followed on the YouTube channel and the website of Torre Barrina.