Author: Comunicació

Barcelona ReAct: dialogue to reactivate a more competitive and resilient city

Posted on by Comunicació

Over a hundred local, national and international voices come together from 13 to 16 April for Barcelona ReAct, a major event to rethink how to build a more resilient, competitive and sustainable city.

A year after the start of the pandemic, Barcelona ReAct sees the city bring together a wide range of stakeholders representing trends and social movements the city wants to develop ties with and share the economic recovery project of the next few years.

Goals for Barcelona ReAct

The main goal of Barcelona ReAct is to explain the new economic agenda for Barcelona for the next decade, the Barcelona Green Deal. This roadmap sets out the vision for competitive and sustainable economic promotion, including projects such as the future of the 22@, the transformation of the Olympic Port, the urgent and much-needed economic relaunch of the city centre, making it more balanced and resilient, and projects linked to the consolidation of the city’s role as a global capital.

The event will also be used to share the agenda for the economic transformation with the public, with international experts and the main global operators, reaffirming Barcelona as a global city for investment, the development of life projects, professional careers, research and the creation of international talent.

Rethinking the city from all spheres

The meeting entails an exchange of projects and an analysis of the impact and evolution of major sectors in the economic recovery, such as:

  • Technology and innovation
  • New mobility
  • Green economy
  • Digital health and science initiatives
  • Blue economy (sustainable and linked to water and the sea)
  • Industry 4.0
  • Creative industries
  • Visitor economy
  • Smart food revolution

Other cities’ experiences will also be shared with the aim of developing a network of resilient metropolises. Barcelona ReAct will conclude with a manifesto setting out ten key points for reactivating the city, a guide for the city’s economic future.

Voices of reflection

Notable speakers at the event include the sociologist and creator of the concept of the global city, Saskia Sassen; the urban planner and advisor to cities around the world, Greg Clark; the director of the ISE, the world’s largest audio-visual fair, Michael Blackman: the expert in climate action and founding member of Greenpeace, Remi Parmentier; the CEO of EIT Urban Mobility, Maria Tsavachidis, and the UN special envoy for the ocean, Peter Thomson.

Sessions forming part of the programme for Barcelona ReAct adopt a hybrid format (on-site and online), with notable socio-economic and cultural stakeholders participating.

Cyberattacks up during the pandemic

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The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a digital transformation in all spheres: schools found themselves having to conduct classes and all interaction with pupils via internet, while a large number of companies introduced teleworking between their teams and continue to work remotely or combine this with on-site activity at their offices.

But it doesn’t stop there. A study confirms that the creation of new domains in Europe is up by 20% because of the pandemic, an increase most likely stemming from the fact that most businesses have had to undergo a transformation and get online to be able to keep offering customers their products and services.

Yet the digital transformation has its downside too, with cyberattacks mushrooming in 2020 and half of them attributable to the increase in teleworking caused by the pandemic: “Over half of organisations weren’t ready for the digitalisation needed to implement teleworking”, affirms a study by ACCIÓ and the Cybersecurity Agency of Catalonia.

The same study states that “on a global scale estimates put the rate of cyberattacks in 2021 at one every eleven seconds. This figure has risen considerably in recent years: in 2016 the average was 40 seconds”.

One of the most common forms of IT attack is ransomware, with malicious software or a virus encrypting the whole content of a computer and demanding a ransom to decrypt it. Another is phishing, involving the fraudulent supplanting of identity and aimed at businesses and individuals alike: recipients get an email or mobile phone message requesting data or passwords. One of the most common scenarios is where a bank is imitated, with the recipient getting a message asking them to confirm a user ID and password which are then used to access the account.

How to spot internet fraud?

A quick check of the domain the message is trying to direct us to is one way to detect this. With both ransomware and phishing, it’s likely they’re trying to supplant the identity of recognised organisations to either get us to download a virus or to get access to our user data. But one important datum they can’t supplant is the domain of the real organisation.

Carrying on with the bank as an example, imagine you’re contacted by your bank, “Bank Segur”, and you know their website is bancsegur.barcelona. If you get a message from the bank asking you to access a page with the domain bancsegur.xxxxx.barcelona, here’s your clue that this is a fraud. Why? Because in this case the domain is xxxxx.barcelona, and bancsegur.xxxxx.barcelona is a subdomain. In other words, we should always look at what comes just before .barcelona (or .cat, .com, .es etc.).

If you’re still unsure, the best thing to do is not to reply to the message and to contact the organisation another way, via their customer service phone line, social media or the email address on the website you usually use.

More women in tech sectors, less of a digital gender divide

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A new government measure is under way to update the municipal strategy to combat the digital gender divide and promote equality in ICT. The fifty actions set out by the measure are designed to increase women’s presence in the tech market, drive digital training and promote science vocations among girls.

With a three-year roadmap and a budget of two million euros, the new government measure on gender equality in tech environments provides a new impetus for the promotion of women in the digital realm, strengthening the feminist perspective in the construction of an increasingly tech-driven society.

Achieving equality in the technological sphere is fundamental for building a fairer society which guarantees the same opportunities form girls and women when it comes to science and technology careers. This goal also forms part of the feminist struggle, with this year’s 8 March campaign adopting a collective and combative wave as its icon.

Women in the ICT sector

Even though Barcelona is a pioneering city at the forefront of the tech sphere, more action is needed to consolidate parity and a more equal city model in creation, design and the production of technology. Women currently occupy just 26% of jobs in the ICT sector and only 8.6% of technical posts.

Women’s reduced presence in the digital labour market heightens discrimination and their invisibility in the science and tech sphere, hampering their access further.

Four strategy areas to combat the digital divide

The new government measure is based around four main goals and 51 specific actions:

  1. Facilitate women’s access to ICT jobs: this includes the creation of digital training programmes and jobs, such as the BCNFemTech skills-acquisition plan, designed to get fifty women in vulnerable situations into professional positions in programming and web development.
  2. Support women in the ICT sector: visibility and recognition of women’s contribution to the development of tech industries is needed, along with the promotion of their involvement in public policies in this area. The measure therefore includes the creation of a BCNFemTech women’s network and backing for tech projects by women entrepreneurs.
  3. More women in public procurement: gender clauses are planned for public contracts with providers from the tech sector, along with the creation of an internal women’s technology team to drive digital training among women municipal workers.
  4. Science and tech girls: the promotion of science and tech careers among young girls is essential for ensuring equality in the digital society of the future. To this end, the roadmap includes a STEAM initiative for girls in primary school with the collaboration of the Mobile World Congress and agreements with universities to increase women’s presence in technological study areas.

Take part in compiling citizen initiatives for defending digital rights

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Barcelona is aiming to increase the general public’s knowledge of the new digital reality and, together with Xnet and the Citizen’s Group on Digital Policies (GCPD), it is setting in motion a campaign to compile initiatives launched by Barcelona’s civil society in defence of digital rights.

We want this citizen ecosystem to drive change and guide Barcelona’s participation in the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights.

Cities are their inhabitants

This project involves Barcelona City Council, Xnet and the GCPD undertaking a mapping process to give greater visibility to everything city residents are doing to defend and promote digital rights.

The compiled information will be made available through an open web repository.

The process will end with a public presentation to showcase the initiatives and create synergies among the various active groups and individuals involved. The event will allow the ecosystem to be recognised and become an example and inspiration to other civic organisations. All initiatives will be made public and five or ten will be highlighted in particular.

The entire list of initiatives will also be presented to all the other members of the Cities for Digital Rights network, so that they can become a reference for other cities and collaborations are established.

Citizen’s Ecosystem for Digital Rights

Whether you are an individual, a group, an organisation or a company active in the area of digital rights, you can form part of Barcelona’s Citizen Ecosystem for Digital Rights by helping with this campaign to compile initiatives.

All you have to do is send in details of a maximum of three initiatives, carried out in or from Barcelona, which help to understand or develop one or more of the following areas*:

  1. Equal and universal access to the Internet – Net neutrality.
  2. Digital privacy and data protection.
  3. Algorithm ethics.
  4. E-democracy and distributed digital governance.
  5. Access to knowledge and information for open digital protocols. Digital as a means of access to and expansion of fundamental rights.

How you can take part

Take part by filling in the following form (CA).

Applications are open from 19 January to 21 March 2021.

*Initiatives with entrepreneurial purposes or concerning online entrepreneurism will not be accepted, not because they are unimportant, but to delimit the framework of the project. However, if the initiative is from a company and serves digital rights or involves digital rights expansion, it will be included in the list.

‘Barcelona Accelerates’ its backing for innovative start-ups

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The new ‘Barcelona Accelerates’ initiative will invest up to ten million euros in six private venture capital funds with the intention of providing a boost for innovative start-ups in the city and keeping the digital enterprise ecosystem competitive. The investment companies selected will have to invest at least three times the amount awarded and make a commitment to investing an equal amount in companies led by women.

Companies from the Barcelona metropolitan area belonging to the sectors defined as strategic in the Barcelona Green Deal will be able to benefit.

These sectors have the greatest capacity to generate added value, create quality jobs and position the city brand at a global level: digital economy, creative industries, the green economy, 4.0 industry, health and bio, sport and sports tech, food and food tech and the blue economy.

The measure corresponds to the strategy to reactivate the city economy and help it grow, to tackle the effects of Covid-19 and strengthen Barcelona as southern Europe’s digital capital.

Barcelona closes out 2019 with 5,684 .barcelona domains

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Barcelona is the first city in the Spanish state to have its own domain since 2016.

Barcelona joined the cities with their own domains when it launched .barcelona in March 2016, becoming the first city in the Spanish state to have its own.

The .barcelona domain has grown over the last four years, with 5,684 registered as of the end of 2019, reflecting a trend of consolidation with numbers practically  the same as the previous year. Of these, 1,071 are new domains and 4,504 renewals. This means the renewal rate is 83.15%, in line with other leading city domains such as .nyc, .london and .berlin.

This high rate of renewals confirms that users value being identified with Barcelona, whether through the geolocalisation of their activity or through identification with the city’s attributes.

The .barcelona domain is open to everyone. All organisations, businesses, individuals and administrations with some sort of link or activity within Barcelona’s area of influence can register .barcelona domains. The money made through the sale of .barcelona domains is also reinvested in projects with a social impact, such as the .barcelona training programme in the neighbourhoods to reduce the digital divide.

Welcome to the new .barcelona web!

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We are introducing the new .barcelona website, a gateway from physical to digital Barcelona. Events, entities, small and large shops, small and large businesses… There is room for everyone in this space, a place dedicated to .barcelona, the domain that links your product and/or service to one of the most innovative cities in the world.

This website aims to afford a voice and visibility to those spaces that are committed to the city domain, thus creating a strong digital community.

This new website is more visual, dynamic and intuitive, more accessible and user-oriented. The web design can be adapted to all types of screens and devices, as this has been one of the requirements when developing this space. In addition, it features the ability to interconnect all related contents in order to simplify the search for information.

Among the new contents on .barcelona, ​we would like to highlight the following:

  • The Tours: Different thematic tours around digital Barcelona are suggested. Websites with similar topics are grouped together and can be browsed by means of an interactive and infographic point map. Each point includes information on that .barcelona domain.
  • Projects: The most representative projects that are being developed within the framework of .barcelona are shown. In fact, the domain benefits are reinvested in society.

New edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress

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From November 19 to 21, there is the ninth edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, one of the leading international events on intelligent cities.

Under the claim “Cities made of dreams”, the edition of this year highlights the progress achieved by internationally promoting the concept of smart cities to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future.

The ninth edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress focuses on 5 themes: digital transformation, the urban environment, mobility, governance and finance and inclusive cities.

The city of Barcelona is at Smart City Expo with the stand of the City Council of Barcelona, explaining its smart city model structured on three pillars:
• The architecture of transversal information systems.
• Data as a fundamental element for the governance of the city.
• The objectives of sustainable development that guides municipal actions.

New Edition OF Smart City Week

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A new edition of the Smart City Week, a space for reflection and dialogue on the model of city we want, is to be held from 11th to 17th November with the participation of public and private players and the collaboration of academic institutions and neighbourhood associations from Barcelona.

Ca l’Alier, an urban innovation centre in the city of Barcelona, is to be the epicentre of the event where many of the scheduled activities are located.

Under the slogan “City in action”, the Smart City Week strives to encourage collective reflection on how to modify the technologies of our city together with the intelligence of its locals. The programme is structured around subjects such as culture, citizen participation and the gender-based perspective, and is divided into three itineraries:

Transforming the city today: Activities on innovations and initiatives that improve the present-day city.

Transforming the city tomorrow: Activities on innovations and initiatives that improve the city in the near future.

Transforming the city of the future: Activities on future innovations and initiatives that involve structural changes to cities. In other words, shaking some of the foundations on which present-day cities are built and sharing improvements to the city for a distant future.

More than 50 activities spread around Barcelona seek to encourage reflection on how technologies modify our city, how we interpret it and relate to it. They all support the notion of a city that uses technologies along with the collective intelligence of its locals to ensure a more sustainable, fair and inclusive urban environment in the long and short term.

Smart City Week
11 – 17 November
See the programme

Barcelona Tech City was the setting for the second session of the DSIPLAY digital social innovation experiences cycle

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The DISPLAY digital social innovation experiences cycle seeks to promote the most noteworthy social innovation projects, their impact, and social returns and their feasibility. The cycle also strives to promote synergies among urban players and citizens in order to generate Mutual learning in areas such as technology entrepreneurship, participation and the maker world, the collaborative and circular economy or the use of data.

Discussions at the second session of the Display cycle focused on how to fund and incubate innovative projects with a social impact.

The session was moderated by Albert Cañigueral, a representative of Ouishare, who chose Holaluz – incubated at Barcelona Tech City- as an example of a socially responsible company that generates an impact and is financially sustainable.

Other cases of tech-based companies with a social impact and that work financially-speaking could be seen during the session, such as Worldcoo, Migranodearena, Capital Cell or The Collider, among others.

One of the key points of the session was the method of funding for innovative social projects. Participants agreed with generating business models that are sufficiently attractive in terms of investment in order to obtain shares.