Barcelona Hires IT Experts to Help Residents With Digital Tools
The city created the figure of IT agents to provide tech support and help to use email, digital IDs, videoconferencing, and online government services.
ICT Agents offer personalized advice to people who, for various reasons, do not use e-government or information and communication technologies in their daily lives.
Digital trainers help with paperwork for government services and teach how to use basic applications that can make everyday life easier, such as creating email accounts, making video calls, or getting digital certificates.
The BIT Habitat foundation manages the initiative, which is part of the Plan for Digital Inclusion, to guarantee digital access for all citizens, especially for the most vulnerable groups.
This digital training program is one of the first initiatives Shock Plan for Digital Inclusion, with a 700,000 euros budget. It aims to improve access to digital tools and guarantee the digital inclusion of all citizens, especially in neighborhoods and groups that have proved more vulnerable because of the current health emergency and the consequent social and economic crises.
This program joins the Socioeconomic Response Network activated this summer by the Neighborhood Plan. The updated plan aims to care for people suffering from the worsening of their basic living conditions (economic, social, and health). It helps to connect them with the administration’s resources and local initiatives, with practical support at the processing level, and strengthen the coordination and scope of resources and services in the neighborhoods.
Promoting digitization to ensure equal opportunities
The current context and the lockdown experienced earlier this year have highlighted the need to improve digital training and reduce the existing digital divide among the population. Digital inclusion is critical to ensure real equality of opportunity accessing resources and services and adapting to a world with growing digitalization in all sectors and occupations.
It has been shown that the current situation has a more negative impact on vulnerable groups, and the existing social and educational inequalities have become even more evident. That is why one of the priorities of the Shock Plan for Digital Inclusion is the strengthening of digital training programs aimed at different audiences.
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