Towns and villages seek a smart future

SKIBBEREEN, the advance publicity declares, is the ‘inspirational location’ for National Digital Week, the first of its kind in a non-urban area in Ireland, which will put the focus on the ‘smart’ future of towns and villages in rural areas from November 3rd to 7th next.

If nobody is going to do it for them, then the rural towns will have to do it for themselves and the inspiration for the four-day conference in Skibbereen, which features 60 speakers, a veritable who’s who of the digital world, came from the newly-established Ludgate@Skibbereen, which is currently setting up Ireland’s first rural digital hub in the the old Field’s Bakery building on Townshend Street. 

This has now become known as the Ludgate Hub, which is to create an estimated 75 jobs at start-up time next month thanks to the availability of the infrastructure to support 1,000 Mbps speeds of high-quality fibre broadband connectivity by the project’s telecoms partner, SIRO – a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone.

This, in itself, will be a fantastic boost for the town, benefitting shops, service providers, schools, etc and, hopefully, the conference next week will be an inspiration for rural residents to think ‘smarter’ about the ever-growing digital economy opportunities and adapt them to their town or village as a catalyst for the creation of many more jobs.