“Digital district” for Palma

Joan Collins PALMA council will start a plan to convert La Soledad and the Poligono de Levante into a “digital district” in which is it hoped that, through the use of new technology, the citizens in the area will be able to access better job offers and new business opportunities could be created. The councillors for Infrastructures and Work, Economy and Commerce, Marina Sans and Sebastia Sanso respectively, yesterday presented this project, together with its director, Pedro Ramis. The initiative, part of the Plan of Integral Rehabilitation for the Poligono de Levante and La Soledad, will try, through the use of new technology like “fibreoptics”, to promote work opportunities, training for citizens and the economic and commercial regeneration of this area of Palma, which is very run down at the moment. The new technologies will be the vehicle to reanimate the district and, especially, to halt the increase of the “digital gap”, that is to say that citizens will have equal opportunities for the use and knowledge of these technologies so that they can apply them to various aspects of their lives. According to Ramis, this project will revolve around three things: “digital citizens”, “digital culture” and “digital economy”, with various projects which will touch upon each of these topics. With regard to the idea of “digital citizens”, this is based on the training of the residents of the district in the use of the developing technologies for information and communication (TIC). Within the range of training projects there will be “Alfatec”, directed exclusively at residents of the area; “Creativa”, dealing with graphic design and the web for women; and “E-learning”, based on distance learning courses. As for the development of infrastructures, the most relevant, according to Ramis, is the “Wi-fi” plan. This plan is to give the Parque Krekovic a free internet access point, in addition to the “Avanza” project to promote computer and data transmission installations in the area. To promote “digital culture” the council will highlight the diffusion of the benefits of the use of new technologies with the creation of a webpage, the hosting of an internet day (on May 17) and with student activities. On the economic side, the main project is “Avanza-empresas” to increase the use of the new technologies by businesses in La Soledad and the Poligono de Levante, and the development of a “network of technological antennae”.