One of the key (and unexpected) outcomes of our work with regional stakeholders in CARPE DIGEM outside the key Action Plan focus on the digital enhancement of short Food Supply Chains is one area of what is sometimes termed ‘Digital Autonomy’: enabling the establishment of a local IT equipment, repair, refurbishment and upgrade system. Our local stakeholders (and founder organisations) in the Nièvre County Council and the Greater Nevers Urban Area have both recently developed a focus on ‘Green digital economy’ not only as a way of significantly reducing the environmental impact of IT equipment through repair and refurbishment, but also as a means of enabling the county, its towns and local communities to gain practical digital skills and add significant local value through economic activity.
One of the principal ‘needs’ of more peripheral regions identified through CARPE DIGEM has been to ensure that all people have the opportunity to gain basic digital skills and become part of the digital society. Improving local digital autonomy through supporting a local ‘Digital Recycling, repair refurbishment ecosystem’ is a key way of achieving this.
In the last semester of the project Nièvre numérique has become a partner,, with the Greater Nevers Urban Area and the Nièvre County Council in a NWE Interreg 5B bid (which passed the first stage in April 2023) ‘Ecosystems for Extended-lifetime of End-of-Use Electrical and Electronic Equipment’ or E6 for short! Which will we hope enable us to develop this cornerstone of future local digital ecosystems.
