As part of the Action Plan for Catalonia there are 2 new actions are being implemented:
1. Digital Catalonia Alliance (DCA) and DCA-Drons: clustering, incubation, and acceleration of the digital emerging technologies and UAS in Catalonia, by bringing together companies, entities of the quadruple helix and organizations, maximizing this way the synergies between these parties and exploiting the potential of the drone industry as a transformative tool. The Digital Catalonia Alliance aims to bring together and provide shelter to the emerging digital economic sector, but especially focusing on those companies with emerging technologies, as well as members that can help in this disruptive and innovative ecosystem.
2. A tender to ease the access to drone test facilities to the Departments and bodies of the Government of Catalonia and the members of the DCA-Drons.
Both actions are funded with other funds of the Government of Catalonia due to the delay in the final approval of the new policy instrument ERDF Operational Programme in Catalonia of the period 2021-2027.
The planned actions were inspired by several Aerial Uptake good practices, such as Enschede's Drone2GO and Osijek's Bilje Steppe-like grassland inventory for the coverage area relocation management plan in their use of the drone as a tool to boost the transformation and digitization; the creation and boost of Drone Clusters in Poland and Lancashire pointed out that our own best practice Catalonia Smart Drones should be improved to increase potential benefits of dynamizing digital and demand-side technology ecosystems. The site visits in the Netherlands, such as Space53 (Enschede) and the presentations about the test facilities during the 1s partner meeting in Linköping, such as Drone Center Sweden (Västervik, Sweden) also inspired the benefits of easing the access to test facilities in our own region.
A notorious progress has been made on both Actions previously explained. About Action 1, Digital Catalonia Alliance has organized and held most of the events appearing in the action plan, and so has its drone community. The tender of Action 2 was published on March 25th and awarded on May 30th. Nevertheless, this action is not being executed due to a tender contest.
Finally, to conclude the update, we want to highlight some of the most successful activities and events made so far: the Digital Lunch took place on April, which consisted in a networking sessions lunch for the DCA members. Back in May the DCA celebrated a technological dissemination day, with nearly 100 attendees, 2 of the 4 planned matchmaking events have been celebrated (Utilities and Agriculture ones). Also, 2 conferences about access to funding sources and opportunities have been held, one of them online and the other one celebrated physically at ACCIÓ (Agency for Business Competitiveness) headquarters in Barcelona. About DCA-Drons’s events, a working group session was celebrated in May as part of the networking sessions with members of the Artificial Intelligence community. A meeting with the most active members of the community, called Motor Group, was celebrated in June and the last one of the year is already planned for September, and as part of the visibility and events objectives, the Drone Community participated in the Lleida Air Challenge, a regional congress
