Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme 2014-2020 funded DISTINCT project has been featured during NPA's Annual Event that took place on the 27th of September following a hybrid model, virtually and physically from Sligo (Ireland).
On the one hand, during the first part of the NPA Annual event, an interview with ERNACT, DISTINCT Lead Partner, was broadcasted. The NPA Irish National Contact Point, Brendan Mooney, from Northern and Western Regional Assembly, visited the ERNACT headquarters in Letterkenny (Donegal, Ireland) to talk with the ERNACT General Manager Colm Mc Colgan about this project and the use of disruptive technologies. "In this preliminary phase of the project we have mapped out the centres of expertise, we have figured out what some of the constraints are and how you might stimulate the public authorites and the private sector in the NPA area to start using disruptive technologies. In the new programme with the new priorities, we would like to do an implementation of that, like a large scale demonstration project", explained Colm (the whole interview can be watched in the video below).
On the other hand, during the afternoon, ERNACT Programme Manager and DISTINCT Project Leader Jose Manuel San Emeterio was invited to host a virtual thematic session focused on Innovation Capacities. The DISTINCT Project Leader moderated a workshop in which the audience had the opportunity to exchange views on the use of disruptive technologies. Furthermore, DISTINCT partner Ulf Hedestig, from Umeå University (Sweden), presented the project to the audience. "The DISTINCT project is a wonderful example of how sparsely populated areas can get important recommendations and best practices for implementing disruptive technologies that are adapted to their circumstances. We also discovered that many SMEs and public authorities in the NPA-area can act as important drivers for other regions in EU, since they are focusing on specific solutions that are based on challenges and opportunities that exist in sparsely populated areas. These solutions are in that sense 'new' types of services that are not invented in large cities or 'hotspots'", explained Ulf.
According to the DISTINCT partner, the workshop at NPA annual meeting showed that DISTINCT conclusions reported in the Foresight Analysis are well in line and confirmed with the comments received from the audience. "It was gratifying that the audience expressed the importance of giving clear examples or direct use of disruptive technologies. This will be accomplish in DISTINCT next activity that contains demonstrations of disruptive technologies where we will give real examples of disruptive technologies used in public sector", continued Ulf.
DISTINCT Disruptive Tuesdays
As Ulf announced to the NPA workshop attendees, DISTINCT project partners will organise three online sessions to showcase real uses and examples of this kind of technologies. These sessions will be announced on this DISTINCT project website and through social media using the #DISTINCTproject hashtag. Meanwhile, save these dates, all the sessions will take place 1PM CET:
- 16th of November 2021: Environment Services
- 7th of December 2021: Health and Social Care
- 25th of January 2022: Training and Education
"It is acknowledged the potential of disruptive technologies. Now it is a matter to make them to work to solve real problems that will lead into their bigger adoption for quality and sustainable public services", concluded Jose Manuel San Emeterio at the end of the online workshop.