dRural is an EU-funded project focused on the development and implementation of a Service Marketplace
It aims to connect the ecosystem of potential end-users and service providers in rural areas, delivering a broad spectrum of services while boosting economic growth. The overall goal is to uplift innovation and development of rural regions and improving citizens’ quality of life.
The dRural service marketplace has already been tested in three European rural regions: Extremadura (Spain), Dubrovnik-Neretva (Croatia) and Gelderland Midden) (The Netherlands). 8 additional regions have been selected to replicate the dRural platform in their territories in order to validate the concept.
dRural platform as an open, web-based technological development which enables interoperability, analytical processing, and data storing on the solution. Service providers of any type expose their offering through services that are later accessed by end-users through the marketplace
Accessibility to services in rural areas
Rural areas bring their inhabitants many benefits, but accessibility of all kinds of services may be complicated. Embracing digitalization is seen as a solution to address issues. However, implementing digital services requires not only advanced technological expertise but also a deep understanding of the perspectives of different stakeholders within the regional ecosystem. These stakeholders may have differing visible and invisible needs, beliefs, and values. Establishing shared worldviews becomes crucial in overcoming such challenges. This bottom-up approach is likely to result in better technology adoption and better definition of territorial strategies. There is a need to bridge the gap between diverse worldviews and general technological capabilities?
Ticbiomed is the coordinator of the dRural project putting all the expertise in a) demand driven innovation, to identify needs and transform them into challenges; b) co-creation to develop solutions hand in hand with the users and c) adoption mobilising the ecosystems to advocate for adoption once the pilots have been successful.
