Digitization has been one of the most important factors of growth and prosperity in Spain and throughout the world for some time, and where Europe has been forced to measure itself face to face with other economies in other countries such as China and the United States.
Technology, its importance and its growing daily use, has become a key factor of competitiveness for companies and governments in a constantly evolving global economy.
In the case of Spain, what it has been doing for a few years is commendable work, going from number eleven in the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) in 2020, to number seven in the past. anus. This seventh position, behind smaller countries such as Luxembourg or Estonia, also means leading the six largest European economies.
Spain Digital Plan 2026
For Carmen Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, one of the keys is the Spain Digital Plan 2026. “When we arrived we saw that Spain was between 10 and 12 years behind other similar countries. And it is something that we are changing. We have gone from being witnesses to being protagonists of digitization in Europe.”
Carme Artigas is one of the two guests on the new episode of the video podcast “Digital Destination: Conversations about what is to come”, along with Manuel Muñiz, International Rector of IE University and Dean of IE School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs. For Manuel Muñiz, “Spain has the conditions to be a territory that leads digitization and a new European production model.”
Together they chat in a relaxed way about the past, present and future of Spain on its way to leadership in the digitization process. If you want to listen to it, you can do it on the main podcast platforms, but you can also watch it on its Youtube channel.
Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU
Spain will have an important job to do in the second half of 2023, when it will hold the presidency of the Council of the EU. For Artigas, it is about an opportunity to complete work on European digitization and lay the regulatory foundations for technological development in Europe, since we will have to do things like finish specifying the eIDAS 2 digital identity regulation or the Data Act. The latter is especially important since it will be this proposal that will regulate information flows with third countries. In addition, Spain will also assume the work and negotiations around the European Artificial Intelligence regulation, where Spain will be able to launch the first regulatory sandbox.
During this period also will focus on digital entrepreneurship and in cybersecurity, and for this, more than eight million euros will be invested in technology companies in Spain.
All of the above means, as it is the final phase of the current European Commission, that Spain will be at the center of deciding how Europe will face the future of digitization.
European strategy in the technological field
The general component and supply crisis that appeared with the Covid pandemic and that has affected all sectors, mainly technology and the automotive sector, made us realize our excessive dependence on third countries. For Artigas, “Europe’s strategy for the future is based on being able to recover the capacities that it delegated or abdicated, but not only in supplies, but also other services such as cloud processing and even human talent. For example, the United States has been trying to take part of Europe’s industrial capacity for some time..”
The new leading technologies today, such as cloud services or data processing, are capable of changing the structure and distribution of the world. For Manuel Muñiz, they can change the functioning of the economy, the creation and distribution of employment or even issues related to taxation.
The most important video podcast on the digital economy
In the era of the podcast that we are living in, there was none that talked about the digital economy and technological transformation. For this reason, this initiative of Adigital (Spanish Association of the Digital Economy), in collaboration with Telefónica, is the best option to keep up to date with digitization and with the best possible guests.
For example, in the first episode they participated Carina Szpilka, President of Adigital, and Sergio Oslé, CEO of Telefónica Spain. Javier Gutiérrez, Director of Network Strategy and Development at Telefónica Spain, Lorena González, Co-founder of INMERSIVA XR, the Extended Reality Association of Spain or, as in this latest programme, Carme Artigas and Manuel Muñiz have also attended.
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