Croatia's bootcamp equips rural women with tech skills to bridge innovation and sustainability gaps

euronews (in English)

In this episode of Sci-Tech, we visit a transformative bootcamp near Zagreb, Croatia, where women from rural areas across Europe are learning how technology can revolutionise their businesses and communities.

Transcript

00:00Hello, and welcome to this edition of SciTech, coming to you from the Croatian countryside,

00:10not far from Zagreb. We're here to meet a group of women who are aspiring to be the

00:15next big thing in rural innovation.

00:23Twenty women from across the EU and beyond are joining together for a week-long bootcamp.

00:29Hi, I'm Auguste from Lithuania.

00:32Hi, I'm Rika from Finland.

00:35And I'm Zora from Iceland.

00:39Students are diving deep into how they can take a lead in the tech revolution, learning

00:44from expert mentors. The Women's Academy for Rural Innovation, organised by Huawei, aims

00:51to help close gender and urban-rural divides faced by women outside the big cities.

00:58Many of them are business owners. They have a farm. They have an agritourism hotel accommodation.

01:04They have their own small and medium-sized enterprises. They are selling their local

01:08products online to the world. But they need the help of technology to make their products

01:14and to make their businesses more sustainable and to make also their products further rich.

01:21Rural investments, including in digital technologies, are seen as crucial to addressing the big

01:26issues of today, like climate change and food waste.

01:31We talked about agriculture and one participant talked about crops and how can you make crops

01:37sustainable with all climate change. So having the monitoring techniques. The other element

01:43is with more data centres being developed, how can we ensure that the rural areas are

01:49being part of this discussion?

01:52Bringing technology to rural communities is not always easy, with education from women

01:58like these playing a key role in unlocking its potential.

02:03My own experience is that there is some resistance in rural areas if we are talking about technological

02:09innovations. I know, for example, in agriculture they are quite advanced, but there are still

02:15things to go on.

02:17Thora, a physiotherapist, sees a big role for tech in driving down health inequalities.

02:23She is developing an online treatment platform to make it easier for patients in rural Iceland

02:29to access services.

02:32Because I'm not from the tech side, I sometimes believe that I cannot do the tech part, but

02:36after seeing all these great women I feel like, hey, I can do it, or at least now I

02:41know who to talk to and how to start it with the tech solution, because I have the healthcare

02:46solution but I need help from different sides.

02:51They learn from each other, but at the same time all the coaches, speakers we bring here,

02:56or even the policy officers will help them to understand better to get the fundings for

03:02the rural projects. I hope they can bring all that back to the community.

03:09It's the final day and the students are preparing to pitch on stage. Augusta's team have come

03:15up with Thora, a personalized AI assistant to help grow rural companies.

03:22It informs, teaches, and also connects people. For example, you are in agriculture and you

03:28want to make it bigger as a business, so how to start the business, what processes you

03:33have to go through, who to connect, you know, how to find people.

03:40This is not only about lifting people, this is also about lifting economy.

03:49I think we were amazing, weren't we? I mean, we were really good, actually, the whole team.

04:02After all the learning, the academy is wrapping up with a goodbye gala and award ceremony.

04:09Thora from Iceland is named Rural Connectivity Champion.

04:16I feel very happy. I feel very surprised and I don't know exactly what else it is, but

04:22I just feel like everything was amazing.

04:25And now time for the top award of Europe's Rural Leader.

04:29The winner of the 2024 Women's Academy for Rural Innovation is Augusta from Lithuania.

04:44I still have no idea how, why, but I also feel very happy to be appreciated, noticed

04:51for this change in these few days, actually.

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