The initiative against rural depopulation in which the URJC participates

The Fuenlabrada School of Engineering collaborates in the third edition of the “Digitize your Town” competition, created for the purpose of involve pre-university students in the development of technological ideas that positively impact their environment.

David Viera

This competition has the participation of almost a hundred students from 4th ESO and 1st Baccalaureate. The participants are divided into 20 teams and belong to 10 educational centers in different autonomous communities. In this first phase of the competition, held at the end of February, the students have presented the ideas that they will carry out during the coming months.

'Digitize your Town' is framed in the Promotion Plan for Telecommunications Studies who coordinates the Official College of Telecommunications Engineers (COIT). This new edition, 7 public universities have joined together under the umbrella of the UPM. In addition to the Rey Juan Carlos University, the University of Valladolid (Grape), la Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), la Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), la University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) y la University of Malaga (UMA). Students from these campuses act as tutors for the different participating teams. In addition, the competition is sponsored by D-Link, Cellnex Foundation y Omnitel.

The teams come from the following secondary education institutes: Ramón y Cajal (Albacete), Vicent Castell I Domenech (Castellón), Los Batanes (Viso del Marqués, Ciudad Real), Jorge Manrique (Motilla del Palancar, Cuenca), Obispo Argüelles ( Villablino, León), Ricardo Ortega (Fuente Álamo, Murcia), Ribera del Jalón (Arcos del Jalón, Soria), Salvador Victoria (Monreal del Campo, Teruel), Julio Verne (Bargas, Toledo) and El Saler (El Saler, Valencia ).

The purpose of the competition is to combat the risk of digital exclusion in the rural world by promoting the training of its youngest inhabitants in skills related to information and communication technologies, in addition to promoting vocations among them towards STEM careers. science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Another objective of the initiative is to make the parties involved aware of the opportunity that technology provides to make a depopulated rural environment attractive when starting or developing a professional career.