Under the name Digital Innovation Hub, a networked service center has been launched that will promote the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, and public entities in Catalonia. The center will function as a digital innovation ecosystem to provide companies and entities with the capacity, solutions, and technological infrastructures necessary to drive their digital transformation.
This initiative is the result of collaboration between several departments of the Generalitat and a dozen Catalan technological and economic agents. The Departament d'Empresa i Treball of the Generalitat through Acció, the Departament de la Vicepresidència i Polítiques Digitals, the business organizations Foment and Pimec, and technological and knowledge agents such as Eurecat, CVC, ICFO, the i2CAT Foundation, Leitat, the UPC, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and IESE are part of it.
To accelerate the incorporation of advanced technology into companies and institutions, the Digital Innovation Hub of Catalonia, which aims to be one of the innovation nodes selected by the European Commission, will bring together a set of services. From testing and experimenting with advanced digital technologies through access to reference technological infrastructures; prior technological consulting to testing; specialized technological training, advice on seeking financing or connection with the innovation system.
The components of the center, with their cooperation, will boost innovation in SMEs, which will be able to test their projects in the laboratories of the members of this alliance before investing in their businesses.
With this orientation, the Department of Digital Policies allocates a budget of one million euros that will grant, in aid of up to 10,000 euros, to more than 100 Catalan SMEs so that they can carry out tests and develop prototypes or trials. As detailed by the Departament d'Empresa, the technologies that can be tested will be linked to 3D printing, robotics and advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, big data and 5G, among others.