Madrid, October 27, 2021 – The CEO of DigitalES, Víctor Calvo-Sotelo, has held this week a fruitful meeting with the new General Director of Digitalization and AI of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Salvador Estevan. During the meeting, ideas were shared regarding the most imminent programs of this Secretary of State under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism. Among them, the first call for the so-called Digital Toolkit (or Digital Kit), which will offer grants to SMEs for the procurement or purchase of basic digital tools. This program will be endowed with 1,388 M€ in 2022, according to the draft General State Budget (PGE) presented by Carme Artigas in Congress this week.

During the first phase, the Digital Toolkit grants will be aimed at SMEs with between 10 and 50 employees. From the lessons learned regarding their effectiveness, the Secretary of State for Digitalization and AI will expand the focus of the program, starting in 2023, to micro-SMEs and the self-employed.

Download the Guide for the Digital Transformation of SMEs (DigitalES, 2021)

 

Another of the agency’s major items in 2022 will go to the digitization of public administrationincluding the development of a hybrid cloud infrastructure for the public sector, a factory for the development of open source mobile apps and services, and the improvement of cybersecurity in public organizations.

The funds earmarked for Artificial Intelligence and to the transition to a data economy are painted in several lines of the PGE 2022, being particularly interesting the lines destined to innovation and entrepreneurship projects in AI, as well as the “sectoral data spaces” for industries such as tourism and healthcare, with the upcoming creation of a data lake of health data.

Likewise, the Secretary of State for Digitalization and AI will be responsible for coordinating and executing a large part of the funds foreseen in the Digital Skills Plan; possibly the greatest challenge facing digital transformation in our country. The first funds for the digital training of citizens have been committed so far in 2021 and will be continued over the next few years.

In total, this Secretariat will manage 65% of the MRR funds allocated to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.

“From the DigitalES association, we believe it is essential to continue promoting the contribution of the technology and digital sector to the recovery, through its participation in the funds provided for this purpose. In order to advance in the public-private collaboration that we have always defended, we continue with the work to increase both the internal dialogue between partners, and externally with other productive sectors and administrations. In this way, we hope to identify opportunities that will optimize the capture of European funds and accelerate the digitalization of our country”, Calvo-Sotelo recently declared, in the framework of the constitution of the sectorial working groups on the Recovery Plan.

 

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Related information:

> OPINION: The role of DigitalES in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan

> European Funds – Recovery Plan – Asociación DigitalES

> PRESS RELEASE: DigitalES employers’ association promotes the development of technology consortiums to participate in the Recovery Plan