Digitalisation holds considerable potential for rural areas. It offers the promise of overcoming geographical distance, ensuring equal access to opportunity regardless of where people live. At the same time, rural and sparsely populated areas are thought to lag behind their urban counterparts when it comes to the provision of digital infrastructure and the development of digital knowledge and skills.
These urban-rural disparities are often referred to as the digital divide and can prevent rural communities from unlocking the opportunities associated with digitalisation. But what is the current situation for digital infrastructure in rural and sparsely populated areas of the Nordic-Baltic Region? This story will tap into that.
This story is part of the project “Rural perspectives on digital innovation: Experiences from small enterprises in the Nordic countries and Latvia”. This project was funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers for Digitalisation (MR-Digital), the Nordic thematic group for innovative and resilient regions 2017-2020 and the North Atlantic Cooperation (NORA).
