Faced with the challenges triggered by the pandemic and the current food, health and environmental crises, ensuring a fair, equitable, inclusive and ethical digital transition is an undisputed priority.
❗ The pandemic has highlighted the many challenges the world still needs to address: making the relationship between humanity and the Earth more balanced and efficient, promoting widespread and collective prosperity without leaving anyone behind, restoring the bond between individuals and communities and between communities and their territories, and fostering greater transparency and trust.
These are all areas in which digital technology can represent an extraordinary enabling tool.
The digital transition, whose scale and potential were accelerated by the pandemic, is neither utopian nor the accidental result of technological development. It is a deliberate path pursued because of the countless benefits it can offer.
A digital world has the ability to provide services and opportunities to citizens, especially those living in inland areas or far from major urban centres. It can increase resource efficiency and therefore reduce humanity’s impact on the Earth, while ensuring greater transparency, decentralising networks and giving a stronger voice to citizens and supply chains.
In recent years, digital innovation has paved the way for several improvements, beginning with agriculture, where the potential of 4.0 technologies offers significant benefits not only in economic terms and resource optimisation, but also for human health through more sustainable, efficient and balanced processes.
At the same time, the pandemic has highlighted the challenges along the path toward digital transition, including the need to guarantee universal access to digital tools and data — crucial issues if digital technology is to become a vehicle for connection rather than inequality.
According to ISTAT data, one in three families in Italy does not own a computer or tablet.
The lack of adequate infrastructure capable of supporting new digital solutions and high rates of digital illiteracy are real obstacles to the transition toward a digital society.
In Italy, 25% of Italians do not regularly use the internet, a percentage that doubles globally, considering that almost half of the world’s population is still offline.
All these issues are compounded by ethical questions related to the advancement of artificial intelligence and robotisation, which are inevitably transforming the global labour market.
Ensuring a democratic, inclusive and sustainable digital transition is an integral part of European Union policy.
In 2019, the new European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen included the digital transition among its six priorities.
The European Union approaches the digital world while maintaining a strong focus on citizens’ interests, providing concrete support to businesses and promoting, also through digital technologies, the environmental protection necessary to achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050.
Digital data regulation and protection, artificial intelligence, digital identity and market policies are among the issues the Union has worked on in recent years to support the transition toward a digital and sustainable society during the so-called “Digital Decade”.
On March 19, 2021, on the occasion of Digital Day, EU Member States signed a declaration of common commitment to accelerate the transition through a series of initiatives aligned with the objectives set by the Commission.
Among the initiatives promoted is the commitment to develop a digital model of the Earth, known as “Twin Earth”, capable of predicting possible future scenarios for our Planet, together with the design and production of environmentally friendly products.
However, the digital transition must not only be close to the environment, but also to citizens.
It is in this context that events promoting digital literacy are organised every year, such as the All Digital Week, a global event designed to highlight the countless opportunities the digital world can offer European citizens.
Innovation today increasingly includes an essential digital component, as demonstrated by the many projects promoted by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), including, for example, the DigiFresh project.
DigiFresh uses advanced technologies to monitor the condition and freshness of food products in order to improve product quality, reduce economic losses and food waste, and increase consumer satisfaction.
Also in relation to Agriculture 4.0, the European Union is actively promoting and investing in the application of digital technologies to modernise infrastructure, maintain constant dialogue with farmers, and implement new legislation and criteria in support of Industry — and Agriculture — 4.0.
The Future Food Institute has been accompanying the European Union on this complex path toward digital transition for years, promoting and investing in hybrid training methods — online and offline — through our Boot Camps and hackathons, in which digital solutions are placed at the service of real environmental challenges.
For Future Food, digital technology is in fact a means whose purpose and value are grounded in culture and people.
The Paideia Campus in Pollica is a living example of the connection between the digital and human dimensions.
Drawing on the characteristics and values of the Mediterranean Diet, the “Pollica 2050 – Mediterranean Living” project, developed in collaboration with the Municipality of Pollica, aims to create a model of Integral Ecological Regeneration capable of unlocking dormant resources.
In achieving this goal, accelerating the digital transition is no longer simply the necessary lever for implementing a genuine Green Deal, but also the right tool for encouraging a cultural transition capable of empowering the community, maximising the potential of innovative sectors such as digital medicine, and ensuring transparency and security.
Putting digital technology at the service of people means removing logistical and bureaucratic friction and providing services that respond to citizens’ real needs.
In the current crisis, this also means taking action in the fields of diplomacy and international cooperation.
The design of the new Peace Lab, which will be developed at the Pollica Campus in collaboration with Dot Academy, aims to provide digital training courses for young people and women fleeing the war in Ukraine in order to support their integration into the local labour market and community.
Culture is another element that complements the digital transition.
A tangible example is the digital Mediterranean Diet Museum which, thanks to the valuable contribution of MedEatResearch, collects stories and memories of the territory in digital form, connected to the values and concept of the Mediterranean Diet.
The Future Food Institute is also one of the first organisations to translate the potential of digital technology into territorial regeneration, as demonstrated by the organisation of Pollica Digital Week, held from March 25 to 31, 2022.
The initiative took place within the framework of the European All Digital Week and included a series of educational events on digital innovation and its role in the cultural, economic and social recovery of the territory.
At present, Italy still has considerable room for improvement when it comes to aligning with European strategies for the development and application of 4.0 technologies in agriculture.
In this context, the partnership with the EIT Test Farms program, which connects European startups with networks of local farmers, is essential for encouraging innovative processes.
Through a process of mediation and in-field prototyping, the goal is to create fertile ground for the development of technologies capable of ensuring that Italian agriculture keeps pace with the challenges posed by the ecological and digital transitions.
As one of the key drivers of European change, digital technology will be a cross-cutting theme throughout Agrifood Week, as well as the focus of a dedicated session such as the panel “Bridging the Digital Divide in Agriculture”.
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