The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge has approved the regulatory bases and the call for grants from the 'Digital Rural Challenge' program for digital training projects. As part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which has funding from European Next Generation funds, the aid is allocated to the development of training programs for digital training in areas of demographic priority (municipalities with a population equal to or less than 5,000 inhabitants, municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants as long as the actions are carried out in smaller local entities or singular entities and municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants with dispersed population centers as long as the actions are carried out in these centers) and are fundamentally aimed at collectives which require a specific demographic perspective: the elderly, women, children, adolescents, youth and the unemployed. The grants will be managed by the beneficiary entities which can be non-profit entities and local entities through training programs in digital skills. The training programs, which must be free, must have a minimum duration of seven hours and thirty minutes, will consist of two types of activities: training sessions and tutoring and must be focused on the acquisition of basic digital skills such as browsing, location of data, use of information, verification of digital content, network security and network privacy.
The total amount of the call will be 21,000,000 euros, 17,000,000 euros correspond to those projects of non-profit entities and 4,000,000 euros correspond to those projects of local entities. However, each beneficiary entity may submit a single project, where the total amount requested may not be less than 200,000 euros or more than 750,000 euros. The grants will be granted on a competitive basis and applications must be submitted to the electronic headquarters of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
The period opened the day after the publication of the call (11/12/23) and will be extended for 60 calendar days.