Technology kickstarts opportunity for urban and rural Europe, Discovery series Being Digi-Sapiens shows

Málaga, Spain: Ubiquitous Wi-Fi as a foundation of a smart city

Málaga City Hall has teamed up with Huawei to lay the foundation of a smart city by providing free public Wi-Fi in one of Málaga's oldest public markets. At the Mercado de Atarazanas, a fresh produce market dating back to the 14^th century, stable Wi-Fi connections now allow merchants to take orders online and use digital platforms for invoicing and payment.

Free Wi-Fi offers a valuable new service for customers visiting the market, especially overseas tourists who might otherwise have to pay expensive roaming charges.

Beyond simple convenience, Wi-Fi opens up new opportunities for vendors. Online connectivity lets them operate outside of normal working hours and do business beyond their immediate geographic area, even selling produce in other cities. Building out Málaga's network of Wi-Fi hotspots will  encourage entrepreneurs them to start new ventures that stimulate the city's economy.

Including Atarazanas, Huawei technology supports 15 markets in Málaga as one of the initial steps in a digital transformation of the city. Alicia Izquierdo, Councillor for Innovation at Málaga City Hall, says, "The next thing we will do is launch a marketplace platform where it will be possible to do online commerce for all market businesses. The city of Málaga is becoming a smart city."

Landau, Germany: transforming a traditional winery with 5G

In Germany, Simone visits the Lergenmüller family winery. Julia and Victoria, the third generation of owners , explain that technology has simplified the wine-making process by keeping track of what work has been done, and what tasks remain, at each of the hundreds of grape-growing parcels of land within the estate.

European Commission President Ursula von  der Leyen has called rural villages "the heartbeat of our economy," and the Lergenmüller winery illustrates her point. 5G enables farmers at the winery to monitor everything from the humidity in the soil to pest damage. The information is uploaded to the "Vineyard Cloud," where it is analyzed by artificial intelligence.

Some European countries are experiencing rapid depopulation and are trying to entice digital nomads to swap big cities for the countryside. Whether they succeed depends partly on factors such as digital infrastructure. Providing the chance to work within a technology organization instead of a traditional farm is a way to attract them back.

Waalwijk, Netherlands: Robots powered by low-latency 5G

At the KLG Logistics Center in Wallwijk in the Netherlands, Simone observes 5G-powered robots at one of Huawei's main supply and logistics centers in Europe. Autonomous machines perform repetitive, and potentially risky tasks, such as stacking shipping pallets on high shelves.

While much has been made of the threat robots may pose to human employment, warehouse workers told Simone they were happy to have machines performing such duties for them.

Research suggests that robots are more likely to take over individual tasks than entire jobs – potentially enhancing worker health and safety by doing routine or dangerous work that humans would rather avoid. 

To watch the full video, please visit:

Being Digi Sapiens Episode 2 - Connecting with Others | Discovery x Huawei (youtube.com)

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