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Published originally in red.es (Spanish)
Álvaro Nadal y Ángel Gurría
The Ramón Areces Foundation hosted the Seminar “The New Production Revolution: Digital Transformation” that began with speeches from the Spanish Minister of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda, Álvaro Nadal, and the general secretary of the OECD, Ángel Gurría. Carlos López Blanco, Telefónica’s Global Head of Public Affairs and Regulation, also participated in this seminar.
The main speech was given by Ángel Gurría, who started his talk by explaining that digital transformation should be a lever for improving public services and that services should encourage inclusion.
“These disruptive changes represent a new and better model that makes things easier and cheaper, for all things digital to become leverage and not a threat”.
Gurría also highlighted that technology use creates new opportunities for growth and productivity, but should be accompanied by policies and regulation.
In addition, he described the importance of offering workers the skills and abilities, mostly within the digital environment, needed to take advantage of the Digital Economy and that to do so, they should create ambitious strategies. In this sense, he emphasised the programmes they work with at the OECD, such as: the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
As for Álvaro Nadal, he put emphasis on the fact that we are facing a revolution, a digital one, and that “the role of public administrations is to know the correct moment for applying new policies and feeding off the creativity and ideas that Spanish companies and start-ups are offering”.
The Minister also underlined the importance of infrastructure development, but that “the passionate aspect of the digital world are the platforms and the services”. In this sense, he used the work example that has been employed for years with Red.es for the improvement of public services, not only through digitalisation, but by implementing new projects that will soon be launched, such as the social card for the Justice application.
Regulation, digital rights, the new commercial reality of intellectual property and even taxation, are other important topics that Álvaro Nadal mentioned as priorities for the proper functioning of this digital world.
“The Digital Agenda is infinite. We must raise awareness and be present in this technological revolution and offer many resources” concluded the Minister.
