
This interactive course on Smart Transition helps you to utilize the Smart Tools for transition of villages and territories to Smart Villages in a structured and wholesome manner. Follow these steps in any order and become an expert on SmartVillages approach and gather karma points along the way.
1. Know
and unite the community-
Communicate the initiative
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Identify resources and local heroes
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Analyse needs of the community
2. Define
needs & capabilities-
Make a Diagnosis
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Smartness Assessment
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Test Area Analyzer
3. Inspire
me & others-
Read resources on Smart Transition
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Check out best practices
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Talk to AI knowledge base
4. Involve
and evaluate-
Iterative upgrades in your community
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Get in touch with other pilot areas
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Join The Smartalps Network and Follow EUSALP
2.1 Make a Diagnosis
Whether your territory is extended or not, you may not know all the amenities and the degree of progress on smart actions in your region. To understand the stakes, we recommend that you carry out a diagnosis of your area using your local data (through the Test Area Analyzer in next steps, for example), but also by reflecting on the degree of innovation in your area using the Smartness assessment. You can also gather ‘hot/sensible data’ through interviews.
Therefore, it appears clear that the basis for starting a smart transition is a community with a great initiative and social, environmental and digital awareness, and also a community that is aware of the situation that the village will face if everything remains unchanged.

The analysis can be structured considering the smart dimensions.
Smart Mobility
Mobility issues are considered essential to a smart transition by the majority of the project partners attending the meeting. In particular, they are more focused on designing a digital integrated traffic platform in order to manage all the transport facilities in the TA and make the access to public transports more comfortable for the users.
Solutions involving the mobility of services can enhance the situation among elderly people as well as the concept of “reverse mobility”.
Smart Governance
This smart dimension seems not be considered as important as it is in the context of all analyses regarding Smart Cities. The discussion revealed that bottom-up initiatives with the support of a smart decision makers are considered more effective than imposed top-down activities. Thus, an involvement of rural communities is essential to create a smart village.
Smart Economy
New and innovative approaches in the economic filed are a theme of special interest for all the project partners, in particular the digital farming turned to be a focus for the smart transition of all the Slovenian partners.
Furthermore, it must be highlighted that the vast majority of the TAs already perceive the topic of tourism as a fundamental area to invest in in order to be considered a smart village, for example by designing a tourist-related apps or by ensuring that the tourism strategy does not have a negative impact on the environment.
Finally, the definition of a unique brand or logo for the TA is fundamental for the recognizability of the village among the others and may help the growth in the tertiary sector activities.
Smart Environment
Worldwide, renewable energy resources (RES) issues are central in all mitigation and adaptation strategies; in fact all the project partners are very focused on this issue: the TAs are working towards a zero-waste economy and they are implementing even more strategies to produce more energy from RES and/or to derive a bigger share of their energy from RES.
However, some experts warn that it is possible that data are not always available at the village spatial level, so it might be necessary to verify if the RES data are scalable.
Smart Living
The smart dimension ‘Smart Living’ is the quite possibly the one with the widest meaning; with ‘smart living’, in fact, it is possible to range from topics concerning the Services of General Interest (SGI) to the more recently developed concept of smart working.
However, before considering all the most innovative activities that could be developed to improve rural community life, there is an essential topic that needs to be discussed: the coverage and the type of internet connection. In fact, the TAs recognize that an adequate infrastructure for internet connection is essential to develop any kind of service which could enable all the inhabitants to continue living in the village and thus contribute in countering the depopulation of rural areas.
Smart People
All project partners revealed an interest in defining the digital literacy level of the TAs: these data are necessary to start the digital transformation of rural areas, considering that there is the evidence that rural populations lack the necessary digital skills and that the use of digital technologies is lower than urban areas.
Step completion
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