Finally a Mobile World Congress without restrictions. It will be the first for Carme Artigas as Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, a position to which she agreed just a few days before the restrictions were unleashed. “We already wanted. It is a very consolidated Mobile. It is one of those in which the presence of great managers, of CEOs, is higher. In the Spanish pavilion we have 30% more companies ”, she assures in a meeting with La Vanguardia in Madrid, a few days before the inauguration.
What will surprise us most in this edition?
This year we are going to see the explosion of the combination of 5G, and even 6G, with artificial intelligence. Last year we saw some experimental proposals, but now there are many mature cases, with augmented reality, the metaverse, taking center stage. We are witnessing the demonstration that technology is flooding absolutely all aspects, sectors and industries, and Mobile is the great showcase for these innovations and their impact on the economy, industry and society. From our think tank, Digital Future Society, this year we are going to stimulate debates on neurotechnologies, immersive realities and the need to set ethical and regulatory limits in the metaverse, and the last one, on the digital and ecological double transition.
After what has been seen with Google, Facebook… can you set limits to the metaverse?
The metaverse will take five to seven years to reach maturity because it needs to align many technologies. But it is putting a magnifying glass on us to magnify the potential reality that we can face if we do not make decisions beforehand. We must put limits on technological development without restrictions. Spain is at the forefront, leading the bill of digital rights for two years. At the OECD we are already talking about the limits of the metaverse. The Digital Rights Bill has a general regulation, but also the regulation associated with artificial intelligence and neurotechnology. Rights such as not being augmented, manipulated, not commercializing brain data… These are challenges that may seem like science fiction, but if we don’t address them before the technology develops, then it is very difficult to reverse the harmful effects.
Exciting, but terrifying at the same time.
We are laying the foundations so that it is not terrifying and so that everything can be developed in a coordinated way. Spain appears in international rankings as the fourth most cybersecure country in the world. We are very active in raising awareness. Queries to the 017 telephone number to report all kinds of cybersecurity problems reached 6,000 per month. The good news is that if at first 100% were to report attacks already suffered, now 50% are for prevention, from companies to families. Every day there is more awareness both in parents, children, large companies. Now, the main risk is found in SMEs and municipalities. They are the most vulnerable, weakest elements in the cybersecurity chain. Our projects go in that direction. We are going to invest 500 million to promote the cybersecurity industry in Spain.
How is the digital skills plan evolving?
Digital skills, of course, are basic for this cybersecurity. We have worked a lot on the basic training of citizens, but there is still 30% that lacks basic digital skills. We are deploying a strong commitment to advance in this field. But beyond those basic skills we have many projects to stimulate a change in consciousness around the world. Now it is no longer a matter of thinking “I want my son to train in robotics”. What we want is for parents to think: “I also have to train in robotics.” We are putting a lot of training offer to support it.
One of the star themes of his secretariat in 2022 was the Digital Kit. Has it worked as expected?
It has worked much better than expected. In the history of this country, no public subsidy has ever exceeded 30% demand from the potential group that could request it. In the Digital Kit we are at averages of 70%. In total, 170,000 bonds worth 880 million euros that have already gone directly into the pockets of SMEs. In Catalonia alone, 27,045 bonds have been awarded, amounting to 155 million euros. It is money that is spent on a platform, Acelera Pyme, with 9,000 digitizers. That’s the beauty, that this is a subsidy for SMEs that are spent on other SMEs. Beyond the demand for marketing projects that was expected, the demand for process automation, for example, has surprised. In short, a private collaboration that without it, the State would have had to mobilize 1,500 civil servants to manage it with this speed.
Is this aid going to be expanded?
At the moment we are going to deploy the next section, which is aid to the self-employed. We think it will be very well received. Even so, of the initial 3,000 million euros with which the kit was endowed, we may have a remnant. We are seeing if it can be added to part of the extension of the new section of the recovery plan that Europe has to approve and we have also asked that this aid be extended to companies with between 50 and 250 workers that are also SMEs, but larger and above all very strategic. If so, we could approve the Digital Plus Kit, which will be focused on other types of more sophisticated needs.