Digitalization is becoming increasingly important and, in places like Castilla y León, this shift is essential; it empowers individuals with tools that enable them to adapt to the demands of today’s life. The SRURAL project is therefore a solution for the digital transformation of the society of Castilla y León.

SRURAL is an initiative developed by AIR Institute, together with CARTIF, COTESA, Cesefor, and MADISON, with the aim of bridging the social and economic gap that exists in the rural areas of Castilla y León, with an emphasis on disruptive technologies that lead to the generation of products, processes and services for innovation and digital competitiveness.

There are several problems regarding the digitization of rural areas. Among them, the lack of technologies in the management and exploitation of forest resources, in addition to the scarcity of tools for monitoring and surveillance of natural areas to efficiently detect possible anomalies that pose a risk to it.

In order to solve this problem, it is proposed to research and implement Edge Computing technologies for the efficient management of low power consumption IoT networks. Likewise, Artificial Intelligence technologies will be applied for the automation of logging processes, the capture of process data and the generation and application of predictive models.

This is, beyond any doubt, a great initiative designed to stimulate rural areas. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of the European Union and the Junta de Castilla y León, through the Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castilla y León (ICE), with the aim of promoting technological development, innovation and quality research.

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.