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The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys TD, today announced a new partnership between the national Connected Hubs network and the global peer-to-peer and online collaboration platform Zoom.
Speaking at the official opening of An Chroí Digital Hub in Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo, Minister Humphreys said:
“Last week we launched the connectedhubs.ie mobile app and announced an additional €5M of funding to add remote work capacity across the country. Today I am opening An Chroí, part of the original DigiWest network that was the genesis of the national Connected Hubs platform. The DigiWest project was awarded almost €650K in funding by my department under the RRDF scheme in 2019. Now, in early 2022, the network that began with four hubs in the West has grown into the Connected Hubs network with more than 200 nationwide, with another 200 to come. Today I am also announcing a partnership with Zoom, a company that is synonymous with innovation and, of course, remote working. This partnership is clear evidence of the confidence that the commercial sector has in the Connected Hubs network and of the need for closer collaboration.”
The partnership with Zoom will provide best-in-class online services to members of the national Connected Hubs network: remote and co-working spaces across Ireland.
Joining Minister Humphreys for the announcement were Tomás Ó Síocháin, CEO of the Western Development Commission, and Harry Moseley, CIO of Zoom.
Tomás Ó Síocháin commented:
“The alliance between Zoom and Connected Hubs will allow hubs on the network to expand their offerings to their members and further enhance the facilities available to remote and hybrid workers. We look forward to further growing the offerings available to hub members through future partnerships and bridging the gap between global services and rural businesses to support local enterprise activity, broadening of the customer base and online trading.”
Joining the event via Zoom from New York, Harry Moseley added:
“Connected Hubs is an outstanding global example of how we can drive positive revolution for our rural regions. It's incredibly refreshing to see the Irish Government lead from the forefront and embrace this new era of flexible working, encompassed by the National Remote Working Strategy. We recognise Connected Hubs as a key driver in bringing the ambitions and objectives of that strategy to life. As the initiative works towards onboarding 400 hubs nationwide, we want to ensure that hub users have full access to the ever-evolving technology innovations Zoom are bringing on stream. This is an important partnership for Zoom in terms of equipping hub users to become champions of ‘making remote working work’, enabling better collaboration and innovation. We commend the work undertaken by the Western Development Commission and the Irish Government to date in ensuring that remote working is a permanent feature in the Irish workplace. Building on this partnership, we hope this is the first of many future collaborations in our efforts to support remote working across Ireland.”
Minister Humphreys concluded the event by saying that:
“The provision of remote working facilities is essential to enabling our rural towns and villages to capitalise on opportunities that have now arisen for people to live and work in rural areas. Hubs and a remote working are no longer unknown quantities. They are embedded parts of many peoples’ lives and will continue to be so. Remote working supports high performance in career terms and also a meaningful family life lived in sustainable, vibrant communities.”
ENDS
Our Rural Future
Our Rural Future is the whole-of-government policy for rural Ireland for the period 2021-2025. It represents a new milestone in the approach to rural development policy for Ireland and adopts a more strategic, ambitious and holistic approach to investing in and maximising opportunities for rural areas.
Digiwest Initiative
The objective of the Digiwest initiative is to provide local workspace with high speed telecommunications capacity for the use of workers, entrepreneurs and local communities. The initiative commenced in 2019 and focused on the following four locations/hubs in the West of Ireland - Roscommon (Tulsk – Digi-Hub), Donegal (Ballybofey-Stranorlar – The Base), Mayo (Swinford – The Courthouse) and Sligo (Tubbercurry – An Chroí). Together with providing local workspace with high speed telecommunications capacity for workers, entrepreneurs and local communities, an overarching objective of the Digiwest initiative is to provide the added social benefits introduced from enabling local community groups to access facilities and high-speed broadband. The Digiwest initiative also spawned the concept of an AEC hub network which has since evolved into the National Connected Hubs network.
National Hub Network
One of the commitments provided in the five-year policy is to establish a comprehensive and integrated national network of 400 Remote Working Hubs over the lifetime of the policy (to include a central booking platform for users). The National Connected Hubs network was launched in May 2021 and initially had some 60 hubs onboarded onto the connected hubs.ie platform. There are now 206 hubs live on the platform, with this number rising on an ongoing basis.
The connected hubs mobile app was launched recently and allows users to find their nearest hub facility and easily book a desk space using their mobile device. The Connected Hubs mobile app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for iOS devices and the Google Play Store for Android.
€5million Connected Hubs Call 2022
The primary objective of the Connected Hubs Call 2022, which is funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development, is to support and complement the development of the National Hub Network, which is a key action of the Rural Development Policy - Our Rural Future and also the National Remote Working Strategy – Making Remote Work. The Connected Hubs Call 2022 aims to add additional capacity to the existing remote working infrastructure in Ireland by upgrading existing hubs and Broadband Connection Points (BCPs). This funding is in addition to €8.9 million provided for 118 remote working projects across the country in 2021.
Details of the Connected Hubs 2022 Call are available at Connected Hubs Fund
Investment in Remote Working Facilities
The Department of Rural and Community Development has to date invested €100 million in the development of remote working facilities under programmes such as the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund and the Town and Village Renewal Scheme. Many of these projects are focused on the regeneration of vacant town centre buildings. Further funding for the development of new remote working facilities will be announced throughout 2022.