The Village empowered by Telematics


   


ï It is definitely wrong to oppose centralisation with decentralisation. In the opposite, we can now
imagine for the first time and with the help of the city, that - for example - a village has a university.
It is now possible to earn a degree from distance teaching universities in virtually any location around Europe,
and this could be supported by local institutions of adult education.

The same holds for medical treatment, job opportunities, entertainment and even cultural activities.
In a program supported by the European comission, the Filmzentrum Babelsberg - a large institution
dealing with movies - is working on the possibility to download high quality films to any cinema or
even multipurpose community hall all over Europe. At our recent event "Cultural Heritage in the
Global Village" we showed high resolution panels that can transform virtual exhibitions to
educational centers like the one in Saalfelden shown on the third slide.

Sallfelden is a prototypical case I and do not just say that because we are currently in Salzburg.
The old Firebrigade Station was turned into an educational center that combines all the community
libraries with adult education and different other activities like cultural programs. The same
infrastructure of such a village center could be shared by many tasks, it could be work during daytime and
culture in the evening. The increasing maturing of technology makes the need for special
"telematic" centers obsolete. Rather we see an increasing activity of transformation in "old"
Institutions like libraries and a convergence of previously separated institutions towards
the shared use of digital facilities and digitized content.

Villages can thus really become "global villages", if they are able to link wisely into
urban offers.