Connected Hubs is delighted to be back for a second year supporting Ireland’s Digital Town Awards through our sponsorship of the Digital Changemaker Award.

The Awards recognise and reward projects with a digital element that have been created by town groups and local communities.  They promote awareness, knowledge, use and understanding of digital in Ireland by its citizens, businesses and communities. They also highlight the benefits and possibilities of digital and celebrate the digital achievements of local towns, big and small.

Digital offers the opportunity to create new ways of doing things, promote innovation and breathe new life into local communities, making them more attractive places to live and work as well as contributing to a more sustainable future. They are also a chance to recognise and show appreciation to the volunteers across the country who devote their spare time working tirelessly to enhance their local area, towns and villages.

The Digital Changemaker Award is presented to a group within a town that sees a problem and finds a way to fix it. In doing so, they create a template for others to follow.

The 2022 winner of the Connected Hubs Digital Changemaker Award was Roscommon Town for the Roscommon Rapid Response project. The ambition in County Roscommon is to enable people, who experience an out of hospital cardiac event, to achieve the highest survival rate in Ireland. The team has implemented digital technologies to enable faster communication and instant data transfer to increase response times and save lives. The EmCall App provides direct access to 112 or 999, provides location coordinates and Eircodes and emergency  CPR trained responders are deployed immediately. The target time for response and intervention is 4-5 minutes, significantly lower than an ambulance target time of 20 minutes.

Teams can find more information about all the award categories on the WeAre.ie website along entry details and timelines.

Visit the .IE Digital Town Awards for full details.

Entries close on 3^rd March.

About Connected Hubs

Connected Hubs is a government-supported programme aimed at establishing a nationwide network of 400 hubs throughout Ireland. Launched in 2021 under the "Our Rural Future" policy and supported by the Department of Rural and Community Development, it offers a centralised platform, ConnectedHubs.ie, for booking hub facilities. As of 2023, the network includes over 300 hubs and has over 10,000 registered users.

The initiative's objectives include promoting hubs as drivers for economic and digital growth in their communities, raising awareness of hubs as professional work spaces, contributing to balanced regional economic development, leveraging remote work and rural benefits, and reducing carbon emissions through reduced commuting and home working.

For more information visit our website www.connectedhubs.ie  or get in touch with us at info@connectedhubs.ie