Building Smart Rural Regions: Challenges and Opportunities

Rural regions are a typology of region rooted around the world. Its identity and matrix are differentiated from the most urbanized regions. Associated with rural areas is a strong negative feeling of depopulation, undeveloped business fabric, less wealth and less ability to attract investment and where public and private services from various sectors of activity are not concentrated. This reality cannot be socially accepted and must be fought for greater equity within countries. To leverage this change, rural regions will have to become co-competitive and attractive regions. In order for this transformation to take place, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a major role. This article characterizes the rural regions in their demographic and economic dimensions, emphasizing the case of the Northeast region of Portugal. Analyse and review a set of fundamental vectors where ICT can be a key driver and enabler for smart rural regions to be created. Finally, it is presented a conceptual model of what can be a smart rural region.