A successful digital transformation is a decisive competitive advantage for companies, but also an important location advantage. The state government is pushing forward the expansion of digital infrastructure, offering more and more services digitally and accelerating administration with the help of digital tools and artificial intelligence. Remaining gray and white spots in 4G coverage in North Rhine-Westphalia are to be closed by the end of 2024. The Wirtschafts-Service-Portal.NRW (WSP.NRW), as the nation’s most modern service portal for business, will be expanded to more than 450 administrative services with around 100 online services in 2024. Around 25 million euros are available for this, together with other measures for the digital economy in the country. To accelerate the expansion of wind energy, the state government is developing a completely digital approval process. More than 11 million euros in state funding is available to make companies aware of the dangers of the digital world.
Minister Neubaur: “Digital transformation is the mega-topic everywhere – and always an important part of solving current challenges. Whether in climate protection, in energy supply, in production and logistics, in crafts or in the shortage of skilled workers: digital tools and skills are crucial for the success of business models and the competitiveness of our companies. We are therefore pushing ahead with the expansion of infrastructure, want to enable investments more quickly with digital help and protect our economy from the risks of the digital world. Together with companies, unions, approval authorities, network operators and associations, we want to make the digital transformation a success for North Rhine-Westphalia as a business location.”
The activities at a glance:
Digital services for business: The Wirtschafts-Service-Portal.NRW is being expanded into a so-called “one-stop shop” as the most modern service portal for business in Germany – currently offering around 400 administrative services in around 90 online services. A total of around 18 million euros will be available for this purpose in 2024, which will be used to provide additional online services for the efficient and digital processing of administrative services:
Simplified application: The aim is the so-called “no-stop agency”, in which data that is already available to the administration can be used to speed up procedures. In addition, information should in future be accessible via a uniform national federal architecture. Since the data does not have to be checked again, the approval and authorization procedures are significantly accelerated. North Rhine-Westphalia is leading the construction of this architecture on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
Fast approval processes for wind turbines: The development of a digital cooperation platform is planned for 2024, which will significantly reduce the digital burden on the departments involved in their work processes. The applying companies can then view the further development of the application during the approval process at any time and support them in the process. In addition, the evaluation of applications should be supported by artificial intelligence.
Digital applications for calibration: Applications for calibration can be submitted to the responsible calibration authority via WSP.NRW since January 2022. In the future, this will be possible through end-to-end digitization (manual transfer of data is no longer necessary). In order to enable applications to be submitted as uniformly as possible across the country, the online service is made available to all federal states for shared use.
Sustainable digital infrastructure: North Rhine-Westphalia offers the best framework conditions for the ambitious expansion of fast internet with fiber optics and future-proof mobile communications standards. As part of the NRW Mobile Communications Task Force, it has been agreed with mobile network operators, radio tower companies and municipal umbrella associations to close the remaining gray and white spots in 4G coverage in North Rhine-Westphalia by the end of 2024 and to achieve the most comprehensive 5G coverage possible by the end of 2030 . The state is also funding mobile communications coordinators at the level of districts and independent cities to support local mobile communications expansion with around 9 million euros from state funds. The fiber optic quota increased from 20 percent to almost 30 percent of households in North Rhine-Westphalia from mid-2022 to mid-2023, thus recording record growth. The funds made available by the federal government in the new funding call (400 million euros) have already been fully approved by the federal government and are being co-financed by the state with around 280 million euros.
Protection against digital risks (cybersecurity): The financing of the DIGITAL.SICHER.NRW – Competence Center for Cybersecurity in Business is secured until the end of 2026. In the MID-Digital Security funding program, 847 applications with a total funding volume of 10 million euros have been approved so far (as of October 2023). Micro, small and medium-sized companies receive up to 15,000 euros to uncover and fix security gaps in their own operations and thus become more resilient to cyber attacks.
Financing offers for digitalization projects: With the “NRW.BANK.Digitalization” and Innovation program, companies and members of the freelance professions receive low-interest loans of up to 10 million euros. The MID digitalization funding program enables small and medium-sized companies in all sectors to implement concrete digitalization projects. The funding covers a maximum of 15,000 euros per company with a funding rate of 80 or 60 percent depending on the size of the company. With the MID Assistant sub-program, companies receive up to 48,000 euros to create jobs and at the same time promote the transfer of knowledge and technology into the company. In both funding modules, around 4.4 million euros have already been awarded to more than 850 companies this year.
Measures for the digital economy: The five hubs funded by the state to strengthen the digital economy (DWNRW) also support digital start-ups with market access and financing. With a scaling program that is unique in Germany, the state supports budding scale-ups – i.e. growth-oriented, innovative start-ups that are in the phase of international expansion and scaling. These have a decisive influence on the ecosystem and ensure that innovative technologies and digital business models are used throughout the economy. A total of around 7 million euros per year is available for digital economy measures. The state has also expanded the fourth generation of the NRW.Venture Fund by 50 million euros to 150 million euros for start-ups in the area of digital transformation and climate tech.
Reducing bureaucracy and speeding up planning and approval: With the implementation of the federal-state pact, comprehensive relief for business and industry will be achieved. The state government is helping to shape the implementation process that is now required quickly and consistently and is committed to a particular acceleration in the area of renewable and climate-neutral technologies. Here we use the legal possibilities of the EU emergency regulation, for example by eliminating environmental impact assessments and a simplified species protection assessment.
Citizen participation and digital state planning: In the area of spatial planning, the procedures for the participation of the public and public bodies have been completely digitized with the help of the state-wide participation platform Beteiligung NRW; this applies to both state planning and regional planning. For this reason, for example, all change procedures for the regional plans for the expansion of renewable energies are carried out digitally via Participation NRW. In addition, as part of the LEP change to expand renewable energies, a solution for evaluating and processing statements using artificial intelligence has already been piloted in Beteiligung.NRW.
2023-12-28 21:18:10
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