# 📝 My Learning Journey as a Ruractive Local Community Trainer

## 👤 About Me
**Name:** Daniel H. B. Gamez
**Background:** My name is Daniel and I have been selected as local community trainer for the Gotland region. My interest in this role stems from my desire to help society with sustainable actions, a goal that has been consistent throughout my upbringing. Born in Argentina and raised in Italy and Spain, I quickly learned the value of being part of a cosmopolitan society, where society has no borders and members help each other overcome common barriers and challenges.

After completing a BA in Latin American Studies and an MSc in International and European Relations, I began to work at Uppsala University with practical research, encompassing several community projects in Sweden to increasing renewable energy production and thereby empowering local communities.

Today, ***as sustainability has become deeply intertwined with digitalization***, one barrier affecting the local community is the digital divide. Therefore, as I believe that the digitalization needed for the green transition should be both sustainable and inclusive, I am embracing this role and the training from RURACTIVE to contribute to local communities with practical insights to empower them to overcome challenges and make the green transition more inclusive.

**Interests:** Sustainability, Energy Transition, Natural Resources, Sport, Books
**Goals:** Get empowered to empower

📣**Stay up to date on the training and possible tips for your local community through my experience!**

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## 📆 Weekly Progress

### 📖 Week 1: Introduction
**⏳ Step by step:**
The first meeting with the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), responsible for training local community trainers on behalf of RURACTIVE to innovate and revitalize rural areas throughout the European Union (EU), was a success. As expected, the trainers emphasized the nature of the training: to learn skills in order to subsequently learn the needs of rural areas and act accordingly, providing solutions, mainly by making the best use of digital tools. After all, digital connectivity and learning are nowadays essential enablers to develop smart solutions for rural communities.

Although RURACTIVE partner Uppsala University has established a local task force (LTF) for the rural community of Gotland, it proved impossible to arrange a meeting on short notice. However, having worked with the Uppsala team on a previous local workshop to help them implement innovative solutions tailored to their local context, I have become familiar not only with the LTF, but also with the discussions and possible solutions. Importantly, while the target groups will certainly include vulnerable groups such as young and older people, people with disability, migrants and minorities, and long term unemployed, the picture is still a bit unclear. However, the LTF highlighted the need for solutions to be feasible within local resources and knowledge, and to be collective in nature. In this line, **it is remarkable that the Local Community Training (LCT) can positively contribute with practical digital skills to both reduce the cost of implementing certain solutions and help the group increase its visibility through content creation and digital communication**. Similarly, LCT could potentially help increase knowledge about sustainability and energy efficiency.

However, there could be challenges ahead such as increasing digital literacy in order to exploit digital technologies.

**💡 Reflection:**
Mapping the Local Community Trainer’s ecosystem is essential to support and guide community empowerment. In other words, before any concrete plan, it is necessary to understand the targeted local environment.

### 📖 Week 2: Digital Literacy and Inclusion
**📝Getting ready together:**

The week’s training opened up with enthusiasm and a strong belief that technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are not here to harm people, but to improve their lives. Most importantly, **technology has incredible potential to prevent rural depopulation and increase inclusion of the most vulnerable**.

Regarding rural areas, Narcís Vives shared how his foundation, [Itinerarium](https://www.fundacioitinerarium.org/), is helping to drive digital transformation in Catalunya by facilitating innovations that, among other things, improve accessibility and empower the community. For example, the innovative Farmbot, a robot that takes care of small agricultural plots and can be managed remotely, or mobile solar panels to make the most of solar energy. Similarly, Laia Sánchez and Suren Vázquez shared how [Citilab](https://www.citilab.eu/) in Spain empowers locals with hands-on experience to acquire practical digital literacy skills, thereby increasing equal opportunities. Interestingly, they highlighted their Seniorlab, a hands-on digital workshop to teach ICT skills to senior citizens.

Thus, while Itinerarium and Citlab showed the way to digital literacy and inclusion, the rest of the training session focused on continuing to map the Local Community Trainer's ecosystem. Drawing from the previous workshops with the LTF, two main issues emerged: firstly, **the lack of awareness of climate friendly lifestyles** (i.e., a gap in guidance towards environmentally friendly practical actions) and **the lack of access to basic services without having to rely on private cars** (i.e., as Gotland is predominantly rural, people do not have easy access to basic services such as grocery stores).

Thinking about the possible target groups, and while this is also something to be prepared together with the LTF, the following group will be particularly addressed: young and older people, people with disability, migrants and minorities, and the long-term unemployed. Particularly, those who do not live in the city of Visby on the main island, as they surely face more difficulties being in rural areas.

Discussions from the workshops focused on two possible solutions. On the one hand, an improved version of the existing [Energy Bag](https://energicentrum.gotland.se/energivaskan/) with tools to identify energy thieves in the home and to improve energy efficiency (e.g., appliances that use too much energy, etc.). An improved Energy Bag with new innovative tools that can also be recommended to companies and associations to help them become more energy efficient. It was therefore suggested that the findings of the Energy Bag should lead to concrete recommendations to address deficiencies. On the other hand, solving the mobility problem may require a form of on-demand public transportation where trips are made only when needed. In this line, the trips would benefit rural and remote areas where stable public transport does not exist due to the lack of constant traffic.

Evidently, these challenges require long-term planning as well as feasibility studies in order to fully understand the economic viability of possible solutions. Time is needed to assess conditions, needs, and possible implementation alternatives, and to coordinate with potential collaborators.

Similarly, potential collaborators are:
• Energicentrum (expert on energy issues in Gotland with experience in counselling of individuals and companies in questions around energy consumption and efficiency, as well as having funded the energy bag)
• Uppsala University in Gotland (expert in energy and technical issues)
• Gotland’s rural transport services (i.e., local bus companies, PostNord, Svensk Hemleverans and newspaper couriers)

The picture that emerges from this session is that **technology and rural areas can complement each other**. However, in order to face the challenges, it is necessary to innovate and activate knowledge. *This is exactly what RURACTIVE and the Local Community Training are about: creating the right social conditions for people to meet, discuss and innovate together.* On the one hand, locals who know their ecosystem, and on the other hand, innovators who have the knowledge to help develop the right tools to meet these challenges.

The training thus helps see the potential in empowering local people to innovate and transform their environment. Additionally, the activities and tips learned to both disseminate ideas and engage people will be useful to make the most of the upcoming workshops.

**💡 Reflection:** **Innovation is a social and inclusive community effort**. There is power in people coming together to brainstorm, and with each person contributing according to their knowledge and skills, wonderful breakthrough ideas can emerge to solve local problems.

**📸 Picture of the week:**
As can be seen, the beautiful island of Gotland could also be called a rural paradise considering the low population density. More precisely, there are about 61 thousand people living on the island, of which 26 thousand live in the city of Visby (Gotland.se).

### 📖 Week 3: Digital Technologies for Rapid Prototyping
**🛠Tools to grow:**

As RURACTIVE and LCT aim to reduce the **digital divide**, there is a clear need to increase **digital capital**. Therefore, this week's training focused on acquiring knowledge and skills to contribute to increasing the digital capital of local communities by learning more about practical digital technologies and tools for **prototyping**.

You may ask: *what is prototyping? What is it for?*
Prototyping is the process of creating a sort of illustrative design or facsimile for a product or a process. It is only after several attempts and throughout revisions that you get a final version. However, the main objective is to help the actors involved visualize and materialize the process in question.

Therefore, as you can easily guess, prototyping helps you get started with your innovative idea and helps you visualize the needed solution in more concrete steps. However, since RURACTIVE is about reducing the digital divide, prototyping will involve the use of digital tools. This is because it has the potential to increase digital capital, the set of acquired knowledge, skills, experiences and resources that can help benefit from digital technologies.

Because there are no specific rules for prototyping a solution (i.e., any idea can be prototyped using different materials), the learning experience is not only flexible to meet different needs and abilities, but also open to people from all walks of life. In other words, ***inclusivity is the acceptance that learning is a process that takes place in different ways***.

As a quick example of prototyping, consider the following suggested solution, informed by meetings with the LTF and locals from Gotland regarding the challenge of lack of awareness of climate-friendly lifestyles. Based on the existing [Energy Bag](https://energicentrum.gotland.se/energivaskan/) with tools to identify energy thieves in the home and improve energy efficiency, we can brainstorm something that also includes providing more concrete guidance to rural residents on eco-friendly practices.

For this example, I turned to the AI chat and prototyping tool [Grok](https://grok.com/?referrer=website). As input, I make sure two things stand out: practical guidance and inclusivity. The result? **A prototype EcoSmart Energy Bag**: a portable kit that includes energy-saving tools, educational resources, and step-by-step guides to help rural households identify energy inefficiencies, improve their environmental practices, and make more informed, greener decisions.

In addition to energy detection tools that help people identify energy waste in their homes, a set of educational materials provides users with the resources they need to guide their daily habits. These include common energy-saving practices (e.g., tips for reducing water consumption such as water-efficient showerheads, tips for reducing heat loss, tips for sustainable food storage, tips for reducing food waste). The Energy Bag can get people activated by also providing an interactive checklist to help users assess, set and evaluate small but significant goals. To make it even more practical, it can also be suggested to provide coupons or raffle tickets for energy efficient upgrades, such as local insulation installation, etc.

**📸 Picture of the week:**
N. B. AI generated picture.

While this is a simple example, it illustrates how a small idea can have the potential to be an innovative one. After all, the end result is a user-friendly tool that has the potential to empower individuals with minimal technical knowledge. Similarly, by suggesting simple steps, the prototyped solution makes the abstract idea of climate-friendly practices concrete and accessible. Most importantly, it makes it easier to work towards a more sustainable lifestyle.

As highlighted during the training session, it is important to go at your own pace. In fact, you should focus on successfully prototyping before upscaling. While scaling is essential to achieving your goal and applying your solution to a challenge, it should be done gradually.

**💡 Reflection:** **prototyping is an essential step to innovate.**

### 📖 Week 4: Co-Creation and Innovation

📋 Principles to working together

Any innovative, sustainable idea to change the local environment must begin with a process of collaboration. In fact, an idea that can transform the community will be more successful if it comes from the community to bring local insights.

However, how do you get the locals to work together? How do you ensure that everyone participates? How do you ensure that the solutions are representative of the local group? Most importantly, how do you ensure that both the process of developing a solution and implementing it will reduce the digital divide?

**These are important questions if we want to ensure that the innovative solutions for Gotland remain truly a community effort**. All the more so as innovation is a social and inclusive process. Therefore, this week's training focused on the power of co-creation in driving community innovation.

Marion Real from Fablab Barcelona explained how a co-creation process, if done right, can allow stakeholders to share the space to foster sustainable ideas that are fair and innovative. Within this process, **the role of digital technologies is crucial**. On the one hand, they allow stakeholders to collaborate and brainstorm together. On the other hand, they are useful for gathering feedback and insights from the local environment. They can also increase the participation and engagement of the local population.

That is why reducing the digital divide is important, because technology can help us to:
* Engage stakeholders.
* Foster digital collaboration
* Foster Capacity building through Iterative approach
* Create a sense of community ownership of the solutions developed.

While the group dynamics necessary to set the process in motion are important, I will focus briefly on the role of the LCT. The LCT will act as a neutral facilitator, able to balance the group to ensure equal participation. However, **co-creation is multi-dimensional**, so it is not expected that everyone will be involved at the same time and in the same way. The facilitator will observe the skills of the participants and act accordingly.

Finally, the session ended with a practical exercise to prepare for the upcoming co-creation activities, that is identifying challenges and target community, potential locations, potential stakeholders and tools to work with, etc.

📸 **Picture of the week**:
Source: RURACTIVE LCT
The picture shows the operationalization of co-creation. It starts with the facilitation team, explores the tools to facilitate collaboration, and the place where it all happens.

💡 **Reflection: since sustainable innovation is a social and inclusive community effort, there is a need to train on creating a safe space where engagement is based on the uniqueness of the participants.**

### 📖 Week 5: Artificial Intelligence

🤖 AI for good

**AI plays an important role in the digital divide** by enabling and facilitating digital literacy through its various functions. Similarly, AI is an important aspect of technology that not only reduces the digital divide, but also contributes to **sustainability**.

An example of the former is the Sony Computer Science Laboratories' computational agroecology. In fact, invited speaker David Callioux, a researcher exploring the intersection of biology and technology to create sustainable agriculture, shared how agricultural bots have the potential to make AI tools, plants and humans work together successfully for the benefit of society.

Importantly, there is no official definition of AI, so **its definition depends heavily on what it is used for**. As a result, it can be a powerful tool that contributes to sustainability by helping people achieve certain behaviors, or it can be a harmful tool that not only increases energy consumption but also harms people.

Interestingly, for this session, we as LCTs came up with a definition by combining our views and ideas: AI is then a powerful computer system designed to simulate human learning, understanding, problem solving and decision making. AI also uses data-driven processes, including machine learning, to automate tasks, support research and improve productivity. In addition, AI acts as a tool to generate information, analyze patterns, and improve digital systems, although it requires oversight to prevent misinformation. Importantly, while AI can process and synthesize vast amounts of human-generated data, it does not possess true intelligence or understanding, but serves as an advanced resource for innovation in various fields.

On the other hand, there are other organizations and researchers that have provided definitions that make us think about the social consequences of the use of AI. For example, in 2021, **UNICEF** elaborated a definition that highlights how AI can change real or virtual environments due to the predictions and recommendations it gives to users. Similarly, **Kate Crawford** conveys the idea that AI is a physical infrastructure capable of transforming the Earth because of the technology's ability to change the way we see and understand the world.

These ideas bring us to the ethical challenges of AI, such as the opacity of the legal implications when it comes to legal liability, privacy and data protection, and energy consumption.

As a result, the final session involved practicing the use of AI tools to generate something that can be useful to the local community, provided that the above concerns are addressed.

In my case, I turned to Grok to develop a simple prompt for Lovable, an AI-powered platform for creating and deploying applications from a single browser tab based on your startup prompts. The initial concept is **to develop an interactive application that can provide practical guidance and knowledge on environmental practices to make informed, greener decisions**. Importantly, I considered the need to ensure that such an application remains responsible in terms of energy consumption and use of data.

My prompt for Grok:
*Create a prompt for the coding website Lovable for an app that provides energy recommendations to improve energy efficiency, energy saving behaviors and environmental practices, enabling people to make more informed and greener decisions. Importantly, make sure to consider ethical concerns such as data privacy and data protection and energy consumption. It needs to be a responsible project.*

The Grok-generated prompt I ended up using on Lovable:

*Build a web application called 'GreenLiving' that helps users improve energy efficiency, adopt energy-saving behaviors, and follow sustainable environmental practices. The app should provide personalized energy recommendations based on user inputs like household size, location (climate zone), and current energy habits (e.g., heating, cooling, appliance usage). Include features such as:*

* A dashboard showing daily energy-saving tips and their estimated impact (e.g., kWh saved, CO2 reduction).
* A calculator to compare energy usage scenarios (e.g., LED vs. incandescent bulbs).
* A goal-setting tool for users to track progress toward greener habits (e.g., reducing energy use by 10%).
* Integration with a simple, anonymized database (via Supabase) to store user preferences and progress without collecting sensitive personal data—ensure data privacy by avoiding names, addresses, or other identifiable info, and use encryption for stored data.
* A low-energy design with minimal animations and efficient code to reduce the app’s own energy consumption.
* An ethics statement page explaining how the app protects user privacy, minimizes its carbon footprint, and promotes responsible energy use.
* The app should be intuitive, responsive for mobile and desktop, and styled with an eco-friendly theme (greens, earth tones). Deploy it with a shareable link for feedback.

Lovable then proceeded to create an interface for this prototype. In the images below, you can see first the desktop images and then the mobile images.


The image below illustrates a practical example of how this prototype will help users. In other words, an energy smart comparison to make greener choices. It is important to note that the data in the image has not been verified.

Finally, the last two images illustrate the measures taken to ensure privacy and environmental responsibility.


💡**Reflection: Knowledge is power.** That is, the ability to harness cutting-edge technology, such as AI-powered platforms, can lead to transformative practical ideas. It is up to us to ensure that these transformations are for good and can contribute to a greener future.

### 📖 Week 6: Digital Content Creation

📖Every idea has a story

This training focused on the importance of communication in a project involving digital content. Most importantly, **a story is crucial** because it provides answers to essential questions when we try to reach people. It is well known that people need and want reasons for things. Therefore, in order to get people to participate in a project, it is essential to provide those compelling reasons.

This can be done through **storytelling**, which, contrary to popular belief, is not only written, but can also include video, audio, and so on. So, if every idea has a story, how should we tell it?

Most stories require context (when and where the story takes place), characters (who the story is about), point of view (who is telling the story), and an argument (what happens in the story). Simply put, it's about answering essential project questions: Why? For whom? When? Where? To whom? What? How?

Therefore, as part of the training, I decided to focus on these questions to create and visualize a prototype of the communication campaign to attract both new members to the local community project and participants to the solution (i.e., the energy bag). I do this by considering the given template: Communication materials, message, to whom? How would you document it?

* **Message**: Be part of the change in your local community! come and let us innovate together!

* **For whom?** Gotlanders (young and old, people with disabilities, migrants and minorities, and long-term unemployed).

* **How would I document?** I will make sure to write everything down (digital and not) to facilitate my progress as I will be able to identify opportunities, mistakes, etc.

* **Communication materials**: I plan to use mainly social media (Gotland has a high internet coverage) and posters.

These are our starting points for better and more consistent communication.

Below is an AI-generated image (canva.com) of a prototype poster.

💡**Reflection: Clarity beats accuracy.** Innovation is social and to get there we need great stories to communicate clearly our goals.

### 📖 Week 7: Sustainable Innovation

🍃Sustainability for Rural Renewal

The final session of the training concluded with a presentation by Martin Gutmann and Silvia Brandi, two former Fablab Barcelona colleagues who have founded Farmlab in Austria to positively impact their local community.

They shared many sustainable and innovative ideas for their projects: the fusion of sustainability, technology, nature conservation and traditional crafts. An important starting point for their endeavors was their local community. They made sure to use **local resources** and reduce the environmental impact of their actions by relying on **eco-conscious innovation**. As a result, they work with **natural materials** such as wood and wool.

The experience and positive lessons learned from working on EU projects such as Shemakes, Biowaste into Bioleather, Mushroom Farm, etc. are later passed on to the locals through creative workshops.

The session thus highlighted the importance and feasibility of achieving **an ecological balance between transition and innovation**. At the core of the projects should be the mindset of considering the next generations. Namely, to reduce the ecological impact.

Finally, Petra Garajova from Fablab Barcelona shared with us the vision of **regenerative growth**. While the importance of sustainable growth is well known, regenerative growth goes a step further by building solidarity among locals to create sustainable growth that goes beyond concepts of scarcity and competition. In other words, reducing our impact on the earth requires re-localization and re-regionalization supported by global cooperation and solidarity.

As a result of these visions, the next LCT meeting will be a Knowledge Transfer Workshop to define the next steps in our mission to help local communities and our approaches to achieving the goals set.

Source: Petra Garajova 2025.

Last but not least, the third local workshop in which I had the opportunity to help, mainly with the digital equipment, has come to an end. The workshop focused on the concretization of the possible solutions that were presented in the previous workshop #2. Thus, together with locals, we brainstormed to concretize an improve version of the [energy bag](https://energicentrum.gotland.se/energivaskan/) that would provide guidance on specific steps to increase energy efficiency at home using tools and technology. Similarly, we brainstormed on how to help Region Gotland develop a mobility solution for rural areas in Gotland. We discussed the possibility of participating in the drafting and implementation of an interest survey. Finally, the last solution discussed is to organize events and workshops to continue to raise awareness and provide guidance on sustainability and reducing the digital divide.

From the LWs3 held in Visby, Sweden.

Thus, the task force made by of locals on Gotland envisioned a place where renewable energy would be used significantly not only to empower homes, but to live a sustainable life. Similarly, they envision an island where mobility does not pollute and helps people participate in social life. The latter consists of activities where people learn from each other to participate in a sustainable circular economy.

💡**Reflection:** Regenerative growth can bridge the gap between tradition and innovation.

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