Ruralnet Futures, a partner in the consortium which is building the RURENER network, is using the latest collaborative Web 2.0 technologies to bringing the network to life.

Ruralnet Futures’ project manager, David Ellis, returned from Italy inspired by some of the initiatives already in use: “The meeting took place in Tirano, a small town in the heart of the Alps, where a biomass plant, fuelled by prunings from thousands of hectares of terraced vineyards that line the valley, provides heating and electricity for all public buildings.   Previously the waste wood would simply have been burned – now it’s being turned into heat and power, saving on fossil fuels.”

“Across the 14 pilot communities there’s so much experience to share.  However, with the communities spread across Hungary, Romania, Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Spain, the key challenge”, Ellis continues, “is to overcome the language barriers and bring geographically scattered communities together.  We’re encouraging communities to record their progress though their own weblogs, and are providing language tools to translate case studies on the RURENER website.  We’re also developing an online mentoring service to enable renewable energy specialists to advise communities, and offering a knowledge bank of tools and templates to help those beginning their carbon-neutral journey.”

See the RURENER promotional video

Visit the RURENER website

Based on a roadmap which will be formally launched shortly, the programme recognises that different communities will have various approaches to ultimately achieve carbon neutrality. Examples of various tools which will be made available include sophisticated carbon measuring techniques designed to be used across communities.

Ruralnet Futures role includes the deployment of a Wordpress Multi-User blog, containing several country [sub] sites which sit under the main programme website. This enables the various country leads to update their specific activity in the relevant language, whilst still ensuring the EU wide programme remains connected. To learn more about this initiative, please contact us.

Digital Unite

In particular we would like to mention Digital Unite. We are currently building some enhancements to their Silver Surfers website. Silver Surfers day is on May 21st 2010 and encourages thousands of older people to take the plunge and get on-line. Numerous events will be held throughout the UK, on or around this day to encourage as many people as possible to participate. Find out more about the event here

NVISAGE

We also have a world class partner in NVISAGE. They have been delivering high end web solutions for over a decade and have been giving Ruralnet Futures tremendous support since its inception. For larger scale projects Ruralnet Futures works with NVISAGE, ensuring we can deliver just about any web related requirement clients present us with.

LEADER

We are very closely involved with the LEADER programme. LEADER is an EU funded initiative which provides grants to rural projects within Europe. Central Warwickshire was awarded £1.6 million to make innovative projects happen and the programme is now accepting Expressions Of Interest. The LEADER programme lasts for three years and you can find out more details from their website

Project RURENER

Project RURENER is funded by the Intelligent Energy Agency and its aim is to identify rural communities and help them attain “carbon neutrality” throughout the course of the programme. Ruralnet Futures are the UK partner and have depolyed Wordpress Multi-User to deliver the programme website.  Wordpress MU is particuarly appropriate for this client as we have simply created multiple sub-domains to represent the different country sites in their own language.