The City of Besançon was founded 2,000 years ago near what is nowthe Swiss border. A university town and regional capital, it grew wealthy from the manufacture of clocks and watches, metallurgy, textiles and food-processing – until global competition for timepieces in the 1970s sent the economy into severe decline. The community fought back by leveraging its universities and grands écoles, where 24,000 students are enrolled, and finding new outlets for its people’s skills in precision manufacturing. Strong leadership from the city’s Mayor, and active support from citizen, business and academic groups, enabled Besançon to build a technology park devoted to microtechnology, and to become in 1994 the first French city with a fiber network connecting all government and quasi-government facilities. Every school student beginning in third grade receives a “digital schoolbag,” consisting of laptop and access to an online collaboration platform, free of charge. While broadband is widely available, Besançon has also established free digital centers in every neighborhood to ensure access. Universities and technical schools continue the focus on ICT in order to produce qualified workers for the city’s growing technology cluster. Besançon has also extended its focus outward with a “Seneclic” project, in which residents with disabilities refurbish computers for shipment to schools in Senegal. www.besancon.fr
Digital Schoolbag, Besancon, France
A university town and regional capital,the City of Besancon grew wealthy from the manufacture of clocks and watches, metallurgy, textiles and food-processing until global competition for timepieces in the 1970s sent the economy into severe decline. The community fought back by leveraging its universities and grandes ecoles, where 24,000 students are enrolled, and finding new outlets for the skills of its citizens in precision manufacturing. Today, Besancon is the base for 8,900 vibrant businesses and three global competitiveness clusters: the microtechnology competitiveness cluster; the biomedical and biotechnological engineering cluster; and the nanotechnologies, automation, microrobotics and microplasturgy cluster. In 1994, it became the first French city with a fiber network connecting all government and quasi-government facilities.
In2003, Besancon also became the first city providing computer equipment to all children of the same age class and their families. Within the Digital Schoolbag project, all 3rd grade students receive a multimedia computer package. Given to the pupils free of charge, the package comprises a computer with Pentium processor, the same educational software that is used at school (dictionaries, atlas, etc), and the option to subscribe to Internet access. The Schoolbag also includes workshops for the parents in order to enable them to participate in their childrens learning at school.
In2001 the Ministry of National Education introduced a new Information and Internet Certificate. This required that pupils be tested in computer and Internet skills at the end of elementary and middle school. The results of the evaluation have shown that the pupils in Besançon beginning their first year of secondary school have a much higher success level than the national average.
What impressed me about Besancon, one of the year's Smart21communities, was the way it uses technology to further social ideals and fuses it to shape its economic forces, said Louis Zacharilla, ICFs co-founder. With the Digital Schoolbag project, Besancon sent the message to all its children that technology is a key to future obs and an important element of future social contribution. Zacharilla added that by directing similar programs at parents, the community attempts to cross an emerging demographic divide.
Digital schoolbag : https://asoft130.securesites.net/secure/icf/index.php?src=gendocs ref=Smart21_2010&category=Events
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