Antofagasta supports the digital transformation of communities
3rd October 2022
The digital revolution is evolving rapidly and Antofagasta is working to help nearby communities in remote areas not to be left behind
Access to the internet and digital skills have become indispensable for education, work and leisure. Technology is crucial to every aspect of our lives from number crunching and marketing to light entertainment and socialising. But access to these tools is not available to all.
“The COVID-19 pandemic made this problem clear,” says René Aguilar, Antofagasta’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability. “We saw that due to the lack of digital connectivity, remote communities in Chile faced a huge handicap in gaining access to education, health and information in general as well as to opportunities to connect with their families and friends.”
Some communities close to Antofagasta’s mining operations in Chile had no access at all to the internet, while other areas had only very limited coverage. Poor digital skills were another obstacle that prevented people from enjoying the benefits of technology.
“In this day and age, access to digital connectivity should be considered a human right,” says Aguilar. “It is unfair that there are people living in an analogue world, not a digital world, which is the new world for everyone.”
To tackle the issue, Antofagasta launched its En Red-Digital Community programme in July 2021 to connect local communities with the digital revolution. Its aim is to promote wellbeing, new opportunities and lifepaths for people living in remote areas through giving them the ability to use and access digital technology.
There are now about 20 initiatives underway to address the limited digital infrastructure and skills in the company’s areas of influence, and the concept of promoting the digital transformation of local communities is embedded into all areas of the Corporate Affairs team’s work.
Connectivity
A central pillar of En Red (Connected) is helping communities close to Antofagasta’s operations in the Choapa Province and the Antofagasta Region to have access to good Internet connections, explains Agustín Riesco, deputy manager of the Digital Community programme.
An initial step was taken in 2021 when Antofagasta partnered with a satellite internet provider to install an antenna in the Camisas Valley in Choapa, allowing school children to connect to online classes at the height of the pandemic.
This year, the company is financing a portfolio of eight projects to bring fibre-optic cable, free Wi-Fi hotspots or other technologies to connect nearby communities to the digital world. The first of these was completed in August in Caimanes, a village of 350 households close to Los Pelambres’ El Mauro tailings storage facility.
The project involved installing a 250km fibre-optic cable, financed by Antofagasta, in partnership with telecommunications provider Mundo TV, the País Digital (Digital Country) Foundation and the government’s Telecommunications Undersecretariat. The neighbourhood association, fire station, school and rural health clinic were all connected to Wi-Fi, and four free Wi-Fi hotspots and a digital literacy course were also provided.
Within a month, more than 80% of homes in Camaines had an internet, television and telephone package with Mundo TV, obtaining a high-quality service at a reasonable price. “Our model is to pay for the infrastructure to reach communities, giving locals the possibility to access the internet, but we don’t pay for the plans,” says Riesco.
The initiative will not only allow local people to learn and enjoy new business and leisure activities but may encourage younger generations, who have left the area to seek opportunities elsewhere, to visit more often and for longer – or perhaps even return to live.
Key priorities
En Red is focusing digitisation efforts on improving two vital areas for local communities: rural health and water management.
In the case of rural health, En Red seeks for telemedicine to alleviate remote communities’ shortage of specialist doctors and lack of access to medicines. The initiative builds on the experience of the digital and physical pharmacy and telemedicine centre in María Elena, close to the Antucoya mine, approved last year as part of the Dialogues for Development programme.
The pharmacy, which will serve as a distribution base for other towns in the region, and telemedicine centre, will save locals from making the long and expensive journey to the cities of Antofagasta and Calama to buy medicines and find specialist help, explains Riesco. The initiative will be inaugurated in October and similar telemedicine initiatives are planned for Chillepín and Canela in the Choapa Province, he says.
On water management, the company has started a project to help the voluntary committees that run the 80 Rural Sanitary Services (SSRs), which provide water to homes in Choapa, to improve management of the resource with digital technology. In an alliance with La Serena University, the initiative aims to design and implement a telemetry and big data system to automate and optimise water management in a water-scarce area.
The 30-month project, accompanied by e-learning and training for the SSRs, will completely digitise water management and efficiently generate quality information on this critical resource. “It will allow integrated management of the water basin, generating information needed by the water authority, in addition to benefitting the SSRs,” says Riesco.
Digital literacy
A focus on digital literacy underpins En Red.
Following the success of last year’s Digital Academy for communities in the Antofagasta Region, the company has begun using the LinkedIn Learning platform to teach digital skills to scholarship students, entrepreneurs and suppliers, says Aguilar.
By the end of the year, Antofagasta also plans to launch a training platform specifically for suppliers in the Antofagasta Region and the Choapa Province. Courses will be provided on company policies – such as Human Rights – as well as on business subjects such as online sales and billing and how to scale-up commercial activities.
Training for Choapa’s tourism sector is also being prepared to boost businesses’ marketing reach, for example by offering hotel and hostel accommodation on online platforms such as Booking.com.
“Through these programmes, we want to train local suppliers on how to use technology so that they become less dependent on mining and can supply other companies and other sectors,” explains Aguilar.