Colombia. The Minister of Information and Communications Technologies, Karen Abudinen, led a second meeting with community broadcasters to listen to their needs and resolve the doubts of their representatives.
The main region for this second meeting was Antioquia, in charge of the Radio Board of the department linking 93 stations in the region that are part of the networks of Asoredes, Asenred, Ecosura and Redenorte. During this space, the minister commented on the strategies she is leading to strengthen community radio from the aspects of training and innovation.
"We will offer two major virtual events prior to the big meeting with broadcasters in October 2020, where we will train and sensitize established community broadcasters and new sound broadcasting concessionaires in terms of compliance with their legal, regulatory and regulatory obligations. The idea is that these two major events will be held in August for already constituted stations and September for new stations with concessions," explained the minister.
He also stressed that the ministry is advancing several programs to strengthen community radio. For example, Minister Abudinen presented Internet for Life, a strategy to train community broadcasters in the responsible use of technological tools and make Colombians aware of the benefits of connectivity through radio. This training plan will begin in August of this year and will be extended for two months.
On the other hand, the head of the ICT portfolio invited all virtual broadcasters to participate in the courses and seedbeds offered by MinTIC in digital transformation. "We have virtual digital marketing courses that can help them position their project as a broadcaster, voice-to-speech marketing, personal branding, software engineering fundamentals. In addition, we have entrepreneurship seedbeds in the 32 departments of the country, and many more calls that will be active during the year. For this you can visit the page www.apps.co or you can also see the different calls in www.mintic.gov.co in the calls section, "added Abudinen.
The official said that the stations are a benchmark of quality, talent and innovation in Colombia, fundamental for the populations to have education, entertainment and timely information, which is why she announced important news for the sector. In the Congress of the Republic, a bill is being processed (it has already been approved in the House of Representatives) to forgive the debts of community broadcasters with the State, which it is estimated could amount to up to 3,500 million pesos.
