Today’s society is in a permanent process of digital transformation in the face of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This development has accelerated in recent months due to the COVID-19. In this sense, the Smart Valpo project seeks to make Valparaíso, in Chile, the first region with digital interoperability.

The project, which began two months ago, has as its main objective the implementation of an interoperability platform to exchange information between organizations and advance the digital transformation. This is an initiative that has been promoted by Senator Kenneth Pugh, who believes that the digital transformation is the key to recovering productivity and public-private functioning in Chile, as he has stated in a publication.

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Senator Kenneth Pugh was also joined by five trade associations, including the construction, trade and fruit associations. They seek to establish an interoperability standard based on a technology platform. Pugh has argued that they aspire to be Chile’s first intelligent and digital region.

Pilot tests in November
However, after the platform becomes operational, two pilots linked to strategic projects are planned.

The first, which will begin in November 2020, seeks to incorporate the registration of traceability in Chilean exports with blockchain, to give added value to shipments leaving the country, mainly fruit, wine and fish.

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The senator explained according to the publication cited above that the platform is built on blockchain technology, which is specially designed for the transfer of cross-border data. This allows to see the complete traceability of a product, from its extraction to its destination. „With this, exports are highly valued, 80% of Chile’s containers move through Valparaiso,“ he said.

The pilot project corresponds to the Federation of Fruit Producers (Fedefruta), to register the traceability of its exports with blockchain. At least ten companies in the sector are expected to use the mobile application. They are currently defining which crops to start with.

Fedefruta’s fruit industry works about 300,000 hectares of 60 species between the Atacama and Chile Chico, registering annual exports that are close to US$5 billion, a growth that has been made possible by many milestones in Fedefruta’s history.

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Now, the second pilot project will be for 2021. They seek to advance the wine and aquaculture industries. At the same time, the Municipal Works Directorate (DOM) of the Casablanca district, the institution in charge of centralizing investments, will be „uploaded“ to the platform.

This project, meanwhile, aims to integrate into the platform the process of infrastructure investments, both the Central Government, Regional Government or private. Pugh pointed out that the objective is to upload them, in an encrypted way, so that the projects are integrated and can be traced. This will allow digital trust, there is no room for corruption‘, he said.

Regarding the total budget of Smart Valpo, Pugh indicated that they still do not have a defined amount, but he said that it will come from public-private funds.