New trends such as teleworking and e-commerce, as well as the need for a further increase of digital tools in all sectors (i.e., health,
education, transportation, farming, etc.) demanded by the Covid-19 pandemic, are pointing out once again digital territorial inequalities,
supply-chain disruptions and deficiencies in economic opportunities that hamper resilience and prosperity of rural communities.
Accessibility and connectivity are key issues to mitigate this erosion of socio-territorial cohesion. However, identifying a common
solution for equipping rural communities with increased access to services, opportunities and adequate innovation ecosystems ensuring
that no one left behind is a challenging task, mainly due to the diversity of challenges and needs of different locations. In this respect,
XGain fosters a sustainable, balanced and inclusive development of rural, coastal and urban areas by facilitating access to relevant
stakeholders, such as municipalities, policymakers, farmers, foresters and their associations, to a comprehensive inventory of smart
XG, last-mile connectivity and edge computing solutions, and of related assessment methods. The XGain overall project objective is,
to deliver a Knowledge Facilitation Tool, facilitating business model development, supporting decision-making in the selection of an
ecosystem of technologies, consisting of connectivity options and edge processing solutions, by following a multi-actor and practitioneroriented approach, and by coherently assessing their socio-economic and techno-environmental effects, aiming at: increasing systemic
resilience and energy efficiency; contributing to climate mitigation; and reducing the digital divides between different types of citizens,
farms, sectors and regions.