IS ICT SMARTNESS POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT WAY FOR HUNGARIAN RURAL AREAS?

The aim of this study is to introduce some EU development strategies on smart cities and villages to see whether smartness can be a suitable development method for the rural areas. Such strategies are getting more and more importance and emphasis all over the world. In many developed countries, becoming smart is basically equal to developed technology and ICT. It might be a way for cities with developed infrastructure, but it might not be the proper way of development for the disadvantaged rural areas. Due to the great territorial discrepancies not only in Europe as a whole, but within several countries of the continent, the existing smart strategies may provide assistance for the developed cities, but not for the countryside. At present, for strategy-makers, smartness refers to high quality infrastructure, technology that requires highly qualified human resource. The latter one is available mainly in urban areas, but the human resource in many rural areas (ageing, unemployed, poorly qualified etc.) is not able to use high tech and modern ICT. Therefore, smartness for them should mean something else and the same strategies cannot be applied in such underdeveloped areas (where high rate of population live). After the overview on some major existing strategies, we intend to evaluate the human resource tendencies as one of the most significant precondition to become smart for rural areas. Our primary focus is the least-developed region of Hungary, but we aim to provide conclusions for a broader scope.