San Miguel De La Palma is my home island. Most people simply refer to it as La Palma. Located in the Canary Islands, this has always been the place for me to recharge, for sharing time with friends and family.
My friends there have lives different from mine. My family too. They live slower, they are more attached to nature, away from the urban life, close to their relatives, away from the tyranny of permanent connectivity… Working remotely has allowed me to spend there two or three moths per year. It was important to me. In fact, it was at some point the main reason why I decided to go remote.
Things are tough in the island
A sequence of natural disasters (wild fires, warm winds coming from the Sahara, the volcano eruption…) together with the pandemic has changed the island, and especially my valley, Aridane. The social and economic situation there is tough now. It will be for some time. The remote worker and digital nomad scene suffered too.
Gran Canaria and Tenerife are becoming worldwide spots for those groups. La Palma, back in early 2019, was doing the ground work required to become a great spot too, building a very attractive complementary offering to those bigger islands, compatible with the way the local people understand life and their relation with nature. Co-livings, co-workings, events… there was an incipient movement with a good chance to mature. All those efforts and investments are mostly ashes now.
San Miguel De La Palma Tech Lovers
Some years ago I had this idea of creating a meetup group in the island. I never found the motivation to boot it up though. Then back in 2018 and early 2019, there were others creating interesting activities so, there was no point. But a year after the volcano eruption ended, and seeing its long-term consequences, I decided that it was time for me to do something to help, just like some of my friends and relatives were and still are doing.
So I rebooted the meetup group San Miguel De La Palma Tech Lovers back in December 2022, announced a first meetup event and promoted it through the remaining social media channels for digital nomads and remote workers in the island.
La Palma Tech Tagoror
With the help of some friends, I organised a first meetup event, called La Palma Tech Tagoror, which is the aborigine word for the place where the leaders of the community sit down to discuss the relevant matters. We scheduled the event for September 6th. I have been dedicating time to it on every visit to the island ever since.
I have been mostly disconnected from the business and tech scene on the island most of my life. As mentioned, La Palma was for me a place to disconnect and live a different life. I was surprised to find out that there there are quite a few people and companies focusing on technology in La Palma, doing interesting and meaningful things in several different areas like agriculture, energy, robotics, software…. They are not connected though. The concept of network is not natural in this island, where business is made through proximity and family (or very close) relations.
La Palma Tech Tagoror went smooth although the number of attendees, especially locals, could have been slightly higher. But as we know in open source, it is more important quality than quantity, especially at first. And there was lots of quality at this first event. The content provided by the speakers was interesting and there were fruitful connections among participants. The reaction was very positive, even better than I expected.
In this article in Spanish, you can find the slides used by some of the event speakers. The meetup group got a first sponsor, a local software company called Looping BaIT, which, on top of their customised ERP and CRM applications and services, it is pushing to create a co-working in the biggest town of the island, Los Llanos De Aridane. It is a good sign that so early on, a company is willing to support the group. We need to involve more local companies in the future if we want to increase the impact in the local economy that digital nomads and remote workers can bring to the island.
San Miguel De La Palma Tech Lovers meetup group has today +70 members and part of the meetup.com platform costs are covered by our first sponsor. In addition, at the event we agreed on organising additional activities. The future looks promising.
Next steps
When I decided to reboot the meetup group, I made the commitment to organise two events, one face to face (La Palma Tech Tagoror, that already took place) and a second one online, which will take place on 2023Q4. The main goal for me is to connect with technologist living in the island that would like to take over this initiative and lead the organization of further activities in 2024, so my involvement remains on best effort basis as support. I truly believe that this effort should be led by people with professional interest in building and nurturing a professional network of:
- Remote workers that have this island as current or potential base
- Digital nomads interested in visiting the island
- Local companies/professionals
- Expats (palmeros living abroad) technologists.
From my side, I will put effort in promoting free software, especially in transformative projects for the island, compatible with the local way of life, fully linked with nature and rural environments.
We will promote our activities with the hashtag #lapalmatech by the way.
Contribute
There are several ways to contribute to this modest but potentially relevant effort for my home island:
- If you happen to be in any of the above four groups, please join the meetup.com group San Miguel De La Palma Tech Lovers.
- If you live in any of the other Canary Islands and you are related with technology, please join the group and talk to us about how can we attract people like you to join our activities or create new ones.
- If you are a colleague of mine of share with me the passion for open source, open research and free culture, do not hesitate to join us or promote our activities. There is so much we can learn and adapt to La Palma from what is happening elsewhere…
- If you happen to visit this island, do not hesitate to join any of the two channels where most digital nomads and remote workers hang out. These are also the channels the meetup group is using “stay connected” and announce our activities:
- Whatsapp group: La Palma Digital Nomads
- Facebook Group: La Palma Digital Nomads & Remote Workers
Final notes
This island was a paradise for me and I know that for many others too. It will never be the same. We can repair the glass but the water is already poured. That doesn’t mean that we cannot build a new paradise. It will need hands, effort and connected brains though which is why everybody is welcome to add value.
More news to come.
toscalix 