The CRIT Awards, which recognize and promote digital audiovisual projects in Catalan, celebrated their second edition yesterday at the Teatre Coliseum in Barcelona. Presented by Núria Marín, a total of 14 projects were recognized at the gala, with an attendance of 1,200 professionals and creators, including producers, journalists, and members of the Catalan audiovisual industry. This year's edition highlights the highest recognition for best creator of the year, which went to Laura Grau, and the podcast Guarres!, whose characters were interviewed by l'ARA a few weeks ago, as the best independent project.

The consumption of digital content in Catalan has skyrocketed: in 2025, views of posts in Catalan have grown by 72% compared to the previous year. Consumption is even growing more than production, which increased but much less, by 31%, according to a study by Accent Obert that ARA has had access to. "Such massive growth is due to the fact that we are in a development process that still has no ceiling. A digital industry in Catalan is being born, and it is in a very clear boom," points out Albert Lloreta, producer and expert at Accent Obert. There are 1,260 active projects in Catalan that have achieved a total of 25 million followers. The number of influencers has grown, but what has grown above all is the continuity and intensity of dedication to digital projects.

Accent Obert will deploy an urgent plan to enable AI to speak Catalan. To verify if AIs are self-centered and have a good level of Catalan, the organization will administer the official Catalan language and culture exams to leading chatbots in 2026—the same exams taken by citizens, such as university entrance exams, basic skills tests, and proficiency tests up to level C2. This will allow for the objective assessment of Catalan culture in AI and enable the creation of a ranking of the best AIs for Catalan culture. Another challenge is ensuring that all Catalan-language content on the internet is properly tagged so that AIs can detect this information. They also plan to create a federation of Catalan-language content so that AIs can be asked to respond "given that I am Catalan." This means explaining to the AI ​​"what it means to be Catalan," which involves not only language but, above all, cultural background.

Barcelona will host the annual Strategic Planning Session (SPS) of ICANN's GNSO Council this Tuesday and Wednesday, January 20 and 21, a key meeting for global internet governance. This will be the first time in history that this meeting has been held outside the United States, a significant milestone for Catalonia and for Accent Obert, the domain management entity. .catwhich will be the host organization. Furthermore, the organization asserts that holding the event outside the US for the first time reflects ICANN's desire to "decentralize the debate on internet governance and better reflect its global dimension," they point out.

When the internet began to spread throughout society in the 1990s, beyond academic and research centers, the need to define its governance became evident, and one of the issues was deciding what websites could be called and who would manage them. On the internet, websites have first and last names, and, as with people, the last name indicates which family you belong to. This is the last part of a web address, the one that comes after the period, and there are general (.com, .org), country (.es, .fr), and thematic (.museum, .coop) addresses. They call it TLDs (Top-Level Domain). Initially, the person in charge of coordinating this issue was Jon Postel, who in 1996 initiated a debate on what the Internet's domain name system should be.