What kind of development potential do rural industrialised regions have? How do demographic change, digitalisation and decarbonisation affect these areas? Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Friederike Welter (IfM Bonn/University of Siegen), Arndt G. Kirchhoff (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberver-bände), Laura Kraft and Stephan Seiter (Members of the German Parliament), and Prof. Dr. Volker Wulf (Fraunhofer FIT Bonn) discussed these questions at the Socio-Informatics Conference 2024 in Berlin.