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Press Releases
Intelligent Community Forum Announces the 2008
Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year
Group of seven
communities from around the world are finalists
for 2008 Intelligent Community of the Year
award; three communities named to list for the
second time; America contributes three
communities to the list for the first time
(Honolulu, January 14, 2008) -The
Intelligent Community Forum announced today its
list of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of
the Year, each a model for economic development
in the 21st Century, at PTC'08 in Honolulu,
Hawaii. The Top Seven announcement is the second
stage of ICF's annual Intelligent Community
awards cycle. Gaining a place among the Top
Seven is a major achievement as well as a step
toward even greater recognition for communities
working to create prosperity and social
inclusion in what ICF terms "the broadband
economy."
The Top Seven were selected, based on
analysis by academic experts, from among the
Smart21 Communities of the Year, a group of
semi-finalists named by ICF on October 25, 2007
in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, which was the 2007
Intelligent Community of the Year. On May 16,
one of the Top Seven will be named 2008's
Intelligent Community of the Year during ICF's
Building the Broadband Economy annual
summit in New York City.
Cities in the US, Canada,
Estonia, South Korea, and the UK
At a PTC'08 reception honoring the Smart21
Communities, ICF co-founder Louis A. Zacharilla
announced the 2008 Top Seven. He noted that, for
the first time, the Top Seven included three
American communities, plus three from the rest
of the world that were named to the list a
second time. Listed in alphabetical order, the
2008 Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the
Year are:
- Dundee, Scotland, United
Kingdom.
This former
industrial center known for "jute,
jam and journalism" has transformed
itself through intensive
government-academic-business
collaboration and broadband
deployment into a UK center for life
sciences and digital media. An
innovative smart card for citizens
was so successful that the Scottish
Government asked Dundee to run its
national program. With rising net
job growth and business starts,
Dundee has created a Digital
Observatory to track its future
progress as an Intelligent
Community. (Top Seven 2007)
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- Fredericton, New
Brunswick, Canada.
This
community of 50,000 was a broadband
"have not" until the City Council
led an effort to aggregate
public-sector, university and
business demand and created e-Novations,
its own fiber carrier, then launched
the Fred-eZone wireless network
offering free connectivity across
the city. Today, Fredericton
contains 70% of the province's
knowledge-based businesses and is
using ICT to substantially reduce
its carbon footprint.
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- Gangnam District, Seoul,
South Korea. With only 2.5%
of Seoul's population, this district
produces 25% of the city's economic
activity, and has invested its
wealth in the next generation of
e-government. Since 1995, a
relentless digital drive has reduced
the cost of government while
delivering online services,
education, quality of life programs
and e-democracy to citizens. Over
70% of citizens have received ICT
training through schools, community
centers and a TV GOV program. (Top
Seven 2007)
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The communities of this
region are rising from the ashes of
deindustrialization to recreate the
entrepreneurial business, political
and social culture that produced its
first wave of prosperity. A
successful fiber network deployment
by OneCommunity has been leveraged
by government and nonprofits to
jumpstart new investment, improve
healthcare delivery, bring the best
in culture and education to urban
schools, and engage tens of
thousands of area leaders in
collaboration over regional economic
development.
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A suggestion by Estonia's president
in 1995 that schools be connected to
the Internet led to an ICT
revolution that has linked 100% of
Tallinn's secondary schools to the
Web and established over 600 public
access points. More than 100,000
adults have received ICT training,
while e-government programs have
produced one of the most advanced
smart card systems in Europe and a
middleware program that slashes the
costs of e-government. It was not
until 1994 that the last Russian
troops left the country, yet today,
Tallinn receives 77% of all foreign
direct investment into Estonia and
seven out of ten in its workforce
are in the service sector. (Top
Seven 2007)
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- Westchester County, New
York, USA.
This suburb
of New York City was largely ignored
by broadband carriers until it
amassed demand from public agencies
and built a multi-gigabit fiber
network that now serves over 3,500
companies. Determined to maintain
the quality of life that is its most
compelling advantage, the county has
invested in promoting business
growth, improving the skills of its
workforce and fighting digital
exclusion in a community that has
seen new immigrants become 35% of
its population.
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- Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, USA. Powerful
government-business-academic
collaboration led by Wake Forest
University permitted this former
"tobacco capital" to build a fiber
network that spurred demand and led
to an 88% broadband penetration
rate. The partners have used this
digital foundation to develop free
computer labs across the region,
create an e-government portal that
is number three in the nation, and
build a sustainable ICT skills
training program. The city and
county now count 37,000 biotech
employees as residents and will fund
a program to put PCs and broadband
connections into the homes of
low-income students.
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A Highly-Anticipated
10-Month, International Awards Program
On January 14, the Smart21 were
honored at a reception at the Pacific
Telecommunications Council’s annual conference,
PTC'08, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Hosted by ICF,
the reception was sponsored by Korea Telecom,
Metrocomnet and Globecomm Systems. The reception
was preceded by a panel discussion with
community CIOs and regional business leaders led
by Mr. Zacharilla titled "The Rise of the
Intelligent Community: Digital Age Visions for
the Asia-Pacific Region."
On May 16, 2008, one of the Top Seven will be
named Intelligent Community of the Year during
the annual Building the Broadband Economy
summit at Polytechnic University in New York
City. In addition to the Intelligent Community
of the Year, ICF will present awards for the
Broadband Application of the Year, Intelligent
Facility of the Year and honor the Intelligent
Community Visionary of the Year. Building
the Broadband Economy on May 14-16 is
produced in association with Polytechnic
University, home to three Nobel Prize
recipients, and will feature speakers including
Nicola Villa, Global Director, Connected Urban
Development at Cisco Systems; Dianah Neff,
Senior Partner at Civitium and Philadelphia's
former CIO; and Lee Rainie, Founding Director of
the Pew Internet & American Life Project, as
well as community leaders from around the world.
Selection Process, Sustainability Theme
Following the
naming of the Smart21, academic researchers
conduct a thorough review of the nominations and
generate quantitative scores in the five
Intelligent Community Indicators developed by
ICF. In addition, according to ICF Chairman John
G. Jung, each year's analysis includes a theme
that changes from year to year. "In 2008, our
theme was sustainability. 'Sustainability'
refers to economic viability and smart growth,
as well as programs that reduce pollution and
curb carbon emissions. Increasingly, Intelligent
Communities strive for sustainability in all of
these areas."
Speaking of the Top Seven, Mr. Jung added,
"In these outstanding communities, the act of
building a broadband network with a sustainable
business model became a catalyst for efforts on
many fronts to create economic growth, social
inclusion and environmental stewardship. The
network was the starting point, but the
communities went on from there to develop a
powerful culture of use, which proved
transformative. They are inspiring models from
which we all continue to learn."
About ICF: Life
in the Broadband Economy
ICF is a
nonprofit think tank that focuses on the
creation of local prosperity and social
inclusion in the "broadband economy" of the 21st
Century. ICF conducts research, hosts events,
offers tours of Intelligent Communities,
publishes newsletters and presents awards to
help communities understand the opportunities
and challenges of the broadband economy, and to
promote best practices in economic and social
development.
From global networks connecting
business centers to DSL, cable and satellites
linking homes, broadband is revolutionizing
business, government, education, work and
lifestyles. Life in the broadband economy is
robust. By opening markets, it creates new jobs
and gives new focus and hope to communities in
transition. By making possible the export of
services and skills, it puts workers into wage
and skill competition with people around the
globe. For governments, it creates the
opportunity for unprecedented transparency and
responsiveness but also challenges policymakers
to overcome the "digital divide" and use ICT to
reduce social and economic exclusion.
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