(New York City – May 5, 2025) – The Intelligent Community Forum announced today the Full Certification of Coral Gables, Florida, USA, providing objective validation of policies, programs and accomplishments that create inclusive prosperity, a vibrant society and rich local culture. These combine to make this growing suburban city, located west of Miami, a highly desirable location for innovative businesses, institutions and people.

Meeting ICF’s Certification standard provides objective validation that a community has high-quality connectivity, effective workforce development, a business innovation ecosystem and meaningful community engagement, digital inclusion and sustainability programs in place. These qualities combine to support the growth of innovative businesses, meet their talent needs and provide inclusive prosperity and a high quality of life.

Coral Gables is the second city in the United States to be Certified as an Intelligent Community. It is also a two-time Top7 Intelligent Community, the first Florida community to be named to the Top7, and currently a Smart21 Community of 2025.

“As we celebrate our city’s centennial, this recognition as a Certified Intelligent Community reflects how Coral Gables honors its past while actively building for the future,” said City of Coral Gables CIO Raimundo Rodulfo. “This designation affirms our commitment to innovation, sustainability, and inclusive prosperity – hallmarks of a world-class city.”

“Cities like Coral Gables, which is part of the Greater Miami area, often let their economies and community life rely entirely on the bigger city next door,” said ICF co-founder Robert Bell, who designed the analytics that confer Certification. “Like other outstanding Intelligent Communities, Coral Gables chose to build services, systems and economic and community development programs that made it a great place to live, work, build a business, start a family and ensure a future for the next generation.”

About Coral Gables, Florida

Located just west of the City of Miami and with a population slightly under 50,000, Coral Gables has started a series of Smart City programs in recent years and is already reaping the rewards. With its Smart Districts Expansion project, the city has implemented a robust and resilient technology infrastructure, through multiple innovation districts providing connectivity, visibility control and automation of city services. Their city theme, “A World Class City with a Hometown Feel” embodies the high quality of life their citizens get both from their technological innovations and more traditional quality of life considerations like walkability and weather.
Coral Gables' centralized Smart City Hub serves as the nerve center for the city's diverse array of smart technologies, consolidating data and insights from various sources to optimize urban services. Powered by advanced sensors, connectivity, and artificial intelligence, the Smart City Hub enables real-time monitoring of traffic, energy consumption, and environmental conditions. This centralized approach facilitates more informed decision-making for city officials and enhances overall urban efficiency. In 2013, the city passed a Sustainability Master Plan focused on renewable energy, green buildings, decarbonization and coastal resiliency, which has seen it become a sustainability leader in Florida and across the United States. More from the ICF profile of Coral Gables.

About Intelligent Community Certification
Intelligent Community Certification is an economic development credential based on ICF’s Community Accelerator Strategy and analytic methods developed over two decades of research and work with more than 200 communities around the world. It is provided in two stages. In the first stage, the municipality, county or region completes an online questionnaire with guidance from ICF. It reports on connectivity, workforce development, public and private-sector innovation, digital inclusion, public engagement and sustainability and resilience. ICF applies its proven analytic methods to the data provided in the completed questionnaire and produces both detailed and summary scoring. Communities whose summary score meets or exceeds the standard receive Provisional Certification based on this self-reported data, and the certification must be renewed yearly to remain in effect.

Full Certification requires an onsite audit by ICF. In a site visit, an ICF auditor validates the information provided by the community for its Provisional Certification and learns more about the programs and practices that make it an Intelligent Community. Following the audit, the auditor prepares a report detailing results and updates the scoring of the community based on the audit. Communities whose summary score meets or exceeds the standard receive Full Certification, which is good for three years.

Intelligent Community Certification is based on a set of standards described in detail on the ICF website.

About the Intelligent Community Forum
Starting in 2000 with a research project comparing cities in various nations, the Intelligent Community Forum (www.intelligentcommunity.org) created a unique, data-driven approach to development that puts citizens first while tapping the enormous economic and social potential of technology. In a world dominated by digital, ICF’s mission is to help communities create innovative, sustainable and growing economies, inclusive societies and affirming cultures open to the world. We do it for communities large and small – in urban clusters, outlying suburbs and rural places – through training, consulting, assessment, certification and award programs. ICF believes that digital connectivity and technology create the opportunity for almost every community to develop a dynamic local economy and the social and cultural strengths that go with it – giving them all a chance to be great places to live, work, learn, grow, raise a family and prepare a sustainable path for the next generation.

The Forum sponsors Institutes in North America and Taiwan dedicated to the study of the movement, and national organizations in Canada and Taiwan, both home to many Intelligent Communities. In 2012 ICF was invited to participate at the Nobel Peace Prize conference in Oslo and in 2014, its model and work were recognized by the U.S. Department of Commerce under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which, according to the American government, was “aimed at creating a more flexible and responsive system of workforce development to meet the needs of employers looking to fill 21st century jobs.”

For more details on the Intelligent Community Forum’s programs and publications, go to www.intelligentcommunity.org.

Contacts:
Matthew Owen, Executive Director, Intelligent Community Forum
Tel. +1 646-291-6166 (x105)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @Newcommunities

Victoria Krisman, Communications Director, Intelligent Community Forum
Email: [email protected]