The city of Stratford, Ontario was known in Canada as that “quaint little town 90 minutes outside of Toronto.” Its economy was based on agriculture, tourism and light manufacturing with repeated cycles of growth and decline, leading nowhere.

Then, under a new mayor, Stratford made strategic investments in digital infrastructure and services. Creative deal-making led the city to attract first one, then another data center. Neither was a major employer by itself – but the density of digital assets laid the foundation for Stratford to persuade two banks to move their IT staff from high-priced real estate in Toronto to this attractive community with good schools, strong social bonds and rich cultural offerings.

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How did Stratford do it? ICF tells the story in an online profile - one of hundreds on our site that take you inside technology-centric development of communities that builds inclusive prosperity, strengthens societies and enriches local culture.

Learn from Statford and 21 other communities in Accelerate Your Economic Development, a discount bundle of courses in the Community Accelerator online training program. Stratford is profiled in the course on Innovation: Building an Ecosystem for Growth. Produced in partnership with Economic Development Australia and the Economic Developers Association of Canada. 

Communities accelerate by starting an Intelligent Community Journey. Each is different, but all follow similar paths. Start yours.
 
 

The city of Taichung in central Taiwan is a county-sized municipality that is home to nearly three million people. Its urban cluster hosts a major seaport and service economy, while its rural areas are agricultural and industrial. Aside from the seaport, the backbone of its industrial economy consists of 1,500 precision machinery makers and tens of thousands of SME suppliers.

Precision manufacturing offered growth potential in an advanced economy like that of Taiwan. The question was how to unleash it – and city government hit on a unique solution. By sharing the costs of software licensing, Taichung's government enabled manufacturers to bid and win jobs with major corporations that were previously out of reach. They also reduced their own purchasing costs while gaining a competitive edge on smaller vendors in other cities.

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How did Taichung do it? ICF tells the story in an online profile - one of hundreds on our site that takes you inside technology-centric development of communities that builds inclusive prosperity, strengthens societies and enriches local culture.

Learn from Taichung and 21 other communities in Accelerating Your Economic Development, a discount bundle of courses in the Community Accelerator online training program. Taichung is profiled in the course on Connectivity: Foundation of Digital Opportunity. Produced in partnership with Economic Development Australia and the Economic Developers Association of Canada.

Communities accelerate by starting an Intelligent Community Journey. Each is different, but all follow similar paths. Start yours.
 

Fredericton is capital of the maritime province of New Brunswick. In the Sixties and Seventies, as other sources of growth faded, public-sector employment powered its economy. Then crisis came when the Canadian government, running large deficits, pushed public costs down onto the provinces. By the 1990s, Fredericton was saddled with a government that was too large and a shrinking private sector too anemic to support it.

Local government responded with a series of plans and partnerships aiming to build a new economy based on its unique human and economic assets. They sought to tap the power of the city’s universities, the region’s telecom firms, real estate developers, a public utility and small group of software investors. In 10 years, this city of 65,000 people created 12,000 new jobs, 75% of them in technology, and developed the largest per-capita engineering cluster in North America.

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How did Fredericton do it? ICF tells the story in an online profile - one of hundreds on our site that take you inside technology-centric development of communities that builds inclusive prosperity, strengthens societies and enriches local culture. 

Learn from Fredericton and 21 other communities in Accelerate Your Economic Development, a discount bundle of courses in the Community Accelerator online training program. Fredericton is profiled in the course on Innovation: Building an Ecosystem for Growth. Produced in partnership with Economic Development Australia and the Economic Developers Association of Canada.

Communities accelerate by starting an Intelligent Community Journey. Each is different, but all follow similar paths. Start yours.
 
 

(12 JANUARY, 2017 – NEW YORK CITY) -  The Vietnamese province of Binh Duong is working closely with ICF’s 2011 Intelligent Community of the Year, Eindhoven, via its Brainport organization, as well as Becamex IDC, a state owned enterprise in Vietnam, to establish the nation’s first modern Tier 1 city before 2020.  Among the primary goals is the development of a Binh Duong New City, which will be home to one million people and includes a range of “triple helix” entities, including Eastern International University, which will house the region’s first incubator, and a new citizen-friendly administration building for its local government.