In the final stage of the Awards program, an international jury reviews site visit reports prepared by the co-founders who visit each of the Top7 Communities.  They jury is made up of officials of previous Intelligent Communities of the Year and subject matter experts from government, business and academia.  In addition to the site visit reports, the jury has access to the questionnaires submitted by the Top7.

Based on their review of this material, jury members rank the Top7 in their order of preference through an online ballot.  ICF aggregates their ranking and combines it on a weighted basis with the numeric scores generated in the selection of the Top7 from among the Smart21 Communities of the Year.  The result is an analysis that combines academic rigor with insight into the human factors that drive community success.    

The current Chair of the ICF Jury is Moez Chaabouni, former deputy CIO of Columbus, Ohio, USA (2015 Intelligent Community of the Year) and Solutions Architect for Informatica.