Communities from nine nations over five continents named as semi-finalists in ICF’s annual Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Program

(March 6, 2025 – New York, NY, USA & Hamilton, ON, Canada) – At the conclusion of a conference hosted by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), Artefact Social and the Hamilton Technology Centre, ICF today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2025. The announcement was made at a special evening event after the Communities in Transition conference in the host city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

The selection of the Smart21 Communities of the Year begins the semi-finalist phase in ICF’s annual Awards Program. In June, ICF will announce the Top7 Intelligent Communities as finalists in the Awards program at the Top7 Conference & Announcement in Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain. The program will conclude when ICF names the 2025 Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Global Summit in Binh Duong, Vietnam in October. One of these twenty-one communities named today will succeed Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year.

Each year, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) Awards Program offers a series of high-profile events to inspire and connect leaders from across the globe. Mark your calendars for these key conferences in the 2025 Awards cycle, each hosted in an Intelligent Community renowned for its forward-thinking initiatives and unique contributions to the global Intelligent Community movement.

Curitiba é a Comunidade Mais Inteligente do Mundo de 2024. O prêmio foi entregue na noite de segunda-feira (4) em Barcelona (Espanha), em evento que reuniu autoridades das sete cidades que concorriam ao título conferido pelo Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) neste ano. Assaí, no Norte do Paraná, também foi uma das finalistas deste ano.

Annual Awards Program to culminate in October 2024 with the announcement of the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year

(December 6, 2023 – New York City) - After announcing Binh Duong, Vietnam as the 2023 Intelligent Community of the Year, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has opened nominations for the next cycle of its prestigious international Awards Program for cities and regions.

The honorees in the Awards Program are announced in three stages. In March 2024, ICF will name its Smart21 Communities, selected through analysis of data on hundreds of cities, counties and regions. The Smart21 announcement will take place during the Smart City Summit and Expo in Taipei, Taiwan, which will be attended by an economic development mission of ICF member communities. In June, New Taipei City will host the Top7 Conference, where ICF will name the seven communities selected by its independent analysts from among the Smart21. The 2024 Awards Program culminates with the announcement of the 26th Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Global Summit in late 2024.

Annual Awards Program to culminate in October 2022 with the announcement of the 2022 Intelligent Community of the Year

(November 18, 2021 – New York City) – After announcing Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada as the Intelligent Community of the Year this October, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has opened nominations for the next cycle of its prestigious international awards program for cities and regions.

The Awards Program, which is run by the New York-based think-tank, will name its 24th Intelligent Community of the Year at the 2022 ICF Global Summit in October 2022. The 2022 cycle, currently in progress, will conclude at next year’s ICF Global Summit.

The Sunshine Coast is a metropolitan area that spreads across 2,291 square kilometers of Australia’s coastline about 100 kilometers north of Brisbane. A sub-tropical paradise of beautiful beaches and scenic mountains, the Coast has experienced boom times and almost doubled its population since the 1980s from tourism and retirement relocation, which drove the growth of construction and retailing. But the ebbing of the commodities boom that fueled Australia’s economy has revealed the fragility of the local economy. 

To help its population overcome economic challenges, the Sunshine Coast government introduced the “Speed It Up” campaign, designed to spread knowledge of the benefits of high-speed Internet access as well as how to obtain it. The city also introduced a series of training and innovation-focused programs over the past several years, lowering its youth unemployment rate to only 5.4%. Click here to read more about the Sunshine Coast.

Danielle is CIO and Commissioner of the City of Chicago's Department of Innovation and Technology, where she is working to improve how residents interact with government by creating more responsive and accessible digital services.

On October 25, ICF will be announcing the Smart21 Communities of 2019 during an event taking place in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. ICF co-founder John Jung sits down with Lou Zacharilla to discuss the event, in this week's Intelligent Community podcast. Learn more about the event here.

• John Jung, Co-Founder, Intelligent Community Forum
• Louis Zacharilla, Co-Founder, Intelligent Community Forum
  
  

          

As we approach the 2018 Smart21 Announcement in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on October 25, 2018, there is an added twist to this event this year, a Community Roundtable. It will be a great opportunity for communities to showcase their cities, towns and regions, but equally important is the fact that these are all Canadian communities, big and small, urban and rural, that had previously been recognized by ICF’s adjudicators as a SMART21, TOP7 or Intelligent Community of the Year. They will each speak to what makes their community smart and intelligent and what some of their key challenges were and what solutions they applied to resolve these challenges. Some may even brag about how this process has helped their community focus their transformation to become smart cities and intelligent communities. And some may even boast about how their use of the brand as a SMART21 city or TOP7 Intelligent Community may have helped them attract investors, jobs and talent to their communities.

“There are few things in life that are free. Being recognized as an Intelligent Community may just be one of them.”

That was the beginning of the blog on August 5, 2015 about the benefits that communities can expect by successfully applying to be recognized as a SMART21 Intelligent Community via https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/nominations. I have often been asked what the benefits are from the unique ICF Awards Program and I have referred them to the original blog from August 2015. But three years later, I felt we needed to update the original. Besides, the original listed only 12 benefits. Today, we are listing an amazing Top 20 Reasons.