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.

Awards to culminate with the naming of the 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year in June at the ICF Summit in New York City

(July 3, 2018 – New York City) - The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today announced “Infinite Learning” as the theme for the 2019 cycle of its prestigious Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Program.  The Forum’s Intelligent Community of the Year will be named in June in New York.  Nominations close on September 21, 2018.  Along the way toward naming the Intelligent Community of the Year, the Smart21 and Top7 will be announced in October and February.

The accelerating development of machine learning is beginning to transform the way we live. 

From smart search engines and talking computers to facial recognition and automatic translation, the applications grow, each more sophisticated than the last and each delivering a service that, once upon a time, only human beings could provide.  The smartest systems of today are far from realizing the potential of artificial intelligence.  But they already promise immense changes in work and jobs, the creation of wealth, the management of organizations and how we conduct our daily lives, with much more to come. 

Human Response

As machine intelligence becomes ever more powerful and widespread, it is ultimately up to human intelligence to decide how prosperous or poor it will make us and how our societies and cultures will adapt.  The government of nations, states and provinces have no hope of keeping up with the pace of this change.  It is at the local level – where governments, organizations and citizens connect most closely – that we have the best chance to turning the technology change into human benefit. 

Community Action

Central to that success will be the ability of leaders, employees and citizens to accelerate their own learning.  Coping with machine learning means making revolutionary changes in how, when and where we learn, what skills we adopt, and how education is delivered.  Knowledge must be gained for its own value – but also with deep understanding of the needs of employers today and in the future.  More than knowledge, citizens young and old must build the capacity for continuous learning throughout their lives, with the skilled support of governments and institutions, and the willing participation of employers who can turn skill into innovation and prosperity.  To match the infinite ability of machines to learn, our communities must build their own capacity for infinite learning. 

Infinite Learning is the theme for ICF 2019 Awards Program. Click here to learn more about nominating your community for the 2019 Intelligent Community Awards.

Perspectives

False Alarmism: Technological Disruption and the U.S. Labor Market, 1850–2015, by Robert D. Atkinson and John Wu, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, May 8, 2017.

(New York, NY and Taipei, Taiwan – 9 February, 2017) – At the conclusion of “The Internet of Cities Forum” in Taipei, Taiwan today, the Intelligent Community Forum announced its list of the Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year to an audience of national and municipal leaders from Taiwan, Canada, Estonia, the Netherlands and Vietnam.  The 15^th annual Top7 list includes communities from four nations, with Australia, Canada and Taiwan each contributing two, and Russia contributing a seventh community in a first-time achievement for that nation. 

(19 October 2016 – New York City & Niagara Falls, ON, Canada) - The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2017.  This select group of communities, which emerged from a group of nearly 400, will now move on and remain in contention for the prestigious designation of an Intelligent Community Top7, to be named in Taipei, Taiwan in February 2017.  One of the seven will then be named Intelligent Community of the Year at the Intelligent Community Summit and Awards Dinner in New York on June 8, 2017.   www.intelligentcommunity.org/summit

Rio de Janeiro’s Knowledge Squares Program Also Honored with Visionary of Year Award

(June 16, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio, USA & New York City, NY, USA) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named Montreal, Quebec, Canada as the 2016 Intelligent Community of the Year at a dinner ceremony in the prestigious Africa Event Center at the Columbus Zoo. The awards ceremony was the conclusion of the Intelligent Community Forum’s annual Summit. Montreal succeeds Columbus, which also was the host city for the 2016 ICF Summit, as the think-tank’s annual Intelligent Community of the Year. Also at the Awards Dinner, Rio de Janeiro’s Knowledge Squares Program was honored with ICF’s prestigious Visionary of the Year award.

In my last post, I wrote about the ladder of opportunity created by a remarkable high school in Winnipeg – created, not alone, but in collaboration with colleges, universities and with the active support of city government.  Now I want to write about the next rungs that lead from building skills to building companies.  

In early April, I was in the city of Winnipeg in the Canadian Midwest. There I got a lesson in the construction of ladders. Not the kind of ladder on which I make the dangerous climb to clean out my gutters. The kind that helps people of all ages to access opportunity.