Binh Duong (VNA) – With export turnover reaching 18.4 billion USD in the first half of the year, an increase of 13.9% year-on-year, the industrial hub of Binh Duong province has continued to affirm its position as one of Vietnam’s leading economic bright spots.

Despite global economic uncertainties, Binh Duong has maintained strong momentum in both exports and industrial production during the first half of 2025.

(June 12, 2025 – New York City) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) is pleased to announce an exclusive VIP Delegation to Vietnam, attending the 2025 ICF Global Summit in Binh Duong Smart City from December 2–4, followed by an extended business mission to Ho Chi Minh City from December 5–7. This experience will spotlight Vietnam’s remarkable journey as a rising global innovation and investment hub under the Summit theme: “Intelligent and Investment Ready: The Economic Transformation of Vietnam.”

Held in Binh Duong Smart City, the 2023 Intelligent Community of the Year, the 2025 Global Summit will convene global thought leaders, policymakers, technology pioneers, and economic developers to explore how digital transformation can drive investment, inclusive growth, and long-term prosperity. The program on December 2 and 3 will feature keynote sessions, workshops, and case studies from ICF’s Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2025. The flagship event of the Summit, the prestigious Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Dinner, takes place on December 3, where ICF will announce the 2025 Intelligent Community of the Year.

Final part: Establishing a global brand

With the support of Becamex IDC, Binh Duong province has been developing a smart city and an innovation region. The foundation of this smart city is built upon the Industrial - Service - Urban Complex, with Binh Duong New City as its central core. Becoming a smart city reflects the strong aspiration of generations of leaders and residents in the province to rise and thrive in the new era—the era of growth.

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.

Innovation and creativity serve as a driving force for sustainable development and a key to improving management effectiveness and leadership capacity, particularly in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In Binh Duong, innovative initiatives have led to breakthroughs in economic management and are helping to effectively achieve the goals set by the 11th provincial Party Congress for the 2020-2025 term.

Developing a smart city is not only a strategic initiative for socio-economic advancement but also a goal embraced by the Party Committee, the government, and the people of Binh Duong province. This clear and consistent vision has allowed us to achieve significant breakthroughs in socio-economic growth, transforming Binh Duong into a worth-living city and enhancing its reputation on the international stage.

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.

On September 25, Mr. Nguyen Van Loi, member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of Binh Duong Provincial Party Committee, Head of the Provincial National Assembly’s Delegation, received Mr. John Jung, co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), on the occasion of the ICF delegation attending the announcement ceremony of the Binh Duong Provincial Planning for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050. The reception also had Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha, Standing Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; and leaders of relevant departments and branches.

Binh Duong aims for sustainable development, being smart, civilized and modern urban areas; strives to become a modern industrial center by 2030, and by 2045 a smart urban area of the region and the whole country. To complete the above goal, and at the same time to complete the targets of the 11th Provincial Party Resolution for the 2020-2025 term, the Provincial Party Committee set forth key groups of tasks and solutions.

I told them.

I told them when I was in Vietnam during my first visit there in December 2016. I told them at a talk I gave to the leadership of its new “rocket to the future,” the smart city of Binh Duong. I told the big shots from its government what they were building.

I told them that in my country (the USA), the hope of the tortured 20th Century was given a boost by the landing on the Moon. It gave people everywhere a new sense of hope, a feeling of possibilities and wonders to come. The technology that flowed from the innovations that had to take place to get men on the Moon, over time, became part of the global economy and embedded in the world we live in today, especially the world of communications. It fed engineering schools new, inspired students who wanted to go to work for NASA or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or General Foods, makers of Tang, the first orange drink mix the astronauts had with them in space! It enabled young, aspiring poets like me to wonder about the workings and nature of the universe, which had opened up like the clouds of a Renaissance painting.