The Regional Municipality of Durham, known informally as Durham Region, was founded in 1974 to address the needs of this rapidly expanding area. With a current population of more than 750,000 that is projected to reach 1.3 million by 2051, the demand for efficient, coordinated regional services continues to grow.

Today, Durham Region provides shared services and program coordination to eight local area municipalities consisting of cities, towns and townships in Ontario, Canada. These services support diverse communities and a range of economic sectors from agriculture to clean energy. With 80% of Durham Region zoned as protected green space or agricultural lands, agriculture is a major sector in the region. Durham Region is the Clean Energy Capital of Canada, providing about 30% of the province's energy needs. Energy engineering is a major employer as a result, with innovative projects like the first grid-tied small modular reactor being developed in the region. Durham is also home to automotive manufacturing, a thriving film production industry, and globally recognized research facilities such as the multi-climate ACE Climatic Aerodynamic Wind Tunnel.
 

Bringing Broadband to the Underserved

The rural populations of Durham, like most such areas, are generally underserved by ISPs that struggle to make an investment case for network growth. Basic internet access is available to 98% of businesses and residences, and good broadband service reaches cities, suburbs and the affluent shoreline communities of Lake Ontario. But an estimated 21% of households and more than 1,000 businesses remained underserved.

Learning from peer communities, the Region developed a plan to build a 750-km middle-mile fiber-optic network along rights of way controlled by the Region or one of its communities. Investment in a middle-mile network can substantially reduce the cost and risk to ISPs of bringing high-speed broadband to new markets. They lease capacity at attractive rates from the middle-mile provider and extend from that network to subscribers at a fraction of the cost of a complete build-out.  The middle-mile, if properly planned, can also provide capacity directly to Regional and municipal facilities, universities, schools and hospitals (MUSH).

In 2020, the Region began to put the plan into practice. It held extensive meetings with all municipalities and townships to develop collaboration on managing rights of way and permitting.  They led to a successful effort to create a local and regional online process that slashed turnaround time for network construction permits, which reduced risk for private-sector investors. 

The Region also established a government-owned company called Durham OneNet, which developed the processes and contractor relationships to do design, construction and operation – and most importantly, to move at the speed of business. Durham OneNet completed the first 36km leg of the network in a rural area, finishing on budget and ahead of schedule. That led to deployment of high-speed service by 12 wireless ISPs to four rural communities and leasing of fiber to a mix of MUSH facilities. This was followed by the successful application for provincial and Federal funding to cover the next 250 km expansion of the middle mile network. 

Durham OneNet’s broader vision is to build a 700-km Regional Broadband Network (RBN) that spans the entire Region, connecting every community and Regional site. This network is more than infrastructure – it is a high-speed data expressway that bridges the digital divide, with open access that enables ISPs to provide last-mile services. The organization is proactively responding to soaring demand for bandwidth driven by cloud services, high-quality video, data-intensive applications and emerging technologies like AI. In 2024 alone, the RBN expanded by over 70%, serving 208 municipal, regional, and private clients, generating $3.4 million in first-year sales alongside significant capital savings. Funded by taxpayers in its initial three years, Durham OneNet is profitable as of 2025 and delivering significant value under its 10-year business plan.

Building a New Economy

Agriculture may dominate the economy, but it is challenged by the reluctance of the next generation to stay on the farm. Based on the Growing Agri-Food Durham Plan 2023-2027, the Region works with the 2-year Durham College and 4-year Ontario Tech University to alert young people through videos, websites and classroom presentations to modern agriculture’s demand for marketable skills in finance, nutrition, technology and agronomy. Augmenting this core program is a precision agriculture career day and pathway programs that guide high school students to higher education in agriculture, as well as a popular training program for farmers in diversifying their businesses.

These two schools are at the heart of the Region’s efforts to create a knowledge-based, innovation ecosystem. Durham College has, over the past five years, developed partnerships with all the Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce in the region, which has pro­vided membership to 3,500 students. The partnerships deploy a range of pro­grams from invitations to chamber events, workshops on everything from critical thinking to setting up a LinkedIn profile, and invitations to established businesses and entrepreneurs to speak on campus. The FastStart program is one example, offering local businesses the opportunity to bring their challenges to the college to be addressed by a team of students led by an instructor. 

Ontario Tech University has 3,000 students participating in a program called Experience Ventures, funded by the Canadian government and the University of Calgary, which provide experien­tial learning opportunities to students across Canada. They are designed to ignite creativity, resilience and entrepreneurship while equipping students with high-value skills. An Employ­ment Readiness Program teaches practical job skills (aka, soft skills) and the fundamentals of networking, which are vital skills for young people. Brilliant Catalyst, an incubator at Ontario Tech, runs hackathons to attract students locally and across Canada, then guides them in developing, validating and commercializing business ideas. Like the University of Waterloo, the university does not take an ownership position in companies or their IP, so the Fund provides it with an opportunity to transparently invest in 15 companies over a 3-year period, mainly in energy, mobility and eco-tech. Ontario Tech also hosted Project Arrow, a 2022 collaboration among Canadian’ automotive manufacturers to build a complete, zero-emission concept car to jumpstart the nation’s capabilities in this future growth market.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is another contributor to regional innovation. It is developing a standardized design for an inherently safe, small modular reactor that can receive safety certification to speed installation wherever new generation is needed. OPG also developed a world-class training center to create the workforce it needs for a major refurbishment of its oldest reactor complex. OPG has founded the Canadian Center for Nuclear Sustainability (CCNS) as an innovation hub focused on sustainable decommissioning, waste stewardship and site repurposing of nuclear plants at end of life. At the end of 2023, OPG announced that it would move its headquarters from Toronto into Durham, bringing a meaningful percentage of its 10,000 employees there.

Aiming for further economic diversification, the Durham Region has created the Ready Set Future: A PLACE Blueprint for Durham, a bold strategy guiding economic development through 2027. This strategy identifies five priority clusters: Future Energy, Next Generation Mobility, Arts, Culture and Creative Industries, Agri-Food and Applied Digital Technologies. These sectors leverage the Region’s existing assets, infrastructure and post-secondary curriculum to create global growth opportunities, high-value jobs and innovative partnerships. The Region and its local municipalities are enhancing infrastructure, developing key sites and increasing resources to foster success in each cluster. The Arts, Culture, and Creative cluster has been particularly dynamic, with the film and television industry growing by 260% over the past decade. Since the establishment of the Film Office in 2012, production value has surged by $57.2 million, increasing at 15% annually, with a 10% yearly rise in production days. Major studios such as Disney, CBS, Paramount, Amazon, Netflix and Apple TV have chosen Durham Region for productions like The Handmaid’s Tale, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Schitt’s Creek, and the Oscar-winning Women Talking. The opening of the Sunbelt Filming Backlot in 2021 – now the largest in Canada – has further cemented Durham’s status as a premier filming location. In 2024 alone, 69 productions were filmed locally, generating 102 film permits, adding 21 new locations to the Film Durham and Ontario Creates Digital Library, and welcoming 23 executives from USA and UK production studios for tours of local facilities, backlots, and mixed reality capture studios.

Complementing these cluster efforts, the Region launched a comprehensive land servicing initiative in partnership with local municipalities to expand the supply of market-ready employment lands, strategically positioned to support cluster growth. This initiative has helped drive a record $1.23 billion in non-residential building permits in 2023, contributing to a total building permit activity surpassing $3 billion. Durham was ranked among Canada’s top 20 investment destinations in 2024 by Site Selection Magazine in recognition of this success.

Durham Region has three major business parks that exemplify this strategic growth. Clarington Energy Park, central to Durham’s clean energy ambitions, spans 318 acres and hosts the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station and its small modular reactor project, the Darlington Energy Complex for nuclear training, the Durham York Energy Centre waste-to-energy facility, and East Penn Canada’s national automotive battery distribution headquarters. Pickering Innovation Corridor, with over 800 acres of prestige employment land along a major highway, is positioned to create 18,000 new high-tech jobs. It has attracted FGF Brands’ Wonderbrands Innovation Business Park, Kubota Canada’s national headquarters, and more. Northwood Business Park, near Oshawa Executive Airport and key post-secondary institutions, offers 500 acres for major employers. Notable investments include Panattoni Canada’s 500,000-square-foot facility, Lactalis Canada’s 379,000-square-foot global distribution centre, and Martin Brower’s 172,000-square-foot supply chain facility, creating 175 jobs.

Bringing Opportunity to More People

At the heart of Durham Region, libraries across all eight municipalities form a digital inclusion network, offering a wealth of opportunities for residents from every corner of the region. Each library serves as a technological and creative hub, offering technology loan programs, free Wi-Fi hotspots, computer labs, makerspaces and both one-on-one and group training sessions. In Oshawa, the Public Library’s Memory Lab, opened in 2024, enables residents to digitize cherished memories stored on old photographs, VHS tapes, vinyl records and cassettes. The Ajax Public Library Makerspace is a collaborative environment where visitors explore everything from fabric arts to robotics and coding, while its partnership with Makers Making Change provides affordable assistive devices created through open-source designs, addressing a significant community need. Since late 2024, this initiative has served 70 residents, with seniors particularly benefiting from practical tools like bottle openers for arthritis and reading aids for vision challenges.

Recognizing the barriers that low-income families face in accessing education, the Region formed a partnership with multiple levels of government, school boards, businesses, and charities to simplify access to the Canada Learning Bond, a financial aid program for post-secondary education. The application process is so complicated that only 40% of eligible children were receiving the bond. The Region formed a partnership with multiple levels of government, school boards, businesses and charities to host sign up events and offer eligible families everything they needed to get the bond. It resulted 500 new children receiving the Bond in the first year.

The Region’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion department engages with people who would otherwise be invisible and gives the Region the perspective to understand them and their needs. Programs include work experience in Region offices for students with disabilities, an athletic and teaching facility designed for people of all abilities, and housing facilities with wraparound services for long-time citizens and newcomers.

Expanding opportunities for older adults, the Oshawa Seniors Community Centre (OSCC) offers an array of inclusive leisure programs and community support services for residents aged 55 and older. With more than 6,000 members and around 400 daily visitors across its branches, the OSCC has seen program participation grow by 39% from 2022 to 2023. Its Digital Inclusion program, which began informally with basic technology classes, now provides 25 different computer and technology courses and 142 online programs, collectively reaching nearly 43,000 seniors. The introduction of free internet access at all senior facilities, along with computer labs, cyber cafés and specialized initiatives like the Brain Gym for seniors with dementia, ensures that older adults remain digitally connected and engaged.

Engaging the Community in Making Government Better

Durham Region’s approach to modernizing government services and community engagement is founded on both technological innovation and a robust commitment to transparency, inclusion, and ongoing dialogue with residents. In 2019, the Durham Region launched the myDurham 311 project to improve the customer experience for residents seeking government services and community information. By consolidating over 60 public phone numbers and more than 50 email addresses into a single 311 contact point, the Region created a streamlined, centralized system offering support via phone, online, chat, smart devices and other channels.

While 311 services are commonplace, Durham’s development process was not. The Region consulted 400 residents from diverse backgrounds on what the project should deliver. This input led to a design for myDurham 311 that uses the latest technology to provide multiple, easy-to-use paths to the right information or service. It is based on a centralized customer management database that automatically creates work orders and service requests in municipal and regional systems, as well as powering an intuitive user portal where customers can track their engagement with the Region, check bills and learn transaction status. A follow-on partnership with a Federal innovation center and local company added access by Google Home and Amazon Echo.

myDurham 311 has since become an award-winning model of municipal service, with an average call wait time of just 14 seconds – one of the best in Ontario – and over 650,000 interactions managed to date. The program has driven a 16% increase in digital self-service between 2023 and 2024 and improved the Region’s operational efficiency by 45% through the application of Six Sigma methodologies. Future enhancements to myDurham 311 include a next-generation Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) powered by Agentic AI, offering conversational and personalized support across channels and plans for 24/7 service supported by multilingual and inclusive outreach campaigns. The Region is also preparing to launch the “311 in Your Pocket” mobile app in 2026, alongside co-browsing technology to assist seniors, newcomers, and those less familiar with digital tools, ensuring digital inclusion remains a core priority.

Community engagement is not a one-time event but an ongoing conversation in Durham. The Region employs an omnichannel approach, including community events, classroom visits, pop-up booths, social media, newsletters and apps, to sustain dialogue with residents. The Durham Region Waste App, an integral tool in the Region’s environmental strategy, exemplifies this ongoing connection. With a 4.8/5 rating and over 136,000 subscribers, the app provides schedules, reminders, quizzes and waste management updates in multiple languages. It has become such a staple that residents often cite it in discussions about waste services.

Cleaner, Smarter Energy

In response to the growing impacts of climate change, the Regional Council declared a climate emergency in 2018 and began development of the Durham Community Energy Plan (DCEP). The plan balances environmental goals with local economic opportunities by promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy adoption and electrification of transportation and buildings. The Durham Greener Homes program, introduced in 2022, helps homeowners retrofit their properties with energy-efficient upgrades through consultations, energy assessments and rebate guidance. In 2024, the program integrated vHEAT AI, an artificial intelligence tool that provides digital energy scores and personalized retrofit plans, achieving an average 76% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across more than 2,000 participating homes.

In 2025, the program expanded to include weather-ready home retrofits that protect against flooding, heat waves and high winds. A new municipal financing model, leveraging Durham’s AAA credit rating, enables homeowners to access low-interest loans repaid via property taxes, making resilience upgrades more affordable. Complementing this, the Durham Greener Buildings program drives energy efficiency in institutional and commercial properties, surpassing participation targets in its first year with 487 buildings enrolled. The program’s Buildings Challenge and accompanying Evening of Recognition celebrate leadership in reducing emissions and optimizing energy performance.

The Durham Region began working with ICF in 2020 and has steadily applied the lessons its leaders have learned.  An informal gathering of advisors has become a formal steering committee for transformation. ICF’s Community Accelerator strategy has been adopted as its economic and community development framework. And through Community Assessments and participation in the Awards program, the Region has learned how to leverage its public, private and nonprofit resources to create the innovative, inclusive economy taking shape across the municipalities and townships it serves.

Population: 750,000

Website: www.durham.ca/en/index

Intelligent Community of the Year 2025

Smart21 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025

Top7 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025

Photo by Chris Harte

Coquitlam is one of the largest cities in British Columbia, situated at the meeting of the Coquitlam and Fraser Rivers. The city draws its name from the Coastal Salish people who first inhabited the area 9,000 years ago. In the modern era, Coquitlam has focused on this long and deep cultural history by establishing the Evergreen Cultural Centre as a venue for displaying arts and hosting local community events. Evergreen is home to the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the Coastal Sound Music Academy, the Coquitlam Youth Orchestra and the Stage 43 Theatrical Society. The city also features Place des Arts, a non-profit teaching arts center that presents concerts and exhibitions for the public. As its population continues to grow, Coquitlam has kept its focus on the people and their history and culture that serve as its strength and as an example for all those who might wish to one day call the city home.

Connecting the City with QNet

To ensure as many citizens as possible have access to fast, affordable broadband service, the city established the Coquitlam Optical Network Corporation (QNet) in 2008. QNet leases unused capacity in the city’s carrier-grade fiber optic network to local business and telecommunications companies, allowing them to offer high-speed internet, phone, TV, video and cellular services at some of the best rates in the country. Services are available to city business, schools and residential highrises, providing more choice in telecom service providers that encourages competition and keeping prices low. The network has gigabit-plus capacity, allowing for high-bandwidth activity such as telecommuting, HD video conferencing and virtual classrooms. As of 2020, QNet’s 60-km network is connected to 112 buildings in the city and has leased fiber to four service providers.

Providing a Space for Learning and Community Building

The Coquitlam Public Library provides a wide variety of services as well as a comfortable gathering space for residents of all ages seeking to learn, study and grow in the modern world. The library features two branches and one mobile library called Library Link. The Coquitlam Public Library offers access to large digital and print collections, as well as streaming services for music, audiobooks and movies and a Family Technology collection. Wifi is available free throughout the library, usable at its many computer stations as well as lendable laptops that may also be used outside the facility. The library also offers Playaway Launchpads, preloaded tablets with educational games for younger patrons, as well as Sphero and Ozbots, programmable robots for children. Printing, faxing and scanning services, including 3D printing and scanning, are also available to patrons, in addition to high-end creative and office software and digitization conversion equipment.

To help citizens make use of the many services at the Coquitlam Public Library, the staff offers a variety of programs to teach literacy and technology use for all age groups. Library staff provide technology, research and reference help in-person as well as online and via telephone to ensure all patrons have as much access to help as possible. The library branches also have several meeting rooms, study rooms and computer labs available for group work and community gatherings. As of 2018, over 41,000 people have attended programs at the library with more than 870,000 visits in total.

Planning for the Future with Everyone’s Help

Coquitlam began work on a Technology Roadmap in 2016 to serve as a guide for high level strategic development. The Technology Roadmap, presented to the City Council in 2018, helps the city to navigate the rapidly changing world of technology and choose the most effective solutions for improving business functions, operational efficiency and services to the community. The plan focuses on six strategic areas: improving citizen services and customer experiences, developing smart transportation solutions, maintaining public safety and security, improving operational efficiency and productivity, empowering staff to be better at what they do and migrating toward a “mart city” that collects and uses electronic data to improve operations. Based on the Technology Roadmap, the city has creating a mobile app to help citizens access important location information, expanded free Wifi access in city parks, created an interactive, digital wayfinding kiosk and interactive meeting room displays at City Hall and has implemented new project management software for the city.

Having seen improvements based on the Technology Roadmap, Coquitlam set out to gather more citizen input on other city issues and areas for growth. The city created the Viewpoint Online Engagement Panel in 2017, survey software that is available through any web-enabled computer or other device. Residents can participate in an average of two surveys per month, providing their opinions on city issues, plans and services, and can choose to respond to all topics or only those that most interest them. Opinions collected through Viewpoint allow the city to tailor its decisions and plans to citizens’ needs.

Promoting a Green City Through the Climate Action Program

Coquitlam signed the provincial Climate Action Charter in 2007 and took swift action to implement greener policies in a wide variety of areas. Annual project plans and budgets all include greenhouse gas emissions reduction, energy conservation and waste reduction concerns. Since 2012, the city has installed two energy-sharing systems, LED street lighting, lighting upgrades and controls throughout civic facilities, programmable thermostats, waste heat recovery systems, fleet right-sizing and electric fleet vehicles. Coquitlam also switched to compressed-natural-gas-powered automated collection trucks for waste management in 2014 and implemented a bi-weekly garbage collection schedule for single-family dwellings. Thus far, the city has seen a 23% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 15% increase in single-family dwelling waste diversion based on these policies. Coquitlam has plans to implement complete and compact neighborhood planning and design and a wide variety of sustainable transport initiatives in the near future.

In addition to focusing on climate change, Coquitlam focuses on improving community life through greenspace and forest management plans designed to protect the city’s over 2,000 acres of greenspace, including 80 municipal parks. The city has also developed extensive solid waste education and outreach plans, water-use restrictions, public access to electric vehicle charging infrastructure and environmental bylaws to protect Coquitlam’s natural resources. The local government works closely with residents, developers and businesses to ensure that guidelines are followed and that measures serve their intended purposes.

Coquitlam’s population boom began in the late 1940s, and the city is still growing rapidly today. The city has made impressive efforts to ensure all citizens live in a green, accessible and connected community and stands ready to meet the needs of an ever-growing population headed toward a prosperous future.

Population: 140,000

Website: www.coquitlam.ca

Smart21 2021 | 2023 | 2024

Photo by Greg Salter

The capital of Northern Ireland since its establishment in 1921 and also its largest city, Belfast stands on the banks of the River Lagan on the nation’s eastern coast. Beginning in the 1800s, the city served as a major port and hub of the Industrial Revolution in Ireland. Belfast was briefly the largest linen producer in the world during this time, earning the nickname “Linenopolis.” The city also hosted the world’s largest shipyard, which built the Titanic, among many other notable vessels. Though its status as a major global industrial center ended shortly after World War II, Belfast has made impressive efforts at expansion and regeneration in the last few decades. The city developed a major aerospace and missiles industry in addition to its still formidable shipyards and is undergoing urban renewal and acceleration with the aid of a £350 million investment by the UK Government.

Connecting and Educating the Future Workforce

Beginning in 2017, Belfast developed the Urban Digital Futures program to provide digital knowledge training and workshops for primary and post-primary school students. The program provided over 900 educators with resources and training across 20 post-primary and 16 primary schools. In addition to digital skills and content creation training, the program also connected involved schools with local businesses, particularly in growth sectors, to provide work experience for students and further valuable resources.

In 2020, the national government launched Project Stratum with the goal of bringing at least 30Mbs broadband coverage to all households in Northern Ireland. The £165 million project connected the first premises in 2021 with complete rollout expected by 2024. It builds on Project Kelvin, which saw the transatlantic submarine cable looped around Northern Ireland to provide connectivity to even the most remote regions. Belfast seized on the opportunity created by Project Stratum to begin educating its youth in the use of digital technologies that will soon be available to all in the region through this expanded connectivity. The city expanded its Urban Digital Futures program to include a new Digital Futures program aimed at supporting graduates of post-primary education. The newest project has secured £1 million funding and is expected to begin serving graduates shortly.

The Belfast Digital Partnership to Create an Innovation District

To encourage innovation and urban regeneration in Belfast, the City Council formed a partnership with Queen’s University, Ulster University, Belfast Harbour, Invest NI and Catalyst Inc. in 2019. The Belfast Digital Partnership aims to establish an innovation district covering 400 acres from the city center around the new Ulster University campus to the Catalyst in Queen’s Island. The district will foster a place-based approach to cluster growth in fintech, healthtech and Greentech by providing an optimal, supportive neighborhood for technologists and researchers, particularly in the life and health sciences sector. The innovation district will include pervasive wireless connectivity, funded by the Belfast City Deal Infrastructure Enabling Fund and a citizen-focused engagement program. The project also aims to address transportation issues, such as over-reliance on private car travel in the smart district, connectivity issues to Queen’s island and the challenges expected in developing a post-Covid city center. With so many entrepreneurs in one place, the district will also provide both Queen’s University and Ulster University with opportunities to enhance their research programs, allowing them to support business developers and innovators in the area.

As part of the Belfast Digital Partnership, Belfast Harbour has also launched the Smart Port project. Through significant investments in 5G connectivity and open architecture data, the Smart Port plans to deploy a number of IoT, mobility and Community Platform solutions to enhance safety, sustainability and efficiency within the harbor and throughout Northern Ireland’s sea freight logistics chain. As of 2020, the Belfast Digital Partnership has submitted an outline business case for a £350 million investment from the central government to get the ambitious project up and running.

Growing the Economy and Improving Quality of Life Through the Belfast Region City Deal

The Belfast Region City Deal, launched in 2019, is a public-private partnership between the city government, the national government of Northern Ireland and local business partners. The City Deal seeks to improve connectivity and engagement throughout the city and to provide financial and other support to citizens to grow the economy and improve all aspects of modern life. The UK Government has committed to providing £350 million for the project with the NI Executive matching that contribution as well as an additional £150 million from Belfast Region City Deal partners. This massive investment will be put toward a wide variety of infrastructure, economic and health improvements.

Planned building improvements under the City Deal include over 3,000 new hotel bed spaces to attract and accommodate tourism, 830,000 new square feet of office space to accommodate new jobs in the city and 854 new social homes spread throughout the city. The Belfast City Council, Housing Executive, Department for Communities and other stakeholders are looking into further ways to improve housing supply in the Belfast City Center as well.

On the health front, the City Deal will invest millions in social innovation programs and initiatives, health improvement initiatives and suicide and self-harm prevention services. The Health and Social Care Board, with the support of a wide range of partners, has already begun a research and engagement program to reduce the number of winter deaths in the city each year due to cold weather. The program will improve support for those most at risk by removing barriers to accessing help and establishing a campaign to raise awareness of the availability of flu vaccinations.

Where Belfast was once a global center of industry, the city aims to improve on that vision in the modern world by creating a global center of health, innovation and growth available to all its current and future citizens.

Population: 343,542

Website: www.belfastcity.gov.uk

Smart21 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Photo by Rodrigo Silva

Centered around a city of just 14,000, the Alexandria Lakes Area is a tourism hot spot known for its over forty lakes and many resorts. The region is home to a wide variety of cultural events that draw large numbers of tourists and locals each year, including Art in Park in July, the Douglas County Fair in August, the Carlos Creek Winery’s Grape Stomp in September and an Apple Fest in October. The city of Alexandria, heart of the Lakes Area, features a number of public schools, the Alexandria Technical & Community College and its own museum that houses the Kensington Runestone, a 200-pound greywacke stone covered in runes that was discovered in central Minnesota in 1898. Alexandria also hosts the annual Vikingland Band Festival parade marching championship. It is often too easy for a region focused on drawing outsiders in for tourism revenue to ignore those who live and work in the area year-round, but that is not the story of the Alexandria Lakes Area. The region has focused heavily over the past twenty years on connecting and improving the lives of the nearly 40,000 people who call its beautiful lakes and shores home.

Connecting the Unconnected

The Alexandria Lakes Area has developed multiple major connectivity projects since the early 2000s, all with the goal of bringing greater adoption and connectivity options to the region’s sprawling rural communities. The CMETS (Central Minnesota Education Telecommunication Systems) deployment was created to share IT solutions between the area’s eight rural school districts, including providing broadband Internet, voice, video and teleconference options. Rural telecommunications providers collaborated to engineer a 10 Gigabit private ethernet network to connect the eight school districts. These providers maintain the network and lease it to the CMETS consortium, which provides distance learning resources through the network, allowing students to access college-level courses taught within and outside their school districts.

Outside the school system, rural providers are in the process of deploying fiber-optic broadband throughout the Lakes Area. One of those local providers, the Gardonville Cooperative Telephone Association, targets unserved and underserved residential areas, and has laid an average of fifty miles of fiber-optic cable per year. Gardonville’s infrastructure supports up to 10 Gigabit per second speeds for homes and businesses in the region. The company has also applied for and secured grants from Minnesota’s Border-to-Border organization to fund further fiber-optic deployment at greater rates.

Pitch Your Plan

To foster interest in local businesses and help new ones get off the ground, the Alexandria Lakes Area came up with the Pitch Your Plan business competition in 2018. The competition was made possible by collaboration among a large group of partners, including several investment, insurance and real estate companies, multiple consulting companies and the City of Alexandria and Alexandria Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce. Other local companies also contributed to the project alongside these partners to put together a $38,000 prize package, including goods, services and financial support for the competition’s winner. Pitch Your Plan attracted 33 business applicants with 10 semifinalists chosen to move on to a business plan bootcamp to fine-tune their plans. The competition featured a large number of semifinalist positions in order to provide the bootcamp’s training to many businesses other than the eventual winner in the hope that such training would help them succeed as well. This effort was successful as a few of those businesses that did not move on to the finals still established themselves and are growing today.

Pitch Your Plan opened its doors to the community at large once the competition narrowed down to 3 finalists with a luncheon at a local downtown theater, during which the 3 presented their final pitches to the judges. The winner was able to massively expand its fledgling business with the prize package and the other 2 finalists also went on to grow their businesses afterward, utilizing the lessons they had learned in the competition and the relationships they had built with their competitors and other local businesses. The Alexandria Lakes Area plans to host the next Pitch Your Plan competition in 2021.

Preparing the Next Generation for College and Beyond

Beginning in 2014, the Lakes Area established the Academies of Alexandria High School. The academies serve as mini-schools within the district’s public school, focusing on specific career training to help high school students better prepare for college and entering the workforce. All 9th graders in the academies go through the Freshman Exploration Academy. In the following years, students select 1 of 3 academies depending on their interests and career plans: the Engineering, Manufacturing Technologies and Natural Resources Academy, the Health Sciences and Human Services Academy or the Business, Communication and Entrepreneurship Academy. Each academy teaches core classes in math, English, social studies and science alongside more focused classes based on the academy’s career theme. The school district partners with local businesses and civic leaders to provide students with real-world examples and answer practical questions they may have about their career futures. These partnerships also provide access to internships and mentors within the community. Over 75% of seniors in the first graduating class from the Academies of Alexandria went on to college or career opportunities with more expected to benefit each year as the program is refined.

The City of Alexandria Comprehensive Plan Revision

Originally adopted in 1995, the City of Alexandria’s Comprehensive Plan has undergone multiple revisions and updates to better meet the needs of a growing and changing community. The Plan provides the citizens of Alexandria with an outline for future development, including chapters on land use, transportation, wastewater, water supply, storm water management, housing and parks and recreation. In 2018, the City released a Request for Proposals for planning services to start the process of updating its Plan, which had not been revised since 2007.

To make the Plan available and comprehensible to as many Alexandrians as possible, the City has made all of it available on its website, where it is fully searchable and downloadable. Citizens can access components and chapters of the Plan 24/7 via Dropbox and can provide ideas and public feedback via email and Social Pinpoint at any time. To reach even more members of the community, Alexandria’s local government set up “pop-up” booths at local events, including Art in the Park, Community Night Out and the Douglas County Fair to ask for input on changes to the plan and what areas of concern mattered most to local attendees. The City also set up one-on-one and small group interactions on the street in downtown Alexandria, as well as visioning and goals sessions at City Hall and a range of speaking engagements. These efforts bore fruit when the City received over 1,500 written and emailed comments, suggestions and concerns from event attendees. To address as many of these concerns as possible, the City allocated $52,400 for the Comprehensive Plan formal revision from the city’s annual budget for Plans and Studies. The public hearing process for the new Plan was completed in October 2019.

With the natural beauty of Alexandria’s lakes come the expected challenges of reaching remote citizens and providing opportunities for all. The Alexandria Lakes Area has met these challenges head-on and expects to grow into an ever more connected community as its programs reach fruition and beyond.

Population: 38,041

Website: www.alexandriamn.org

Smart21 2021 | 2022

Photo by Omar David Sandoval Sida. Used under Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Big Apple is the wrong name for New York this summer.

No one knows what will come to New York this autumn and beyond. It will not be the World Series, Tracy Letts’ new play or a fraction of our 65.2 million annual visitors. New York will not be as fine as apple pie by Columbus Day or Thanksgiving. These two holidays might not even be around by Christmas! Without its theaters, restaurants, museums and the everyday energy of vendors and street life, New York is a harsher, more hollow place, and no place for epicureans hungry for its unique slice of American culture.

There is battle underway in New York. With the virus surging toward its peak I am starting to feel like I am living through something akin to what I know of “The Blitz” in the early 1940’s in England, during World War II. A terrifying reign of terror, coming relentlessly at me with no conscience, is what I am feeling. I watch as brave people hold the line and others try to contribute as best they can. People are emerging to whom we owe much. Doctors for sure. Also the delivery guys, most of them Mexican, on their padded bicycles; the cashiers at Citarella and Food Emporium markets. My doormen Javier, Willie, Larry and Tom. Yeah, I am under siege, and the only weapons are a healthcare system renowned for the quality of its research and advances in the most exciting areas of science. But we also have a community hospital system and its challenges, as the world is seeing, are profound. We are also armed now with extreme civic cooperation and access to the rest of the world online. These are useful, but they are inadequate for the real job ahead.

Most of the sirens in my neighborhood tonight carry gasping COVID-19 patients to overcrowded, understaffed ERs at New York Presbyterian and Lenox Hill hospitals. There are medical tents rising in Central Park, although I have not seen them. My brief walk along the avenue revealed only the pink blossoms of the trees celebrating the arrival of Spring. Both hospitals are within walking distance of my apartment (located next door to Trump Palace). We learned a few nights ago that the head of the NY Police Department’s Anti-Terror Department is in Lenox Hill with the disease. And this morning we learned that Harlem-based Detective Cedric Dixon (48 years old) passed away as had one of my favorite playwrights, Terrence McNally.

Markham is a metro area of 212 sq km approximately 30km northeast of Toronto. It has a population of over 350,000, making it one of the largest municipalities in Canada. Markham has a bustling tech sector, home to hundreds of corporate head offices and over 1,000 high tech and life science companies. Markham is a leader in digital initiatives, from community support and digital training, to partnerships with high tech industry to next-generation upgrades to municipal services. Markham's role as a digital pioneer has had great results for their community and Markham has shared wisdom gained from these steps with other Canadian municipalities at several national municipal conferences and forums.

Digital Markham Strategy

Markham is home to leading and innovative technology companies in all phases of maturity – from startup to global presence. The city’s population has access to the latest technology and uses it actively, boasting more than 80% PC and device penetration. Markham’s initial digital offerings (including portal, social media and mobile apps) are widely accepted and used. The city is moving forward to become a more digitally enabled and connected city.

The City of Markham Digital Strategy lays out a digital roadmap with explicit steps for the city to follow moving forward, based on collaboration and input from city staff and councilors, residents, businesses, service groups, academics, industry thought leaders and technology experts. Using ideas and feedback from the community, the Strategy identified 4 key areas of focus, each containing a number of significant digital initiatives designed to achieve the vision for Markham’s digital future.

The first key goal in the Digital Markham Strategy is: Engaging and Serving the Community. To meet this goal, the city has developed initiatives to expand and enhance online and mobile service offerings, promote collaboration through digital tools, build centers of excellence for digital literacy and further develop digital democracy. The second goal is: Being the Digital Differentiator for Business, which has led to initiatives that facilitate digital innovation, agility and economic development as well as engaging strategic partners in achieving the Digital Markham vision. The third goal is: Establishing a Digital Workplace. To meet this goal, the city developed initiatives to establish a digital culture and digital operating model at the City, enable business process integration across business units and create the capacity to leverage data as an asset for decision making. With this goal, Markham also aims to create a local climate that will attract and retain young talent. The final goal: Enabling the City as a Platform for Innovation, consists of initiatives to create “living labs” and innovation hubs to demonstrate and facilitate Markham’s new digital character, to implement an open data platform and governance model and to communicate and promote Markham’s identity as a digital destination.

Markham’s capacity for engagement with community members has grown significantly through the recent launch of Your Voice Markham, the city’s online engagement site that seeks ideas and feedback on important city matters. The goal is to empower residents, partners and businesses to be more active in shaping the community and Markham’s future.

Markham Municipal Election - Online Voting Initiative

Markham has exceptional broadband availability and more than 95% adoption of broadband. This allows Markham to be a trailblazer in digital democracy initiatives. A major portion of the city's municipal government services are available online, but the most notable project to take advantage of Markham's broadband availability is Markham's Municipal Election - Online Voting initiative.

The City’s innovative 2018 election model was shaped by Markham’s digital strategy, academic research, rigorous testing and extensive post-vote feedback from voters in previous elections which indicated that accessibility, lack of convenience and time constraints were major reasons people did not vote in the past. The online voting initiative provided increased accessibility and convenience to voters with more hours to vote than ever before. By leveraging broadband access, voters in Markham were able to cast their ballot online anywhere, anytime during the entire voting period using a desktop, tablet or mobile device.

More than 60% of Markham’s diverse population speaks a first language other than English. The online voting initiative allowed key voter information to be provided in the top 6 languages spoken in Markham, effectively reaching eligible voters regardless of their ethnicity. The online voting initiative also provided a fully accessible voting channel to allow persons with disabilities the opportunity to cast a ballot independently online. The Markham Public Library (MPL) conducted lunch and learn sessions for seniors and digital literacy seminars about online voting. The online voting initiative served to promote the extended use of broadband for the significant and important purpose of executing the right to vote and it provided the encouragement and opportunity for more people than ever before to exercise their right to vote at the municipal level and play their part in shaping Markham’s future.

Markham Public Library Digital Inclusion Program

The Markham Public Library (MPL) Digital Inclusion Strategy seeks to provide access to broadband connectivity, digital equipment and tools, as well as learning opportunities necessary to allow citizens to fully use and benefit from digital technologies. All Markham Library branches currently provide public Wi-Fi access that is freely available to visitors. As well, the majority of branches provide multiple public access computers (PACs) that can be reserved for use by all patrons at no charge. This extends the availability and benefits of digital tools to those residents who might not otherwise have access to them. Digital media labs in each branch of the MPL also provide further access to technology. Markham implemented the first digital media lab and makerspace under this strategy at the Aaniin Library, which includes four industry-standard computers set up for graphic design, sound and vision editing, animation and other digital media services. The makerspace features a textile lab, 3D printers and scanners and a commercial-grade laser cutter. Staff provides assistance to patrons in learning this technology, group instruction on premise and in partnership with local schools, and through workshops designed to focus on digital literacy development.

Based on the success of this strategy to date, additional digital media labs are being expanded at MPL’s Angus Glen and Thornhill Community Centre branches. The next phase of this project includes expanding 3D printer access to all branches in the system. In 2020, the city plans to expand the digital literacy strategy further by creating two new labs at the Markham Village and Cornell libraries with specialized technologies, including a sound recording studio to compliment the library's musical instrument lending library and a KidsMakerSpace, featuring toys and tools to teach STEAM principles to preschool children.

STEAM Digital Skills Program

The Markham Public Library offers many STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts & Math) programs to local schools. Teachers book an appointment with the library to have a digital literacy or outreach specialist visit their classroom to lead educational activities while allowing students to use new and exciting technologies. As part of the program, students explore STEAM concepts including engineering, circuit building and coding in order to create a small town with stable structures, functional lighting, moving bridges and purposeful roadways. Through these activities, students develop collaborative and community-building abilities in addition to technical and academic skills. 95% of students who have taken a STEAM workshop with MPL report having more knowledge of the topic, and 88% report feeling more confident. In addition, 90% of students report applying what they learned outside the courses. Similar programs are also available in Library branches for adults and seniors.

In addition to STEAM workshops conducted in conjunction with schools, MPL offers the CoderDojo program. CoderDojo is a global network of free, volunteer-led, independent, community-based programming clubs for young people. During a club meeting, all in attendance learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs and games and to explore technology. The program targets children ages 8-13 who are interested in growing their digital literacy skills. It seeks to prepare children for a digital future, where coding and programming are part of their careers.

Hardware Catalyst Initiative

The Hardware Catalyst Initiative (HCI) is Canada’s first incubator to focus on hardware and silicon solutions, targeting small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in key sectors including digital media & ICT, advanced manufacturing, health and environment. Announced in June 2019, the HCI includes a $5 million investment over five years through FedDev Ontario’s Regional Innovation Ecosystem funding stream. This initiative is designed to help shorten development cycles and close gaps faced by SMEs. The HCI is driven by ventureLAB, the regional innovation center and technology incubator hub located in Markham and supported by the City. ventureLAB supports technology entrepreneurs through programs focused on capital, talent, technology and customers to advance Canada’s economy on a local, national and global scale.

Beginning in 2017, ventureLAB, together with industry and not-for-profit partners, explored the need and feasibility of a Hardware Catalyst Initiative in Ontario. A common challenge discovered was the lack of access to expensive tools, resources, and clean rooms for SMEs building hardware and silicon technologies in Canada, as well as a significant mentorship and talent gap. In late 2018, they began working on a proposal to establish the Hardware Catalyst Initiative, and in early 2019 submitted a proposal to the Government of Canada’s FedDev Ontario program under the Regional Innovation Ecosystem funding stream. The proposal was accepted and the commitment of a $5 million investment over 5 year for the HCI was announced in June of 2019. As well, ventureLAB is in the process of finalizing collaboration agreements with industry partners for additional funding.

Access to expensive tools, equipment and resources is the top challenge hardware companies face in growing and scaling in Canada. On average, a design license for a small startup team ranges from $50K to $75K per seat, per year, and is available through only two companies, one of whom is a partner in the HCI. The HCI would give SMEs building and leveraging hardware and silicon solutions access to the necessary equipment and industry expertise to accelerate time to market. This will significantly reduce costs, enabling them to become globally competitive Canadian businesses and redeploy valuable capital to hire local talent in Canada, creating a sustainable pipeline of technical and business talent.

Over the next five years, HCI is anticipated to support over 40 small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), create or license more than 30 new intellectual properties (IP), commercialize at least 15 new products or services, and create over 200 new jobs. It will bring focus to this important sector in Southern Ontario and will be a key driver in amplifying the regional economy, and serve as an attraction mechanism for retaining talent, new job creation, attracting R&D dollars, and creating homegrown intellectual property that can be scaled globally. This initiative and many others have positioned Markham as a city with the resources, community and training availability to meet the challenges of the modern world and only grow stronger in the process.

Population: 354,000

Website: www.markham.ca

Smart21 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2024

Top7 2020

Leeds is the eighth-largest city in the United Kingdom by population, but it proudly claims the third-largest number of jobs, due to fast employment growth in the past decade.  That growth is the product of a highly diverse economy, to which finance and business services contribute 38% of total output while 1,800 manufacturing firms employ nearly 40,000 people.  Retail, tourism, construction, the creative industries and the public sector make up the rest.  The city is home to no less than five universities and the country’s fourth largest student population, and is the vital center of a £56 billion regional economy

Though no longer dominant, manufacturing is in the city’s DNA.  Two centuries ago, it was an important center for the wool trade and a major mill town producing wool, flax, iron, printed materials and engineered products.  That history also explains the focus of the city’s Intelligent Community programs, many of which target the 24% of the population that live in what national government identifies as districts suffering from multiple forms of deprivation.  For all its economic vitality, Leeds ranks 33rd out of more than 300 local authorities in the UK in the proportion of districts in the most deprived 10% nationally.  It is a story familiar in cities across the industrialized world, where deprived districts are home to generations of families economically stranded by the decline of low-skilled manufacturing jobs and whose educational qualifications are an increasingly poor fit for the opportunities of the digital age.

The Digital Life

Research suggests that Leeds is home to about 90,000 adults who lack basic digital skills.  A program called 100% Digital Leeds, launched in 2016, is a lending program for tablets, those touch-screen devices that provide new users an easy-to-understand online experience. The city works with three organizations across Leeds that target different groups of users.  The Refugee Education and Training Advice Service offers classes to immigrant groups studying English as a second language.  The Older People’s Action group helps older, often socially isolated people use tablets to book appointments, research health topics and keep in touch with family and friends.  A Children’s Services organization works with young people who are aging out of the care system and introduces them to the use of tablets to apply for jobs and prepare for further education.

Leeds Pathways brings this focus on inclusion to young people seeking information about employment and apprenticeships.  It is a local government website that sets out career paths open to young people through videos, fact sheets and information on the important and growing employment sectors in the city, from creative and digital to health, professional services and construction.  Most important for students without undergraduate or graduate degrees, it provides a route into apprenticeships in these sectors with participating companies. 

A Smarter Energy Plan

In 2013, Leeds launched the first phase of a city-wide district heating network: a system of underground pipes that deliver heat via hot water to buildings on the network.  It represented a multi-pronged approach to a future for the city that is sustainable in environmental, financial and inclusion terms.  The project began with construction of a recycling and energy recovery facility to generate the heat for the network, which was completed in 2016.  By early 2019, the city finished installing pipes and had begun installation work in buildings. 

The completed network is expected to reduce the city’s total carbon emissions by 22,000 tons per year, which will contribute to city-wide target of 40% CO2 reduction from 2005 to 2020.  At the same time, it will reduce annual heating fuel bills by up to £250 per household, benefitting all residents and in particular low-income households struggling with fuel poverty.  The project has also become a showcase with local educational impact: students from the local Co-operative Academy study the project as part of climate change studies and even developed its local brand of “Leeds PIPES.” 

Innovating in Connectivity and Business

With its vibrant economy, Leeds is well-served for broadband connectivity, but coverage is uneven because the large municipal footprint includes suburban and rural areas.  The city, together with West Yorkshire and the European Union, have funded deployment of “superfast broadband” offering download speeds of up to 80 Mbps.  Phase one of the project, beginning in 2013, made service available to more than 64,000 homes and businesses.  Phase two, launched in 2015, extended the network to an additional 33,000 homes and businesses. 

Connectivity is at the heart of ODI Leads, a project inspired by the founding of the Open Data Institute (ODI) in London by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt.  A partnership of ODI, city councils, West Yorkshire, a university and private companies, ODI Leeds hosts events to bring together a community of innovators, produces open data projects and promotes understanding of open data in the region.  Its projects have included a UK Tech Innovation Index, apps to help travel and emergency services in the region, and energy education for schools.

The city’s mix of social policy, technology and entrepreneurship is summed up in the Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy (www.leedsgrowthstrategy.co.uk).  It sets out how city council, the private sector, universities, colleges, schools and social enterprises will work together to grow an economy ensuring that everyone in the city contributes to and benefits from growth. 

The strategy updates a plan published in 2010 and sets out 12 “big ideas” – an action plan for 2018-2023 to encourage inclusive growth in the city by supporting people, places and productivity.  They range from doubling the size of the city center to developing Leeds as a digital city and backing innovators and entrepreneurs building the next generation of successful businesses.  Though the word does not appear in any of its discussions, the Strategy envisions an Intelligent Community rising in the British Midlands that not only creates prosperity but ensures it is shared widely among its people.

Population: 781,700

Website: www.leeds.gov.uk

Smart21 2020

Westerville is a northeastern suburb of Columbus, capital of the state of Ohio, and home to nearly 40,000 people.  It takes its name from the Dutch family that founded it in the 1800s. It was a small place that eventually became known as the “Dry Capital of the World,” based on an 1859 law that forbid the sale of alcohol in the city and the decision of the Anti-Saloon League – which played a leading role in Prohibition – to move its national headquarters there in 1909. It was only in the 1990s, when Westerville annexed land that included alcohol-selling businesses, that local prohibition began to change.   

WeConnect 

In the more than two decades since, Westerville has made a career of embracing change. In 2007, the city began planning expansion of an existing government fiber network to support smart-grid applications. (Like many smaller US cities, it owns its own electric utility.) The planning process revealed a lack of affordable choices for broadband and data center services. That ultimately led City Council to found WeConnect: an underground fiber network connected to a community-owned data center and delivering 100 Gbps connectivity to municipal service providers, businesses, schools, the local university and research institutes.   

The network and carrier-neutral community data center began operations in 2012. By 2018, more than 40 miles of the fiber network had been lit. After an investment of more than US$6 million, WeConnect has been profitable three out of the first six years of operation – and its impact has been much greater than mere speed or capacity. The city spent more than 85% of funds with businesses within a two-mile radius of City Hall, creating jobs and profits that benefited the community. The network and data center have saved customers more than $2 million since 2014, with one customer crediting the network with helping avoid a $1 million capital expense for its own data center. WeConnect has also become an important attractor to business that, when bundled into incentive packages, has helped persuade site selectors to give the community a closer look.   

Benefits of the Smart Grid 

The municipal utility, Westerville Electric Division, got smart-grid applications that sparked the network’s construction. The utility’s operations date back to 1898, but since WeConnect went live, it has rolled out services including advanced metering and an online portal, which let customers monitor electric and water usage by the hour, and a Rush Hour Rewards Program, that offers rebates to customer who let the utility adjust their air-conditioning to better manage peak loads. Realizing that most energy-saving programs target large corporations, it introduced a Small BusinessWISE program that provides energy-efficiency consultants to audit small businesses and recommend changes that will save money.   

New Pathways to a Career 

In 2014, Westerville was one of 14 central Ohio school districts that shared funding for initiatives called Career Pathways, which aim to create new post-secondary education options for students while closing workforce gaps. All are member of the Central Ohio Compact, an agreement among educational institutions to improve access to educational achievement for the next generation. The Health Career Pathways is a collaboration among nine school districts, Columbus State Community College (CSCC) and healthcare providers including Westville’s Mount Carmel Health System. Beginning as early as their first year in high school, students can enroll in the program, which combines high school and college coursework with shadowing of medical professionals. They earn dual credit and have the potential to finish high school with a credential as a clinical lab assistant. The program was piloted in the spring of 2018 with student rotations in two hospital departments; it proved so successful that the rotations have expanded to 16 different spots.   

The Business Logistics Pathway – also a collaboration of CSCC and industry partners – leads to certification as a logistics associate and technician. This earned credit puts students on track to complete a two-year associates degree in supply chain management with only one year of additional coursework, and the opportunity to apply this education to completion of a four-year degree. The Engineering Pathways prepares students for careers in computer-assisted manufacturing, a sector that represents more than 86,000 jobs in central Ohio and is projected to continue growing. Ten school districts, Sinclair Community College and industry partners collaborate to build skills in advanced manufacturing, robotics, design and fabrication. In the most recent year, enrollment grew by 17% for Business Logistics and 100% for Health. Twenty-seven students earned a clinical laboratory assistant certificate in the program’s first two years. 

STEAM Innovation 

Otterbein University in Westerville dates back to 1847 and was the first coeducational college in the United States to admit women to study alongside men in the same classes. In 2016, in another advance, it opened The Point, a new science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) innovation center that ties academics to the business and manufacturing needs of the community. The Point provides office space and support for startups, lab space and prototyping services for small-to-midsize manufacturers, a makerspace for the community and dedicated education spaces for school students. It does not claim ownership of the innovations developed there, a policy it shares with the University of Waterloo in Canada, which is renowned for its ability to generate new companies. The feasibility study for the center projected that it would create 200 new jobs in five years totaling US$16 million in payroll and $3.6 million in state and local taxes.

Welcoming the Stranger 

Digital equality is the province of the Westerville Public Library. In 1994, it became the first library in the state to offer patrons full access to the internet. It now offers computer labs and training targeted at patrons from job seekers to senior citizens, as well as a Kid’s Center, Teen Center and Gaming Room. Anyone baffled by a technology program can get personalized help through the “Borrow a Librarian” program, while the “Borrow the Internet” program lets patrons without internet access at home borrow a Wi-Fi mobile hotspot.  

In recent years, the library has targeted the immigrant population of the region. Central Ohio is home to the second largest Somali population in the US and the largest Bhutanese Nepali population outside Bhutan. In 2015-16, the library won a grant to host Somali language and culture classes, and in 2018, a grant that made it possible to launch technology classes in Somali and Nepali, taught by local Somali and Nepali teachers. Demand has been strong from immigrants eager to make a home in the community.   

Rising to Challenge 

In February 2018, two Westerville police officers were slain as they responded to a domestic violence call – the first deaths of active-duty officers in the city’s 160-year history. Over the next two weeks, the city’s handling of communications and logistics – largely enabled by technology – would prove critical in forging community unity around the tragedy.   

As local and national media picked up the story, the city’s Community Affairs department used Google Drive to disseminate news and respond to media inquiries. City officials were assigned to social media listening to allow the city to respond to misinformation and share the facts. With the establishment of the #WestervilleStrong hashtag, people in the community gained a way to stay updated, express their grief and connect with others through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It also helped city officials monitor the social media conversation and set an appropriate tone.   

Total social media reach during the period topped 2.5 million. The WestervilleStrong Facebook group grew to more than 6,000 followers and, seven months later, was still growing. But the daily number of attempted cyberattacks and phishing emails also doubled during the two weeks that followed the shootings. The city’s established cyber-monitoring systems and user protocols thwarted all attempts to hack the government’s network.   

Westerville has benefited from its proximity to another Intelligent Community – Dublin, home of an ICF Global Institute. It was through the work of that Institute that first came to see its efforts as part of a comprehensive approach to economic and social development in the digital age, and to begin identifying ways to fill gaps and accelerate its progress. Proud of its heritage, Westerville is targeting a future in which suburban and even rural cities have the same opportunities as big cities to make the tech revolution pay off for its people.

Population: 39,737

Website: www.westerville.org

Smart21 2019 | 2020

Top7 2019 | 2020

Surat is nicknamed the Diamond City of India for its famous diamond cutting and polishing industry, founded in the late 1950s. With its location on the Tapi River, Surat has been a major port city at several points in Indian history, including serving as the nation’s emporium for gold and cloth exports, as well as shipbuilding and textile manufacturing in the late 1600s and early 1700s. The early 19^th century saw a sharp decline in the city’s prosperity with a stagnant economy and population dropping to around 80,000 inhabitants. India’s railways opening changed all that, reviving Surat as a hub for textile and mineral production and refinement. And over the past twenty years, the city has taken steps to ensure continued prosperity in the modern world as an Intelligent Community.

The SURAT Ideas & Innovation LAB

With its economy so traditionally dependent on land and river shipping lanes, Surat aims to expand its local business portfolio by helping entrepreneurs get off the ground. To meet this goal, the SuratSmartcity corporation created a not-for-profit company called SURATi iLAB, which stands for SURAT ideas & innovation LAB. The lab aims to provide a place for aspiring entrepreneurs in Surat and the surrounding region to connect to peers, build partnerships, obtain necessary training and foster a culture of innovation and research. As of 2018, SURATi iLAB has begun building an incubator with space for up to 120 entrepreneurs to work and meet. While construction is underway, the company has formed partnerships with leading regional organizations, including academic, trade and industry associations, R&D training institutes, startup accelerators, angel investor groups and philanthropic foundations to provide necessary services to nurture a budding startup ecosystem. SURATi iLAB has also gathered a large and growing group of experts to serve as mentors for entrepreneurs in the incubator upon its completion.

Citizen Central Mobile App

In August of 2013, the Surat Municipal Corporation launched its Citizen Central Mobile App. The app offers information and services for citizens, including the ability to pay taxes and utility bills online, obtain birth and death certificates, learn more about elected officials and administrative offices and register grievances with the proper offices. The Citizen Central Mobile App has seen 3 million downloads since its creation with over 20% of total grievance reports and 10% of total financial government transactions now taking place through the app.

One of the major services offered as part of the Citizen Central Mobile App is the Comprehensive Complaint Management System. With a city of over 4 million people to serve, the government needs a robust system to ensure that infrastructure services are functioning properly and citizens can access the services they need to live their lives. The Complaint Management System allows citizens to report issues with local services through the Mobile App and organizes those grievances so that they reach the right offices quickly to be resolved.

In 2015, the city of Surat began setting up publicly available Wifi at various high-traffic locations across the city, including government offices, libraries, colleges, hospitals, gardens and museums. Internet access at these hubs is free for the first 30 minutes, and access to all government websites is free throughout browsing sessions. This Wifi service allows citizens to access the Mobile App and other sites even in locations where cellular service is spotty at best.

Ensuring Power and Water Supplies

Beginning in 2016, Surat has created a rooftop solar power plant in the city through local approved vendors. Citizens can purchase and install solar panels on their rooftops at home, after which the electric company installs a net meter. All solar power generated by the panels is subtracted from the customers’ energy bills at the end of each payment period, making power more affordable for those citizens and providing a greener energy source for some of the electric company’s needs. As of 2018, citizens have installed 5,000 solar rooftop panels with 25 MW capacity, generating a total of 35 GWH per year.

Ground water in the Surat region has high salt concentration, making it unfit for both drinking and canal irrigation without pre-processing. To meet the city’s high demand for residential potable water, Surat constructed a Tertiary Treatment plant designed to use ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis technology on effluent water from nearby sewage treatment plants. The treatment brings the water up to potable levels, at which point it is supplied to water-intensive industries in the region, leaving more potable water from other sources available to residents. The plant has experienced major success since its construction in 2014, leading the city to begin construction on two additional plants to triple production capacity.

With the combined strength of its growing entrepreneurial culture, citizen engagement and dedication to improving quality of life with new technologies, the Diamond City of India is well on its way to as bright a future as its nickname suggests.

Population: 4,466,826

Website: www.suratmunicipal.gov.in

Smart21 2019

Photo credit: Rahul Bhadane, used under Wikimedia Creative Commons license