Lambton County didn’t win the top honour at Thursday’s Intelligent Community Forum awards in New York City, but Warden Bill Weber says officials are happy to be in the Top7.

The county, which includes the City of Sarnia, has been involved in the international program for several years, earning a place in its Smart 21 list since 2016 before moving recently into the Top7.

Weber joined a delegation from the Intelligent Sarnia-Lambton group this week at the forum’s Global Summit where Taoyuan, Taiwan, was named its 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year.

The Sunshine Coast made history today, putting the spotlight on our innovative, healthy, smart and creative region on the world stage in New York.

Mayor Mark Jamieson joined representatives from around the globe on stage as one of the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2019, as rated by the global Intelligent Community Forum (ICF).

(June 13, 2019 – New York City) – For the first time in six years, the Intelligent Community Forum honored a Taiwanese city with its top award tonight when it named Taoyuan, Taiwan as its 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year. Taoyuan is a well-known veteran of the Intelligent Community Awards program, having been previously named a ten-time Smart21 Community and a four-time Top7 Community since first entering the program in 2009.

“Taoyuan has been one of the highest overall achievers among smart and Intelligent Communities for the past decade,” said ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla. “They have stayed with it and while most people may not recognize the name Taoyuan City, it is at the same level as Stockholm, Toronto and Melbourne. It is a place where quality of life, job creation and the digital environment’s ability to unleash innovation meet in perfect unison.”

Taoyuan was selected as the 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year after a year-long evaluation that included a quantitative analysis of extensive data, site inspections by an Intelligent Community Forum co-founder and votes from an international jury made up of experts from around the world. Communities in the Awards program are evaluated based on the six Intelligent Community Indictors that make up the ICF Method and in the context of ICF’s annual theme, When Tech Giants Come to Town.

The Sunshine Coast is one step away from being named the world’s most intelligent community, with the winner of the prestigious award to be announced in New York on June 14 (AEST time).

Mayor Mark Jamieson will travel to New York where he and other local business and community representatives will represent the Sunshine Coast at the Global Intelligent Communities Forum and awards ceremony.

	The Zacharilla collection from previous Intelligent Communities of the Year. Many of these cities will have representatives on the stage on June 13 to honor Espoo’s successor.

I am looking at Espoo, Finland Mayor Jukka Mäkelä in this video and wondering two things about the outgoing Intelligent Community of the Year.

First, I am wondering which of the seven communities now on their way to New York as I write this will succeed his city, which was an improbable and unexpected choice for the award in London last June? Which of them will celebrate their ranking among the Top7 but then walk to the stage alone, surrounded by Espoo and other former Intelligent Communities of the Year, to accept the trophy as Intelligent Community of the Year?

It is a question in the minds of hundreds of people in these seven communities, as well as throughout our worldwide network, site selectors, the media and, most importantly, cities considering using the ICF Method.

Second is a more parochial conceit. I am wondering if I will get a nice blue tie just like Mayor Mäkelä’s.

MONTREAL — As Toronto and Vancouver struggle to keep housing affordable for anyone but the wealthy, Montreal says its new, first-on-the-continent development model will help it succeed where other big cities have failed.

Montreal led big Canadian cities in 2018 with economic growth of almost 3 per cent, while its real estate market outperformed Toronto and Vancouver’s for the first time since 1998.

WeWork is partnering with the cities of Kitchener, Montreal, Ottawa, and Waterloo, and companies affiliated with their respective innovation hubs, to expand the Startup Passport program. The Startup Passport looks to offer city-based entrepreneurs a network of sites to work and meet at WeWork’s various locations.

The program, which initially launched in Toronto last summer, was available to MaRS Discovery District, the DMZ at Ryerson University, the University of Toronto Entrepreneurship, and York University. Now, the program is available to other innovation hubs in Ontario and Quebec, including Communitech, Montreal International, and Invest Ottawa.

NDO/VNA – Ho Chi Minh City wishes to learn from the Dutch city of Eindhoven’s experience in smart city development and cooperation models between the state and businesses, schools, and research institutes, especially in smart city building and operation, an official from HCM City said on May 21, as part of his visit to the Netherlands.

Nguyen Thien Nhan, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, told Vice Mayor of Eindhoven, Stijn Steenbakkers, that this is the first visit to the Dutch city by a Ho Chi Minh City delegation.

Recently, TELUS Corporation TU announced that it is going to invest $53 million in its wireless and wireline networks in Greater Montreal this year. The move is in accordance with the Canadian telecommunications company’s five-year billion-dollar pledge in Quebec. It is aimed at helping Montreal to become one of the smartest cities in Canada, while paving the way for the impending 5G technology across the region.

Markedly, these investments are part of a 20-year partnership between TELUS and the Old Port of Montréal Corporation, announced in 2017, to provide the location with a number of cutting-edge technologies and a free high-speed Wi-Fi zone. The company also stated that it would deploy Centralized Radio Access Network technology to enhance the performance of its Long Term Evolution-Advanced wireless network.