There is a word you see often in news coverage of politics today. The word is “performative.”

It describes elected officials of the extreme right or left and the strange way they do politics. Instead of running for office to accomplish something, they seem to see public service as a call to express things – specifically, things that make the news. They introduce divisive laws that have no chance of passing. They ignore real crises in favor of creating imaginary ones. They label their opponents as criminals because they are too liberal or conservative, and members of their own party as traitors because they are not liberal or conservative enough. Sometimes, if these antics alarm enough other elected officials, they succeed in getting divisive laws passed. But their real goal is triggering the praise and outrage that follows.

On June 19-20, New Taipei City (NTPC) hosted the 2024 Top7 Conference, “AI: The Innovation Accelerator,” which brought together city leaders and technology experts from Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.

Communities from Brazil, Canada, Taiwan and the United States become finalists for Intelligent Community of the Year to be named at the ICF Global Summit in November in Barcelona

(New York, NY, USA & New Taipei City, Taiwan – June 19, 2024) – In an announcement today at the end of a live conference in New Taipei City, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) named the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2024. The 22nd annual Top7 list includes cities and counties from Brazil, Canada, Taiwan and the United States. One of these seven finalists in the think tank’s annual awards program will be named the Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Summit in November. (www.icfsummit.com)

In alphabetical order, the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2024 are:

• Assaí, Paraná, Brazil
• Coral Gables, Florida, USA
• Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
• Durham Region, Ontario, Canada
• Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
• Hilliard, Ohio, USA
• Yunlin County, Taiwan

ICF Global Summit and Smart City Expo World Congress to Collaborate in Barcelona, 4-7 November

NEW YORK, NY, USA and BARCELONA, SPAIN - 18 June 2024 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) and Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) announced today a partnership aligning two upcoming events in the smart city and Intelligent Community sectors. The ICF Global Summit will take place on 4 November 2024, immediately followed by the Smart City Expo World Congress from 5-7 November, both hosted in Barcelona, Spain.

The ICF Global Summit brings together the world’s foremost leaders, innovators, and thinkers dedicated to the future of intelligent communities and smart cities, who will exchange best practices and gain inspiration from panel discussions, keynotes, and workshops. Also showcased throughout the event will be the achievements of the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2024, one of whom will be announced as the Intelligent Community of the Year. Through this partnership, Summit registrants will be invited to extend their stay in Barcelona to attend Smart City Expo World Congress.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, Director of Population Health Analytics and 2024's TIME Magazine Health 100 Recipient.

Becamex IDC and ITRI sign memorandum of understanding for technical exchanges and joint projects in 5G, open innovation and industry 4.0

(April 24, 2024 – New York City, NY, USA) – At the March 2024 Smart21 Conference hosted by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) and Smart City Summit & Expo (SCSE) in Taipei, Becamex, the leading industrial and urban real estate development group in Binh Duong, Vietnam, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan’s world-leading applied technology developer.

Becamex IDC, together with Binh Duong Government, develop Binh Duong Smart City, a Certified Intelligent Community that ICF named as 2023’s Intelligent Community of the Year. It was through ICF that Becamex entered into dialogue with ITRI that led to the signing of the MOU. ITRI is headquartered in Hsinchu City, which ICF named as one of its Top7 Intelligent Communities in 2014, and the organization has supported innovation in most of the 17 Taiwanese cities and counties honored in ICF’s Intelligent Community Awards program.

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

(March 20, 2024 – New York, NY, USA & Taipei, Taiwan) – At the conclusion of a conference hosted by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), the ICF Taiwan organization and the ICF Institute in Taiwan, ICF today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2024. The announcement was made at the conclusion of the Smart Cities and Intelligent Communities conference, conducted as part of the Taiwan Smart City Summit & Expo in Taipei.

The selection of the annual Smart21 Communities of the Year marks the semi-finalist phase in ICF’s annual Awards Program. The program will conclude when ICF names the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Summit in November. One of these 21 communities named today will succeed Binh Duong, Vietnam, the 2023 Intelligent Community of the Year.

“You can’t just say let’s have all this macroeconomic growth and not focus on every district . . . Make sure that you understand that it is a bad thing for America that my district has $10 trillion of company value and other districts are totally in despair.”

– US Congressman Ro Khanna, Democrat representing Silicon Valley district.

Ahh, the digital economy. Supercharged with opportunities your city, county or region can't afford to miss. Software companies. Gaming companies. Silicon chip foundries. Silicon chip designers. Software-as-a-service companies. Makers of computers, tablets, phone and smart watches. Social media companies. Ecommerce companies. Video streaming companies. It’s a vast digital wave washing across the world.

Butyn is a rural locality in the Odintsovsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It is listed as having 180 residents. The hamlet is in the western portion of Golitsyna, which like many places, has a population that continues to decline. It was down to about 17,000 in 2010.

It has one fewer son this year.

Butyn is not an Intelligent Community but Butyn is the birthplace of the (as-of-recently) late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dr. Simon Potter, Director of the College Office of Research Enterprise at New Brunswick Community College.