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.

I frequently lead online webinars and workshops. Like most things in life, they’re both good and bad. They lack the human touch that, in-person, can lead to real relationships – but they also let us share a much broader range of knowledge and opinion than we are likely to find in a face-to-face meeting in one place.

Not everyone who registers for these events shows up. That's their privilege. But recently, I came across something new. A couple of people showed up – kind of – by having an AI note-taker application log in, listen and summarize what it heard for later reading.

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.

(New York City – November 18, 2024) – The Intelligent Community Forum announced today the Full Certification of Durham Region, Ontario, Canada as an Intelligent Community with policies, programs and projects that create inclusive prosperity, a vibrant society and rich local culture. These combine to make this region of eight municipalities made up of cities, towns and townships, a highly desirable location for innovative businesses, institutions and people.

Meeting ICF’s Certification standard provides objective validation that a community has high-quality connectivity, effective workforce development, a business innovation ecosystem and meaningful community engagement, digital inclusion and sustainability programs in place. These qualities combine to support the growth of innovative businesses, meet their talent needs and provide inclusive prosperity and a high quality of life.

The Intelligent Community Forum Names its First Brazilian City for Development Excellence

(November 4, 2024 – New York City, NY, USA & Barcelona, Spain) – For the first time in its 25-year history, the Intelligent Community Forum honored a Brazilian city with its top award today when it named Curitiba as the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year. Curitiba, located in the state of Paraná, had been previously named a Smart21 Community eight times and to the prestigious list of Top7 four times since 2021. The announcement was made during the annual Intelligent Community Awards Dinner at Can Travi Nou in Barcelona, the culminating event of this year’s ICF Global Summit conference. (www.icfsummit.com) The Intelligent Community Awards Dinner was sponsored by Becamex IDC.

(New York City - October 22, 2024) – The Intelligent Community Forum announced today the Full Certification of Hilliard, Ohio, USA, providing objective validation of policies, programs and accomplishments that create inclusive prosperity, a vibrant society and rich local culture. These combine to make this growing suburban city, located in the Columbus metropolitan region, a highly desirable location for innovative businesses, institutions and people.

Hilliard is the first city in the United States to be Certified as an Intelligent Community. It is also a two-time Top7 Intelligent Community and currently a finalist in the 2024 Intelligent Community Awards.

The City of Columbus, through its Sustainable Columbus office, was awarded $778,900 from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, a funding opportunity from the Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The City of Columbus is one of the more than 2,700 eligible states, territories, local governments, and Tribes to receive a portion of the more than $430 million in formula funding that will help meet the unique energy needs in communities that serve more than 250 million Americans.

Sustainable Columbus will utilize the funding to partner with the Human Service Chamber (HSC) to provide commercial building energy audits and technical assistance to area nonprofit organizations. This collaboration supports Columbus Climate Action Plan goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while keeping equity and environmental justice at the center. These values are shared by HSC and this new program, administered by the HSC, will facilitate energy and cost-saving measures, allowing participating nonprofits to redirect more of their budget toward their core mission of serving Columbus’ opportunity neighborhoods and climate vulnerable communities.