In this episode of The Intelligent Community, Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dr. Giulio Verdini about a recent UNESCO report about culture and Chinese communities. Part 2 of a conversation with Dr. Verdini.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla interviews Rochester's Mark Buckley and the Center for Technology in Government's Meghan Cook about New York - the state, not the city - and intelligent community development.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla interviews Viasat's Kevin Cohen about satellites and how satellite and broadband connectivity provide rural citizens with opportunities to participate in the global economy without leaving the place they call home.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla interviews Farmers Edge™ CEO Wade Barnes about satellites and how satellite and data-driven technologies help farmers run efficient operations while producing more food for a rapidly growing global population.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla interviews Richard Baldridge, Dr. Norman Jacknis and Professor Roberto Gallardo about satellites and how satellite and broadband connectivity provide rural citizens with opportunities to participate in the global economy without leaving the place they call home.

Peter A. Baynes is Executive Director of the New York StateConference of Mayors and Municipal Officials (NYCOM), the membership association representing New York’s city and village governments. NYCOM has been in existence since 1910.

Mr. Baynes has been employed by NYCOM since 1985, having previously served as Legislative Analyst, Director of Intergovernmental Finance, and Deputy Director. He received a B.A.in History from Siena College and has taken Masters-level courses inHistory and Public Policy from the State University of New York at Albany.

	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.

“Neither Snow nor Rain Nor Heat Nor Gloom of Night ……stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

As I get ready to leave for my Top7 Site Visits I remember back to February 11 when the seven were chosen.

Pierre-Luc Lachance, a City Councilor for the Saint-Roch and Saint-Sauveur district of Quebec City was there and on my panel. He is the Deputy Mayor for Entrepreneurship in that fine Canadian city. Quebec played host to this year’s 2019 Top7 Announcement. Mr. Lachance was elected in 2017 after a rigorous campaign. Evidently most EVERY campaign in Quebec City, where the politics can be as hard as the ice on the St. Lawrence River in Winter, is rigorous. Pierre-Luc won his campaign by going “retail.” He went to the heart of his community and did something that seems low-tech but has resonance in local elections. He won the hearts and minds of his fellow citizens by physically knocking on 7,500 doors in the neighborhoods of his district! That alone should have guaranteed him the post.

	Rob van Gijzel

The best description I have ever heard about ICF as an ideas-driving think tank for enabling Digital Age policy for cities and towns was from Rob van Gijzel, the former mayor of Eindhoven, The Netherlands and the ICF Foundation’s first chairman. He called us, “The method of transformational decision making for cities.”

And we are. Or at least “a method” for this. We are also a group that inspired communities to believe that, yes, they can.

The world has cooperated with the ICF vision. Thanks to broadband and satellite telecommunications the world became flat. Like the sound of a rail train’s whistle, people heard something familiar and it allowed them to rethink the proposition of the small and the midsized city especially. It dawned on them that “the middle of nowhere” was no longer their domain. They had places with a history and assets that could be transformed.

These cities and towns have begun to determine the course of the global economy because of how they have moved from using smart technology to become Intelligent places. This year’s Smart21 is laden with them, from Vietnam to Ohio to India.

America’s government – representing 21% of its mighty economy – was shut down as those of us living here celebrated the arrival of the New Year. Nearly 800,000 federal employees were put out of work, including the transportation security agency tasked with ensuring that our flights to Quebec City to announce the world’s Top7 Intelligent Communities on February 11th will take off – I hate to use the word – without a bang!

Ronald Regan’s infamous, unfortunate political dictum, spoken on a January day in 1981 was not only put to the test, it was proved resoundingly wrong, but in a way that gnaws at you the way in which a platitudinous claim can reveal a nugget does. He got something right by forcing us to again rethink the virtues of government.

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.”

Ahhh, but of which government was “The Gipper” speaking?