In a classic essay, the anthropologist Anthony C.W. Wallace described the phenomenon of cultural awakenings. Such movements are triggered, he said, by stress. “The mazeways of the culture, the customary patterns of behavior, are blocked. People cannot move into the roles they anticipated; their lives do not unfold in the ways they had been led to expect.”

Under the duress of disintegration, both social and economic, a few creative individuals—Wallace called them “New Lights”—propose a way out. They create new pathways through the maze. At first there is nativist backlash, in which traditionalists urge a return to old ways. But eventually the New Lights prevail. Their ideas are adopted, and the society moves into a new era.

Let’s just call the 2017 Top7, now all arrived in New York, the “New Lights.”

Dr. Viet-Long Nguyen

Joost Helms

(May 30, 2017 – New York City) On June 7 at the ICF Summit, representatives from Binh Duong New City in Vietnam and Eindhoven, The Netherlands, will jointly deliver this year’s Revolutionary Community keynote address. The keynote presentation will be given by Dr. Viet-Long Nguyen, Director IR & Strategy of the Becamex Group, a state-owned agency in Vietnam. The project is an historic attempt by Vietnam to develop its first Intelligent Community. The Binh Duong initiative will literally develop a city for one million citizens that is brand new. The project will rely on ICF’s six core Indicators.

I can still see the roadway at 6:00 AM, lined with people on bicycles and motorbikes, each carrying enormous bags on their shoulders, tethered to a long stick. The bags are filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, all healthy and large. An agricultural land for centuries was waking to another day, and along the roads, people were starting to spread out their goods. Surprisingly, wood-fired, small grills were already cooking sizzling meats and foods. (At 6:00 AM, I thought? Hmmmm. I could still taste the delicious cooked meat and beer from my late-night meal only a few hours before!) Life was springing up, and everywhere there was movement and calm amidst the chaotic bustling. Around this morning glory of human awakening in Asia’s youngest country, something else was being planned for them, although I am sure few were fully aware of what it was or what it was designed to deliver.

One of the founders of an organization that’s considering Grey County as the top intelligent community in the world is touring the county this week.

Louis Zacharilla is with the Intelligent Community Forum based in New York City.

Grey County is on the short list of seven communities in the world the organization considers to be using technology to enhance economic development and quality of life.

(12 JANUARY, 2017 – NEW YORK CITY) -  The Vietnamese province of Binh Duong is working closely with ICF’s 2011 Intelligent Community of the Year, Eindhoven, via its Brainport organization, as well as Becamex IDC, a state owned enterprise in Vietnam, to establish the nation’s first modern Tier 1 city before 2020.  Among the primary goals is the development of a Binh Duong New City, which will be home to one million people and includes a range of “triple helix” entities, including Eastern International University, which will house the region’s first incubator, and a new citizen-friendly administration building for its local government.

I had one of the most memorable New Year’s Days that I have had in my 35 years in New York. I was not hungover, which was a new experience. Yet I did celebrate with millions of New Yorkers, although not in Times Square, and not at night. Instead, I was on the Upper Eastside of the city, in my own neighborhood but with an enthusiastic crowd.

We were not watching the legendary “Ball” drop in Times Square. Honestly, this is for tourists who enjoy freezing for a free thrill which ends up costing them a lot of money because they are in Manhattan eating, drinking and sleeping after the Ball goes down. My thrill cost only US$2.75.

I rode the Subway.

Video has been published from ICF co-founder Lou Zacharilla’s recent talk at TEDxRio in Brazil. The talk, titled "There's No Place Like Home," focused on the impact of broadband and technological access on the rebirth of the world's communities as a whole. Watch the video below:

In 2001 we established five ways that a community, whether large or small, could reconnect itself after the separation that occurred worldwide in the post-industrial economy. Among the five, the fourth was “Digital Democracy,” now known by us and communities as “Digital Equity.” It is simple to explain but hard to achieve (evidently). It means simply that, as in the great moral mandate of our species, we leave no one behind. In our case, we urged that all communities find ways to ensure that all of their population, rural or ex-urban or dense city blocks, be given access to the global economy. For it is in the “global economy” where opportunities, ideas and vast treasures and muck proliferate in ways that can rebuild our local places.

Last week 192 nations were in New York sorting through the world’s problems, while I was trying to sort through the traffic jams they were creating in my world: the streets of New York. When the peacemakers come to town, blessed though they may be, our traffic gets miserable. However, as the home of the United Nations, we live with the hope that we are hosting people who will make the world safer and happier – or at least happier than my taxi driver.

But for the record, 85% of my trips around the city were via public transit. Blessed be IT! Let us have more of it.

Is Robby the Robot casting a covetous eye on your job?  Or on the jobs of your friends, colleagues, citizens and taxpayers?  A 2013 study by an Oxford University researcher forecast that as many as 47% of jobs in the United States were at risk of being automated out of existence in the future.  These are jobs with a lot of routine work in them that do not, on the other hand, require the soft skills of interaction with human beings.