“Mommy, I can’t breathe!!” he shouted. It was more a petulant shriek than a genuine plea for help.

The mother of the 8-year old boy jostled him in that motherly way, pulled him toward her and adjusted his small mask as they continued walking along the CVS parking lot to the store. He had her attention. Mission accomplished.

2020 is the year when we started to really look at one another in our communities and found new heroes and beauty within our chaos. And broadband boosted the conversations. Attribution: “Zoe” by Yung Jake, Courtesy of Tripoli Gallery, Long Island

One year ago, those words had a way different context when they met your ears. While someone claiming lack of breath was never, medically, a good thing, it was never the trigger phrase for a cascade of events that have put cities and citizens in a dizzying spin of traumas. What we witness (mainly from our devices) are seismic cracks in the status quo, a form of grief and, as if we need proof that nothing is born without pain, genuine awakenings.

It is in this climate that we begin this year’s Top7 Site Visits around the world.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, Lou Zacharilla discusses Eindhoven and The Smartest Neighborhood in the World with Peter Portheine of the Eindhoven International Project Office (EIPO).

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, Lou Zacharilla discusses Binh Duong Vietnam with Peter Portheine of the Eindhoven International Project Office (EIPO).

During a Top7 site visit to Winnipeg, ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla discussed the city's efforts as one of the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2018. Click on the image below to watch the clip - the segment begins at 17:18.

A Weekly Update on ICF’s 2018 Summit & Intelligent Community of the Year Awards

Last week I returned home from Vietnam & from London, where I met with one of our hosts, David Brunnen of Groupe Intellex, to review our pending 2018 Summit. David has been writing extensively about broadband issues and the “smart to Intelligent” concept as it applies to England for several years. As you will recall, he and his colleagues attended the last few ICF Summits and, after deliberation, the group decided to bring the ICF event to London in a time when the nation heads into uncharted waters and the future of its cities will be very different – in perhaps the best possible way.