Melbourne, Australia, has been named the happiest city in the world this year.

In June 2018, Time Out paired up with Tapestry Research to survey 15,000 people in 32 cities worldwide. They asked residents about food, drink, culture, lifestyle, dating, sex, community, travel, neighborhoods, affordability, nightlife, happiness, public transportation, and civic pride. The findings collectively helped both companies come up with an ultimate ranking for each city in every category.

	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.

Melbourne, Australia is a very nice city: that’s an understatement for a place that, seven years running, has been named the world’s Most Livable City by The Economist. (It’s also, as my 10-year-old son has enthusiastically informed me, the birthplace of Kyrie Irving and hometown of Ben Simmons.) I'm here this week for Melbourne Knowledge Week, and the launch of Startup Genome's latest regional report, about the startup ecosystem in Melbourne and the state of Victoria.

If you Google “Melbourne Sydney rivalry”, an option comes up “song”, and a 2015 story pops up from the Leader-Herald Sun website headlined “10 Great Songs About Melbourne.”

As journalist Caitlin Ryan gushed, you couldn’t compose such a list without a song or two from “the great Paul Kelly”.

“We all know Melbourne is better than Sydney, but in this track from 1985, he nails the divide,” Ryan writes. She then quotes “these classic lines” from Kelly’s song From St Kilda to King’s Cross:

Lendlease's emerging Melbourne Quarter precinct in Melbourne's Docklands area bordering the old city grid will be given a sustainability nudge by the federal government's Clean Energy Finance Corporation through a $100 million equity investment.

While Lendlease, in its role as a developer, is pursuing the broader $2.5 billion seven-tower project, its investment arm, the Australian Prime Property Fund Commercial, also has an exposure, taking stakes in two office buildings so far.

Ramco has announced that it is to set up an Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence for Workforce Innovation in Melbourne, Australia. The aim of the new centre is to attract talent from across Australia to work on innovative technology for HR. Last year Melbourne was crowned Australia’s tech capital by the Australian Business Review, that followed the announcement of a four year plan by the City of Melbourne. The Lord Mayor Robert Doyle AC said: ”Our vision is for Melbourne to be recognised as the number one destination for start-ups and entrepreneurs to ‘start, grow and go global’, across Australia and Asia.”.

Melbourne's not just the world's most liveable city. It's also the happiest, a new survey shows.

A poll of 15,000 people from 32 cities - including Barcelona, Berlin, Tokyo and New York - showed the Victorian capital outranks its competitors for happiness, a Time Out City Life Index said.

The survey looked at anonymous data across seven categories: food and drink, culture, relationships and community, neighbourhoods, affordability, happiness and liveability.

In today’s episode, we’re going to be hearing from Andy Lee, Technology Investment Director with the state of Victoria, Australia. ICF's Lou Zacharilla spoke with Andy at Silicon Harlem’s 4th Annual Next Gen Tech Conference in New York City during a panel discussion also featuring Brad Ferguson from the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, Dr. Jack Chu from the Weatherhead East Asian Instutute, and Rui Barros of WeWork. While we'll be featuring each of them in coming episodes, we started with Andy Lee because much of our discussion surrounds Melbourne, our current reigning Intelligent Community of the Year for 2017. We'll be hearing from him why collaboration really is key in developing an intelligent community.

In Melbourne, an application called “Ask Izzy” provides the homeless with daily, on-demand updates on the locations where food, accommodations and social services may be accessed for free or at huge discounts. The application is well received because it keeps the information it receives from the homeless population strictly personal and confidential through use of smartphones, which over 75% of Melbourne’s homeless population have access to. Access to the Internet is highly affordable since they use the free Wi-Fi available in the central area and access free commercially promoted chargers. Many of their smartphones come through donations and as recycled models that can access the Ask Izzy site. Coupled with this site is another online application called “Go Digi” that helps homeless and unemployed Australians to learn how to use the Internet and develop digital skills, access information, mentors and other resources. In order to rise out of perpetual homelessness and poverty, Go Digi attempts to support the urban poor with options for self-improvement, especially to bridge the digital divide. Through mentorship and encouragement, people can seek opportunities to develop digital skills and identify opportunities for employment and housing, all the while creating a sense of self-worth.

NEW YORK CITY – Melbourne, Australia, won “Intelligent Community of the Year” this week at the at New York-based Intelligent Community Forum’s annual ICF Summit.

The ICF also for the first time called for affordable broadband to be declared a utility for public benefit by cities and official agencies. The prestigious annual award measures communities on six “Intelligent Community Indicators”: Broadband, Knowledge Workforce, Innovation, Digital Equality, Sustainability, Advocacy.