Lambton County didn’t win the top honour at Thursday’s Intelligent Community Forum awards in New York City, but Warden Bill Weber says officials are happy to be in the Top7.

The county, which includes the City of Sarnia, has been involved in the international program for several years, earning a place in its Smart 21 list since 2016 before moving recently into the Top7.

Weber joined a delegation from the Intelligent Sarnia-Lambton group this week at the forum’s Global Summit where Taoyuan, Taiwan, was named its 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year.

The Sunshine Coast made history today, putting the spotlight on our innovative, healthy, smart and creative region on the world stage in New York.

Mayor Mark Jamieson joined representatives from around the globe on stage as one of the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2019, as rated by the global Intelligent Community Forum (ICF).

The Sunshine Coast is one step away from being named the world’s most intelligent community, with the winner of the prestigious award to be announced in New York on June 14 (AEST time).

Mayor Mark Jamieson will travel to New York where he and other local business and community representatives will represent the Sunshine Coast at the Global Intelligent Communities Forum and awards ceremony.

Come June, Hudson hopes to be crowned with a pretty heady title: Intelligent Community of the Year.

It's a recognition bestowed on a single community around the world by the Intelligent Community Forum, a global think tank comprising 1,500 cities and municipalities on six continents. The group focuses on social and economic growth in the broadband era.

Hudson is among the Top 7 Intelligent Communities of the Year, with the top of the top to be named at the ICF Global Summit in New York, held June 11-13. The other contenders are Westerville, Ohio; Chicago; the Sunshine Coast, Australia; Taoyuan, Taiwan; Sarnia-Lambton County, Ontario; and Abbotsford, British Columbia.

In February, the Sunshine Coast was recognised by the global Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) as one to the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2019.

Achieving this award from a pool of hundreds of entries, the Sunshine Coast was the only Australian city named in this year’s Top7 and shares the global spotlight with communities from Canada, Taiwan and the United States of America, including Chicago.

Co-Founder of the ICF, Mr John Jung visited the Sunshine Coast this week as part of the judging process for the 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year.

Robert Bell, Co-Founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, explains which midsize and small U.S. cities are the next best places to invest. Hosts: Carol Massar and Vincent Cignarella. Producer: Paul Brennan

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The Sunshine Coast has been recognised as one of the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2019, sharing the global spotlight with communities from Canada, Taiwan and the United States including Chicago.

The announcement made overnight by the Intelligent Community Forum in Quebec, Canada, acknowledges those communities which exemplify best practices in broadband deployment and use, workforce development, innovation, digital inclusion, sustainability and advocacy.

Below are our most popular posts on SmartCitiesWorld in 2018, highlighting smart city priorities such as transportation, governance and partnerships.

For me, the most interesting thing in smart cities in 2018 was the more open discussion around the social risks of smart cities and practical moves to address them. This included more attention on the risks associated with the rise of facial recognition technology, concerns about data privacy, the acknowledgement of unintended consequences and the need to pay attention to growing cyber risks as our cities get more connected.

In areas from traffic management to public safety, Singapore is by far the world’s leading smart city by quantitative measure. Home to 5.8 million people, Singapore ranks as a major global urban area and the world’s most expensive city—two traits that make it ripe for smart city technology.

But what about cities with smaller footprints that might not seem to warrant the effort to produce widespread connectivity via the Internet of Things (IoT)? At least by some perceptions, there’s a clear correlation between smart cities and size. Asked to name the most important factors for the future success of their IoT initiatives in their location, respondents to a Forbes Insights/Intel survey selected population size (27%), population trends (25%) and population density (20%) as three of the top-ranking answers.

You are in a race. A really big, important race. What are you hoping for? To win, of course. Second and third place are all very well, but there is no substitute for coming out on top. That is the mood in the room every year when the Intelligent Community Forum names its Intelligent Community of the Year. In that room are representatives of seven cities and counties, the Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year: mayors, members of council, city managers, economic development, and IT leaders. They all want to win. In fact, they are already winners, having reached the Top7. But one of them has slightly outscored the others in our year-long evaluation. The moment comes when we reveal who that is – and it leaves in its wake one happy place and six very disappointed ones.