Montreal has been named 2016 Intelligent Community of the Year in recognition of its Smart City plan, which was introduced in 2011. The honour was bestowed by the Intelligent Community Forum at an event at the Columbus Zoo on Thursday.

The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) will present its annual Summit from June 13-17 in Columbus, Ohio, USA. The Summit is an international gathering of mayors, chief administrative officers, chief information officers and economic development officers from cities, state and regions around the world. It is a place to find economic development opportunities, strategic partners and technology solutions that help community leaders build prosperous, inclusive and sustainable communities.

Surrey is one of just seven global communities to make the final shortlist for the title, Intelligent Community of the Year for 2016. Surrey has been ranked by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) of New York City for 2016 and 2015 and has made it to the finals both years. Louis Zacharilla, co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum tours Surrey May 4-5 and city officials will be showing him some of the programs and projects that have made the city such a consistent contender for the sought after recognition.

Winnipeg has been selected as one of the top seven intelligent communities as part of an international competition for the second time in three years.

In keeping with the self-deprecating character of Winnipeggers, many people have scoffed at the notion the city should be included in that conversation.

Executive director of economic think tank comments on community intelligence, innovation, and the broadband economy

Intelligent communities are not about technology, says the executive director of Intelligent Community Forum, a New York-based think tank.

The largest French-speaking city in North America, the Montreal Metro Area is home to more than a tenth of Canada’s population. The region was hit by the decline of heavy industry in the Eighties, and launched a large-scale transition of its economy to ICT, aerospace, life sciences, health technologies and clean tech. Together, these clusters contain more than 6,250 companies employing about 10% of the workforce. Read more about Montreal.

--- Experts warn of threat to London’s future competitiveness – and call on next Mayor of London to take action ---

An independent group of telecommunications professionals with more than 500 years’ combined experience today warn that London’s broadband infrastructure is so poor it threatens the capital’s ability to compete with other global cities in the future.

Last year, the ICF Institute at the Mississippi State University Extension Service issued a competitive call for research papers focusing on the impact of broadband on small rural communities. Three papers were recently chosen for publication on the Institute’s Web site.

In the last issue, we explored how Eindhoven and Waterloo structured a partnership that produced measurable economic impact for both communities. Here we discuss the more ambitious goals they set for building technology expertise to power future growth.

While the business attraction and two-way trade opportunities continue to be pursued on both ends, other levels of collaboration have been launched on the Talent agenda.