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.

The Web site for ICF's 2016 Summit is now live, offering an overview of the program, travel and hotel information, and registration for ICF Foundation members and guests from around the world. You may access it from the Summit page of this site or directly at ICFSummit16.com.

In our first installment, we discussed how Waterloo and Eindhoven recognized in each other the opportunity for a productive partnership. In this installment, we explore how they turned intentions into action.

In Waterloo Region, a steering committee was established to follow the progress of the Alliance. It consists of community stakeholders from academia, industry and government that have a specific interest in the furthering the connections and identifying their own opportunities (investment, talent, R&D, 2-way trade) within the framework. The group meets every 4-6 months. A key element of the success of this committee is the collaborative nature of the committee members from across the community, including their commitment to fund the Alliance.

In 2007, the City of Waterloo was named Intelligent Community of the Year, an accolade that Eindhoven region also received in 2011. Because of their mutual international recognition and the specific attention that it bestows, the communities began a conversation that led to a strategic alliance and unique international form of economic development that thrives today.