10 Nations including Estonia and New Zealand Represented on List

22 October, 2019 – New York City, NY and Rochester, NY (USA) – In a ceremony from the Arbor at the Port in Rochester, New York and a simultaneous global announcement online from its New York City headquarters, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2020.

Selection of this group of regions, cities and towns begins the think tank’s annual eight-month process which will conclude when ICF names the 2020 Intelligent Community of the Year in June 2020 at the ICF Summit. These semi-finalists for the New York-based ICF’s international award are global communities deemed most ready for the 21st century. Each has applied the six principles of ICF’s Method to begin to build local economic expansion and prosperity, social health and cultural richness. The ICF believes that these factors together make a community strong and resilient. Each community chose to make the journey from Smart City to Intelligent Community and many have been working on their programs for several years.

(September 26, 2019 - New York City) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today released Steering a Sustainable Community. The new research report shares dynamics, strategies and successful examples of Sustainability in action in fix Intelligent Communities.

Sustainability can be the source of controversy on the national level. But at the local level, it is easier to agree on the need for clean air, clean water, less pollution and the preservation of what we cherish most.

Year-Long Awards to culminate in June at the ICF Summit in Dublin, Ohio, USA

(July 11, 2019 – New York City) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) is calling for nominations for the 2020 cycle of its prestigious Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Program.

The annual Awards Program, which is run by the New York-based think-tank, will name its 22nd Intelligent Community of the Year at the 2020 ICF Summit in June 2020 in Dublin, Ohio, USA. The 2019 recipient Taoyuan, Taiwan, was named in New York in June.

(June 13, 2019 – New York City) – For the first time in six years, the Intelligent Community Forum honored a Taiwanese city with its top award tonight when it named Taoyuan, Taiwan as its 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year. Taoyuan is a well-known veteran of the Intelligent Community Awards program, having been previously named a ten-time Smart21 Community and a four-time Top7 Community since first entering the program in 2009.

“Taoyuan has been one of the highest overall achievers among smart and Intelligent Communities for the past decade,” said ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla. “They have stayed with it and while most people may not recognize the name Taoyuan City, it is at the same level as Stockholm, Toronto and Melbourne. It is a place where quality of life, job creation and the digital environment’s ability to unleash innovation meet in perfect unison.”

Taoyuan was selected as the 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year after a year-long evaluation that included a quantitative analysis of extensive data, site inspections by an Intelligent Community Forum co-founder and votes from an international jury made up of experts from around the world. Communities in the Awards program are evaluated based on the six Intelligent Community Indictors that make up the ICF Method and in the context of ICF’s annual theme, When Tech Giants Come to Town.

(May 1, 2019 – New York City, NY, USA) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has released a comprehensive ranking of Intelligent Communities grouped by their ability to create a knowledge-based workforce, one of the Factors defining Intelligent Communities in the ICF Method.

The list is the latest publication in ICF’s By The Numbers series. It provides a useful guide to the relative strengths of communities in ICF’s network, and an inspiration for greater progress in coming years. Future By the Numbers rankings of Intelligent Communities will be released by ICF in the coming months.

(April 9, 2018 – New York City, NY, USA) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has released a comprehensive ranking of Intelligent Communities grouped by Innovation, one of the Factors defining Intelligent Communities in the ICF Method. The list is the latest publication in ICF’s By The Numbers series. It provides a useful guide to the relative strengths of communities in ICF’s network, and an inspiration for greater progress in coming years. Future By the Numbers rankings of Intelligent Communities will be released by ICF in the coming months.

The list ranks Intelligent Communities in our global data set using data on communities submitted from 2014 through 2018. This data is carefully weighted to balance the self-reported and third-party data of the Smart21 evaluation and the data from later stages of evaluation that is subject to onsite validation.

(New York, NY – February 26, 2019) – The Intelligent Community Forum (www.intelligentcommunity.org) announced today the appointment of Moez Chaabouni as Chair of the independent international jury that helps ICF select the Intelligent Community of the Year. Mr. Chaabouni, an entrepreneur and tech executive, is the former Deputy CIO of Columbus, and currently works as a senior account executive for Informatica, a world leader in enterprise cloud data management. He succeeds the Jury’s founding Chair Jagadish Rao, who retired from a long and distinguished career with IBM and lead the ICF jury since its inception.

The ICF jury consists of officials of previous Intelligent Communities of the Year and subject matter experts from government, business, academia and other organizations around the world. The responsibility of the jury each year is to review reports on the Top7 Intelligent Communities and rank the Top7 to help determine the year’s Intelligent Community of the Year. Combined with qualitative and quantitative assessment of written information by ICF Analysts, the result combines academic rigor with the Jury’s vote.

Small, Medium & Large Communities from Four Nations Show Transformative Change

(New York, USA and Quebec City, Canada – 11 February, 2019) –  In an announcement this evening at an event at Laval University in Quebec City, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) named the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2019. The 17th annual Top7 list includes cities and counties from the United States, Canada, Australia and Taiwan. One of these seven finalists in the think tank’s annual awards program will be named the Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Summit in June in New York City on June 13th. (www.icfsummit.com)

In alphabetical order, the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2019 are:

• Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
• Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Hudson, Ohio, USA
• Sarnia-Lambton County, Ontario, Canada
• Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
• Taoyuan, Taiwan
• Westerville, Ohio, USA

(October 31, 2018 – New York City, NY, USA) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today released Humanizing Data: Using Big Data and Open Data to Engage, Help and Serve the Community. The new research report shares successful examples of data usage for the benefit of all citizens in the 2018 class of Intelligent Communities.

ICF selects a theme each year to supplement the six indicators of the ICF Method on which the selection of the Smart21, Top7 and Intelligent Community of the Year is based. In the 2017-2018 Awards cycle, ICF focused on Humanizing Data because data has become the heartbeat of the new economy and the lifeblood of smart public policy in the 21st Century.

(25 October 2018 – New York City and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) – In a live ceremony in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and global online announcement from its New York headquarters, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2019.

Selection of this group of cities and counties begins the eight-month process through which ICF will, in June, name one of them as its 2019 Intelligent Community of the Year. More than semi-finalists for an international award, the Smart21 represent the best models of economic, social and cultural development in the digital age, in the judgment of ICF and its team of independent analysts. Moving beyond the technology focus of the smart city movement, they are on the road from Smart to Intelligent.