North Canton, Ohio & New York – Monday 21 October 2013 – The Intelligent Community Forum today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2014. This select group of communities is now in contention for the prestigious designation of Intelligent Community of the Year in June 2014.

Free Master Classes in Natchitoches on September 27th and Lafayette on October 11th

New York City – September 3, 2013 – The Intelligent Community Forum has been engaged by the state of Louisiana to support cities, towns and parishes in using broadband technology to deliver economic opportunities that lead to new jobs, investment and sustainable social development. The Forum will conduct a series of two-day Master Classes, followed by community participation in a self-test program and mentoring. The Master Classes are based on best practices honed through the Intelligent Community Forum’s global Intelligent Community Awards Program, and 15 years of identifying and sharing best practices from 119 designated Intelligent Communities.

Any community using technology to improve its economy can participate in the rigorous yearlong awards program

New York City – July 9, 2013 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) announces the opening of nominations for the 2014 Intelligent Community of the Year award. The 2014 awards marks the 16th year the New York-based think tank will name the Intelligent Community of the Year, a community that is a global leader in creating wealth and jobs by seizing the opportunities of information and communications technology (ICT).

$6.6 million project monitored 11 communities over two years and tracked increases as high as 60% in the use of broadband to boost their economies

(New York City, New York, 12 June 2013) — Connecting rural Minnesotans with the Internet boosts their abilities to do things like find new job opportunities, engage in continuing education and strengthen business performance. The evidence of these significant gains is contained in the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) project. The $6.6 million project spanned from 2010 to 2012. Robert Bell, co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) compiled data on the five key indicators that the ICF knows are crucial to any community’s success in the digital age. Bell’s analysis shows the 11 MIRC test communities made substantial progress.

ICF also presents awards to Waterloo’s Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis as the 2013 Visionary of the Year and a Lifetime Achievement Award to Dana McDaniel of Dublin, Ohio

(New York City, New York, 7 June 2013) — The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named Taichung City, Taiwan as the Intelligent Community of the Year during its annual awards ceremony at Steiner Film Studios in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Taichung City, which has appeared among the Top7 Intelligent Communities for two years in a row, was represented by a delegation led by Deputy Secretary-General Ching-Chih Liao. The co-founders of ICF – Louis A. Zacharilla, John G. Jung and Robert A. Bell – presented the award to Taichung City, which succeeds Riverside, California, USA, the 2012 recipient.

(New York City, June 4, 2013) — The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) will hold its annual Summit this week in New York City. The invitation-only three-day event is an international gathering of mayors, chief administrative officers, chief information officers and economic development officers from cities, states and regions around the world that are designated Intelligent Communities by the ICF. The theme this year is “Innovation and Jobs”.

New York City – 21 May 2013 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), a New York-based think tank dedicated to studying the use of information and communications technology to create the community of the 21st Century, today announced that it will award Dublin, Ohio (USA) Deputy City Manager Dana L. McDaniel its third-ever Lifetime Achievement Award at ICF’s annual Summit in New York on Friday June 7 at 12PM EST.

If over 70% of the world’s nine billion people are jammed into mega-cities by 2050, would everyone really want to live in one? ICF seeks to define new role for prosperous rural communities.

Over 50% of the people on earth now live in cities, often at the expense of rural areas, and the UN projects that by 2050 that percentage will increase to over 70% as the global population exceeds nine billion people.* Today, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) announces The Rural Imperative, to call attention to the challenges facing rural communities in the 21st Century, and provide a framework for them to seize their destinies and identify ways to create sustainable, long-term prosperity.

The Intelligent Community Forum is proud to name BlackBerry Founder and Vice Chairman Mike Lazaridis as the Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year for 2013.

The Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year Award is presented to an individual or an organization that has taken a leadership role in promoting broadband technology and applications as an essential and transformative utility in the Digital Age.

Co-author of new “Seizing Our Destiny” book outlines strategies to keep libraries as key information centres in the digital age

Mexico City, Mexico – Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) co-founder Louis Zacharilla is in Mexico City to help draft a future Trend Report to serve as a guidebook for the world’s libraries and the services they need to provide the public. There are an estimated 315,000 public libraries in the world and Zacharilla joins an elite group of global experts to provide the libraries with a vision of the next five years. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) brought the experts together to map out the major emerging trends in contemporary society that will affect access to information and help libraries determine what they need to do to keep their traditional position as centres of information. The IFLA is the global voice of the library and information profession with members in over 150 countries.