Founded in 1861 by Father Albert Lacome, the city of St. Albert is a striking blend of culture, history and community. St. Albert began as a small town around the Father Lacombe Chapel—which stills stands today on Mission Hill—in the Sturgeon River valley northwest of Edmonton and grew into the second-largest city in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region. In addition to the Father Lacombe Chapel, the city is home to the St. Albert Grain Elevator Park, which houses two historic grain elevators. But for a city rich in historical sites, St. Albert is most defined by its community of residents constantly striving to improve life and embrace new innovation. St. Albert Place, located at the heart of the city, is a classic example of this attitude. It was designed by a world-renowned architect as a “people place” from the start and currently houses the St. Albert Public Library where residents can gather to learn about new technologies and opportunities in the modern world. This gathering of residents from local government positions, local businesses, academia and the general public has produced St. Albert’s Smart City Master Plan.

Access for All

A core component of St. Albert’s Smart City Master Plan is providing high-speed Internet access throughout the community. St. Albert has created its own municipal fiber optic network, which now connects half of the city’s municipal buildings, intersections and assets. The city plans to expand this coverage to all assets in the near future. St. Albert is also using this network to offer licensed wholesale access to community groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and local school districts, as well as to industry.

In addition to fiber, the city is expanding its cellular service infrastructure, including building new towers, new fiber backhaul, and new microcell installations to allow citizens to use their wireless cell service everywhere. St. Albert is working with service providers as part of this initiative to offer free Wi-Fi service in public places throughout the community with most free Wi-Fi locations now up and running.

Training the Workforce of the Future

St. Albert has developed several programs to help train its younger citizens for future careers and to assist young entrepreneurs in the more difficult phases of starting up. The city operates the Collective facility where local youth can access a series of Marketplace programs. The programs include skill-building workshops—such as Ready to Rent, a course that provides education and resources for finding and maintaining housing—counselling and outreach, entrepreneurship training with highly qualified mentors available and the Building Assets and Memories (BAM) program. The BAM program has attracted dozens of youth members who have organized retreats, a youth-issues conference, foreign missions and many popular community events. In addition to these programs, the Collective provides meeting spaces for youth to gather and exchange ideas and for entrepreneurs to get started on their companies.

Fostering an Innovation Ecosystem

To attract innovators to the city as well as provide an ideal environment for local entrepreneurs, St. Albert has partnered with residents and academic and industry leaders to establish itself as a “living lab.” Entrepreneurs and innovators can test their products, ideas, and commercialization plans in the city, making it an attractive place to build new businesses. Since becoming a living lab, St. Albert has seen resident entrepreneurs form an Innovation Council. Working together with the local chamber of commerce, business incubator and university, the Innovation Council launched the St. Albert Innovation Forum in 2017, an event open to the whole community where residents can share new ideas and debate policies for future competitiveness in the city. The Innovation Council has also created a Capital Partnership Program, a new platform to help innovators attract investors.

Digital Literacy at the Public Library

With Internet service rapidly approaching 100% availability in St. Albert, the city has turned to its library to train residents to use all the new technologies available to them. The St. Albert Public Library offers a wide array of digital literacy programs, including classes on using email, mobile devices, social media, Google apps and Microsoft Office products, as well as introductory programming, coding and game design courses. In addition to attending classes at the library, residents can also make use of the library’s Outreach Literacy Van, a mobile classroom staffed by a Community Outreach Librarian. The Literacy Van visits schools, clubs, churches and other community centers and provides a total of 60 different technology literacy programs with more being added each year. The library is currently planning a drop-in Makerspace program focusing on virtual reality, robotics and other emerging technologies to be launched sometime in 2018.

In addition to classes, the St. Albert Public Library has expanded its technological services, providing 45 public workstations with free Wi-Fi access for patrons. In 2017, these workstations saw more than 34,000 Internet work sessions. People have always been St. Albert’s greatest resource, and the city continues to nurture that resource, helping residents achieve their greatest potential and improve life for all.

Population: 65,589

Website: https://stalbert.ca

Smart21 2018

Coquitlam is one of the world’s Smart21 communities for a third year.

Last month, at the end of the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) in Taiwan, the organization announced five Canadian municipalities, counties and regions had made the annual list as a digital leader:

Food is life – and as long as it is, Pingtung County will be important to the people of Taiwan. Agriculture, aquaculture and fishing dominate its economy today, with specialties in roses, mangos, lemons, coffee, cocoa and, a Taiwanese delicacy, lotus mist. Eight national and county parks, hot springs, Hakka and aboriginal villages and some of Taiwan’s most beautiful landscape make it a tourist destination as well. Its 800,000 people live in 33 townships scattered across 2,700 square kilometers.

Pingtung faces the challenges of all rural counties around the world: distance, an aging population, the out-migration of youth seeking opportunity and the need to diversify an economy dependent on the low-margin raising of food. Unlike so many such places, however, it is attacking the challenges creatively and persistently to generate prosperity while preserving its treasured ways of life.

Connectivity for Economy and Life

The county partners with national government and the private sector to create and expand the digital networks that support tourism, agriculture and quality of life. Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) has constructed a gigabit backbone network to connect and upgrade fixed and wireless local networks throughout the county. Special focus goes to 8 townships of indigenous peoples located in the mountains, for which the network provides free outdoor wireless broadband. The ambitious project has succeeded in bringing gigabit broadband service to 95% of the county.

Another partnership has focused on providing dedicated connectivity for local industry. Private 5G wireless is becoming a standard for factory automation, and MODA has introduced 5G networks and applications to support meat processing, remote inspection and monitoring of refrigeration for food safety to meet international standards. With 13,000 base stations in facilities across the county, the network is supporting 97 dedicated applications in transportation, manufacturing, food and healthcare.

Creating Opportunities for Youth

Pingtung also invests in retaining its youth while equipping them with STEM and technology skills to inject new digital talent into the economy. The county’s three universities provide higher education and teacher and vocational education. They are already graduating 800 students per year in STEM-related fields. Students and graduates can join the Pingtung Digital Youth Center, which serves as a bridge from school to work and entrepreneurship. The Youth Center offers professional enhancement courses that prepare students for work in local companies, and teams have launched new firms including a producer of light sculptures and a drone services company that remotely patrols and monitors farmland.

Faced with labor shortages in farming, the Pingtung AI Agri Hub has introduced a drone training system to promote development of a drone industry. Offering license training, operational skills training and job counseling, the Hub has attracted more than 20 startup teams focusing on drone spraying, agricultural product sales, agricultural tourism and coffee care.

Smarter Agriculture, Aging, Travel and Business

The county collaborates with national government on projects aiming to accelerate innovation in public and private spheres. The Pingtung Agricultural Biotechnology Park has attracted more than 100 tenant companies bringing combined investment of US$473 million into the county. One has developed a dynamic Aquaculture Calendar application that significantly boosts the productivity of fish farming while improving visibility into operations. Another has created Aquadlink, a system for remote monitoring of key environmental conditions from temperature and dissolved oxygen to salinity and pH. These technologies have already led to a 20% increase in output and 30% reduction in electricity use in the county’s fish farms and are being exported to other southeast Asian countries.

A public-private partnership has produced digital tools that help farmers integrate the international GRI 13 Agricultural Sustainability Guidelines into their operations. The platform provides pest and disease predictions and alerts, recommends pest control application and forecasts climate impacts on crop growth. Compliance with the low-carbon Guidelines is expected to increase the brand value and selling price of Pingtung crops.

With tourism being a major industry, Pingtung worked with national government and private companies to deploy a mix of smart parking meters, license-plate readers and real time bus information via app to reduce traffic congestion in the most popular tourist destinations. The systems have reduced parking search time by 20%.

Inclusion and Engagement

To entice small-to-midsize (SME) businesses to adopt digital technology, the county adopted a MODA program called TCloud. After passing an online review of their digital readiness, SMEs receive digital points that provide a 50% discount on hardware and software. Over 550 SMEs have adopted mobile payment, e-commerce, point-of-sale, inventory management and online reservation systems that meet the growing demand for digital service.

Digital training for seniors has served nearly 200,000 elders, while investment in hardware and software in schools and Digital Opportunity Centers is delivering IT training on computers and mobile devices, with strong participation from women. The county also recruits college students to serve in remote elementary and middle schools, where they tutor disadvantaged students through video conferencing and online learning platforms.

As an island nation subject to typhoons and earthquakes, Taiwan focuses national and local efforts on sustainability and resilience. The county operates its own Renewable Energy Office, which has deployed Taiwan’s first floating solar panels and marine power projects. Green building regulations encourage also building owners to install solar panels. By August 2022, Pingtung became the first Taiwanese county to integrate 1 GW of renewable energy into the grid. Through these multi-faceted efforts, Pingtung County is raising the productivity of its industries and preparing its people to prosper in a digital future.

Population: 798,940

Website: www.pthg.gov.tw

Smart21 2024

Yunlin County, comprised of 19 townships and the county seat of Douliu, is found on the fertile Chianan Plain on the western coast of Taiwan. Its rich farmland and many rivers have made the county an agrarian center, producing crops such as pomelo, tea leaves, suan cai, papaya and melon and also housing a large number of fisheries and fishing ports along the coastline. Yunlin County’s land is prized for its beauty in addition to its bounty, and the county is home to the first temple theme park of Taiwan, as well as some of the most prominent Mazu temples in the country. Yunlin also houses the nation’s largest agarwood forest park and the magnificent Penglai Waterfall in Penny’s Water Creek Valley.

Outside of agriculture, Yunlin County has long placed emphasis on its education system, and the county is home to 4 universities, dozens of secondary and hundreds of primary schools and the National Yunlin Special Education School. In the 21st century, the county has focused ever harder on education and connectivity to become a place where innovation thrives.

Smart Campuses Prepare Students for High-Tech Work

In recent years, Yunlin County has made significant strides in ensuring robust broadband access across its educational institutions. The county has transformed all of its elementary and middle schools into smart campuses, providing 100% wireless network coverage in those schools and over 30,000 tablets for students under a Learning Device Management System. All 187 elementary and middle schools have also introduced smart student ID cards, which allow parents to access the Smart Campus App to stay informed and involved with their children’s education.

Yunlin County’s Smart Education Center, branded as the Starbase of Crescent Harbor, is a pioneering facility that immerses students in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) emerging technologies. Its specialized facilities cover Artificial Intelligence, the Metaverse, 3D Making, Smart Agriculture, Future Life and STEAM Handicrafts. The integration of these resources aims to furnish every student with a sound technological foundation before graduation. Further reinforcing these efforts, Yunlin has instituted a unique Information and Life Technology curriculum for 3rd to 6th graders, standardizing it across all schools beginning in the 2022 academic year. The county has simultaneously focused on more advanced digital training for teachers with a series of workshops, supported by the Office for Digital Learning Promotion, that teach digital learning methodologies. As of 2024, nearly 5,000 teachers across the county have completed one or more of these workshops. These initiatives have culminated in notable recognition at the "Autonomous Learning Festival," underlining Yunlin's success in digitally empowering both teachers and students.

The county government is also developing its higher education resources by collaborating with the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology and National Formosa University to develop better courses for technical professionals and create more industrial-academic internships for students. The universities are also actively working with local industries to create special classes based on the manpower needs of those industries. From 2019 to 2022, local universities hosted corporate training courses for 22 companies with 1,757 attendees. University students also have the opportunity to work with local industries on key technology remodeling activities to improve both the students’ grasp of such technologies and the companies’ efficiency.

Agricultural Innovation for a Sustainable Future

Yunlin County is a leader in agricultural productivity and innovation, with 2022 seeing an agricultural output of approximately NT$89 billion. Despite challenges posed by an aging agricultural workforce and climate change, the county is proactively pursuing "low-carbon, carbon-negative agriculture" and "smart agriculture." Yunlin County established the Climate Change Response Office in 2021 to spearhead these initiatives, promoting regional collaboration and smart governance measures to align with Taiwan's net zero emissions by 2050 ambitions. At the same time, the government held seminars with local industry leaders, farmer groups and community representatives to create an agricultural vision for the future that included input from all parties.

In 2022, the county signed an MOU with Nahua University to provide carbon footprinting devices, third-party verification and suggestions based on the results for local agricultural businesses. Then in 2023, they partnered with YunTech to establish the Yunlin Zero Waste Transformation Integrated Services Hub, which provides a one-stop platform for businesses to access sustainability assistance and guidance. The platform allows businesses to apply for government subsides, including those available through the MOEA Industrial Development Bureau’s Manufacturing Sector Promotion Plan for Net Zero Transformation and the 1+N Carbon Management Project. In 2023 alone, Yunlin County held training sessions for 33 local businesses and helped secure approximately NT$47 million in government subsidies to help them establish greener practices.

On the innovation side, Yunlin County is developing climate-smart agriculture (CSA), intelligent agricultural management technologies and integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) to digitize some agricultural production elements and implement smart controls to improve operations. As of 2024, the county has completed eight smart automation agricultural projects, including developing Smart Greenhouses outfitted with IoT technologies and environmental sensors to monitor control systems as well as temperature, humidity and soil conductivity. Another project established Smart Poultry Houses with two local companies. These locations use IoT to monitor conditions for the animals and also provide cleaning services, allowing four people to manage up to 50,000 livestock and protecting against labor shortages.

Engaging Youth in the Future of Yunlin

Community participation is at the heart of Yunlin County's development philosophy. The Local Revitalization Office, established in 2019, has been instrumental in organizing over 400 consensus meetings with civil society, fostering a collaborative approach to shaping Yunlin's future. The county has focused particularly on increasing youth participation in the community. Yunlin County established the Central Youth Hub in April 2023, which serves as an event venue with public facilities and classrooms for rent. Public- and private-sector partnerships have also funded co-working spaces in the Hub to give young entrepreneurs a place to gather and work on their ideas. To further facilitate entrepreneurial development and interest in starting businesses locally in Yunlin County, the government commissioned YunTech to create a Yunlin Youth Entrepreneurship Subsidy and Cultivation project, which provides funding to residents age 20-40 who are starting businesses in the county. This initiative has empowered 22 young individuals to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations across diverse fields, instilling both determination and confidence in the county's youth to remain and thrive within their hometowns.

The Central Youth Hub hosts many local talent development activities, including Master Trend Lectures, 14 Lessons for Young People, Local Culture Exploration and Investigation and Exchange Life Experience, all of which are aimed at promoting awareness of local issues and taking initiative in the younger generations. The Hub also collaborates with experts from various fields to provide vocational counseling services via phone or in person.

Yunlin County provides a prime example of how rural regions can leverage technology, education, community engagement and innovative practices to foster comprehensive growth and development while maintaining the strength of their cultural heritage and traditional industries.

Population: 664,963

Website: www.yunlin.gov.tw

Smart21 2024

Top7 2024

In Roman times, when it was called Miacum, the city may once have been the original center of the Spanish capital. In the second half of the 20th Century, it was largely a bedroom community for the modern Madrid, prospering from that city’s prosperity. Today, Las Rozas de Madrid is home to nearly 15,000 companies and self-employed workers. It is a mecca for shoppers from around the world and boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in the Madrid region. Yet its average office prices are half that of Madrid, which is one factor in its success in attracting foreign companies to locate there. Nearly one quarter of the 500 largest companies in Las Rozas are foreign owned.

Innovation Engine

Another success factor has been Las Rozas Inova, the Municipal Company for Innovation, Technological Development, Digital Transformation and Entrepreneurship. Through programs, facilities and grants, it identifies private and public-sector opportunities and marshals the resources to seize them. Among its programs are ones that will be familiar to most Intelligent Communities: hackathons, innovation challenges, technology pilots, business incubation, support for the digital transformation of existing businesses and participation in national and EU innovation projects. They deliberately cross over between private and public, from entrepreneurial co-working spaces and startup funding to automation of city waste collection and remote management of the municipal irrigation network.

Multi-Level Workforce Development

Such a strong business community requires a skilled workforce. The municipal government has taken care to spread workforce development across the generations and from schools to employers. A Pact for Skills creates and maintains training partnership among schools, research institutes, companies and nonprofits. Its Emprende program serves adults with previous professional experience who look to reboot their careers, as well as university and vocational students and the leaders of local businesses. It offers training in innovation practices, digital skills and business planning and development, as well as competitions to develop solutions for business problems. Its municipal bootcamp program provides 300 hours of training in programming and advanced digital competencies, concluding with a demo day where participants showcase their skills to established companies and startups. Of the first 25 participants – of whom more than half were women – six gained employment after the demo day, while others continued receiving coaching, technical resources and job opportunities.

Wireless Connection and Mobility

Las Rozas is already served by more than 10 ISPs offering a full range of services, with both availability and adoption approaching 100%. With no serious broadband gaps to manage, the city has focused connectivity innovation on its important retail sector. That sector was hard-hit by the pandemic and the city responded by planning and deploying a high-density Wi-Fi network across more than a dozen retail and commercial districts,. On this wireless broadband foundation, the city is creating a digital platform that provides real-time mapping of subscriber locations and audience segmentation by behavior, gender and age group, together with the ability to promote products, services and events subscribers.

The city has also focused digital inclusion on its commercial sector. Las Rozas Inova engaged consultants experienced in digitization of small business as Digital Sherpas to provide free counseling to business owners. Recognizing that technology is easy while changing cultural attitudes is hard, Las Rozas Inova started with a pilot program for 8 percent of the city’s businesses. Positive feedback from users led to full launch with a goal of engaging 30% of local businesses.

The economic strength of Las Rozas brings with it rising traffic congestion that harms air quality, economic opportunity and quality of life. The city funded a discount rideshare program operated by a private-sector company in 2022 that attracted 1,000 participants, whose more than 7,000 shared rides avoided 36,000 kg of carbon emissions over its 6-month startup. It was part of a larger mobility action plan developed through surveys of 2,000 residents and visitors that established the baselines for programs like ridesharing to be evaluated.

Sustainability Imperative

Environmental sustainability is a priority for Las Rozas. Recent projects include installation of an air-quality sensor network to provide real-time monitoring of conditions, and solar energy installation on municipal buildings. Municipal waste collection has been automated to improve service and reduce unnecessary collection trips, while remote management of irrigation for the city’s many green areas has reduced water use by more than 100,000 cubic meters, saving 40% of the water supply budget the first year.

A FarmBot at La Talaverona in Las Rozas. June 2024

Las Rozas has benefited handsomely from its location in the Madrid capital region, which leads the nation in GDP. It is a community intent on leading rather than following, however, through innovation, education, connectivity and digital services that build inclusive growth, a high quality of life and a sustainable future for its people.

Population: 98,621

Website: www.lasrozas.es

Smart21 2024

The city of Izmir, known in classical antiquity as Smyma, has more than 3,000 years of recorded history and has been a human settlement since the Neolithic period. It has played a key role in the region's economy for centuries as a major trade port city and population center and is currently home to over 3 million citizens. Izmir is also home to many remarkable landmarks, including the Agora Open Air Museum of Izmir, the Kemeralti bazaar originally established by the Ottomans and the Izmir Bird Paradise sanctuary, which contains 205 recorded species of birds. Cultural events such as the Izmir International Festival, the Izmir European Jazz Festival and the International Izmir Short Film Festival draw visitors from around the world each year.

But Izmir’s story is one of dire challenges as well as flourishing tourism and trade. The Greco-Turkish War of the early 20th century devastated the city, which was then gradually rebuild under the Turkish Republic beginning in 1923. Nearly a century later, Izmir was struck by the Aegean Sea earthquake and tsunami. The city has treated these disasters and its recovery as opportunities to modernize itself and provide new opportunities for its economy and populace to grow.

Free Public Broadband Access

In 2015, Izmir launched the Wizmirnet project, an ambitious initiative that aimed to provide citizens with wireless, high-speed, free and unlimited internet access across the city. Currently, free internet service is offered at 550 locations, including 85 parks and squares, and extends services to public transportation options such as 20 ferries, 60 buses and 17 metro stations, along with rural areas encompassing 79 villages. This extensive network ensures uninterrupted communication for all citizens, enhancing digital connectivity in both urban and rural settings.

Training through the Vocational Factory

Izmir places significant emphasis on equipping its citizens with applicable skills through its Vocational Factory, which evolved from IZMEB Centers established in 2006. Offering free courses across approximately 215 branches in 33 centers, the Vocational Factory provides training aimed at creating a qualified workforce aligned with labor market needs. These programs are designed to counter unemployment and drive sustainable economic growth in the region. Since 2017, the Employment Development and Support Unit has bolstered this effort, focusing on accommodating the demands of the labor market. Since their establishment, these initiatives have contributed to a steady increase in employment rates.

Establishing an Entrepreneurship Center

A keystone of Izmir’s growth is its vibrant Entrepreneurship Ecosystem. The Entrepreneurship Center Izmir, inaugurated in 2021 in partnership with TÜSİAD and supported by local universities, serves as the nucleus for nurturing local entrepreneurs. By offering resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities, the center supports startups and fosters innovation across various sectors including agriculture, sustainable transport and information technologies. Participants receive online and face-to-face training sessions and participate in meetings with industry leaders and investors, as well as gaining access to facilities like the Fabrication Laboratory Izmir for research and development. The Entrepreneurship Center’s program cycle includes determining a new theme, accepting applications, evaluation, training and acceleration, followed at the conclusion by sharing investment-ready projects with the public.

Each year, the center focuses on a new theme reflecting strategic priorities. In 2021, the spotlight was on Agricultural Entrepreneurship, followed by Smart and Sustainable Transportation in 2022 and Information Technologies in 2023. These programs encompass several stages – from basic training to mentoring and acceleration – culminating in events like Demo Day where entrepreneurial projects are presented to investors.

Improving Public Services and Ensuring Access

Izmir created its Metropolitan Municipality E-Transaction Center in 2008, which allows citizens to perform municipal transactions and access local services online. This initiative not only enhances service delivery but also promotes transparency, accountability and efficiency within the administration. Additionally, the city developed a corporate WhatsApp application supported by AI in 2021 to offer instant information on municipal services. Services accessed through this platform include complaint submission, tracking inquiries and accessing information on transportation, events and IZSU transactions. The artificial intelligence component ensures optimized responses and swift resolutions. The WhatsApp application is currently used by approximately 20% of Izmir’s population and the city aims to improve those numbers in future years.

Making use of the internet availability provided by Wizmirnet, the LoRaWAN project uses low-power sensors and wireless communication to monitor and gather data on a range of urban factors, including weather conditions and natural disasters. The data collected via 20 radio towers integrated with meteorological and temperature modules covers 80% of the city. This initiative assists authorities in effectively managing urban risks. Izmir has further digitized the process of reporting and handling disasters as well via the Acil Izmir (Emergency Izmir) Mobile Application, which allows a citizen to report their current condition to fire brigades and other disaster relief workers instantly.

Using AI to Improve Quality of Life

Harnessing the power of AI, Izmir has developed several initiatives aimed at improving urban living conditions. The Carbon Map project uses AI to calculate air quality and carbon emissions at district and neighborhood levels, guiding reforestation efforts to enhance air quality. Additionally, the Smart Notification System leverages AI to detect forest fires before they spread, considerably enhancing emergency response times.

The city’s Dynamic Detection System employs AI and image processing to monitor city conditions in real-time, focusing on areas such as waste management and emergency situations. Izmir has currently completed its modeling and training phases for the Dynamic Detection System and is in the process of integrating the System through database connections.

Izmir is a compelling example of a modern city that intricately weaves technology, innovation and sustainability into the fabric of urban development. The city stands as a model for smart and sustainable urban planning and aims ever to improve as its projects expand and provide new opportunities for growth.

Population: 3,088,000

Website: www.izmir.gov.tr

Smart21 2024

Woodstock, Georgia in the USA was named a Smart21 Community of 2024 on March 20. A full profile of this community is coming soon.

Population: 36,198

Website: www.woodstockga.gov

Smart21 2024

Warner Robins, Georgia in the USA was named a Smart21 Community of 2024 on March 20. A full profile of this community is coming soon.

Population: 80,308

Website: www.wrga.gov

Smart21 2024

Communities from seven nations over five continents named as semi-finalists in ICF’s annual Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Program

(March 20, 2024 – New York, NY, USA & Taipei, Taiwan) – At the conclusion of a conference hosted by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), the ICF Taiwan organization and the ICF Institute in Taiwan, ICF today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2024. The announcement was made at the conclusion of the Smart Cities and Intelligent Communities conference, conducted as part of the Taiwan Smart City Summit & Expo in Taipei.

The selection of the annual Smart21 Communities of the Year marks the semi-finalist phase in ICF’s annual Awards Program. The program will conclude when ICF names the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Summit in November. One of these 21 communities named today will succeed Binh Duong, Vietnam, the 2023 Intelligent Community of the Year.

The Smart City Summit and Expo (SCSE) in Taipei is one of the largest conferences and expositions for smart city technology and trends in the world, taking place in a nation that produces 60% of the world’s semiconductors. From March 19 through 22, SCSE will host 150,000 visitors at convention centers in Taipei and Kaohsiung. Joining them will be an ICF delegation from cities, technology companies, universities and public-private accelerators organized in partnership with the ICF Institute in Taiwan and the national organization ICF Taiwan.