20 Reasons for Becoming an Intelligent Community
“There are few things in life that are free. Being recognized as an Intelligent Community may just be one of them.”
That was the beginning of the blog on August 5, 2015 about the benefits that communities can expect by successfully applying to be recognized as a SMART21 Intelligent Community via https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/nominations. I have often been asked what the benefits are from the unique ICF Awards Program and I have referred them to the original blog from August 2015. But three years later, I felt we needed to update the original. Besides, the original listed only 12 benefits. Today, we are listing an amazing Top 20 Reasons.
Read moreJim Stifler: It Doesn't Cost Anything to Change Your Mind
As a 25-year resident of Hudson, Jim Stifler has chosen to perform his encore career as the City of Hudson’s Chief Economic Officer. After a successful 33-year career as a Wall Street executive, Jim is able to showcase his extensive private sector experiences and use his strong ties in the community to move the City forward.
Read moreRegional Municipality of York, Ontario
York is a very unusual municipality. It is actually an amalgamation of nine cities, towns and townships that was founded in 1971, as well as a reserve where the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation reside. It covers more than 1,760 square kilometers (680 square miles) from the northern border of Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, to rural area on the shores of Lake Simcoe, in what the Canadians like to call “cottage country.” It is about as diverse – geographically, economically, socially and politically – as a community can rightly be.
Diversity has strengths. The municipality is Canada's third largest business hub, home to 600,000 jobs and 51,000 businesses. Most are concentrated in the affluent southern cities of Markham and Vaughan and the town of Richmond Hill, which also serve as bedroom communities for Toronto. Companies with headquarters and other major facilities in York Region include IBM, Lucent, Honeywell, Apple, Genesis Microchip, Compugen, Huawei, Compuware, Lexmark and Rogers Communications. The farther north you go, however, the more that technology gives way to historic downtowns, farmlands, wetlands and forest. A road network laid out in the 1790s connect north and south, east and west, and an effective transit system, including bus rapid transit, helps unite the municipality into a whole.
Broadband Strategy
Geographic size and diversity also bring challenges. The southern cities and towns are well-served by private-sector broadband carriers but as in any other urban-rural community, less-populated areas are not. To overcome the digital divide, York launched a Regional Broadband Strategy in 2014 to identify connectivity strengths, gaps and opportunities. A Broadband Strategy Advisory Task Force comprised of local Mayors and Regional Councillors was formed in 2015 to guide the execution of the Broadband Strategy. This included the formation of YorkNet - a corporation created to manage and oversee the expansion of York Region’s open access dark fiber network.
Incorporated in 2017, YorkNet has since expanded its network to support the delivery of regional services. while collaborating with public-sector partners like municipalities, hospitals and schools to improve their access to high-speed internet and better enable connection, innovation, economic and education improvements. YorkNet also provides private-sector partners such as internet service providers with open access to its network to enhance access to high-speed internet for residents and businesses, especially those in rural and underserved communities in York Region.
Among its prouder achievements was the installation of an Ontario Research & Innovation Optical Network (ORION) point-of-presence at Southlake Regional Health Centre in the Town of Newmarket and the completion of a fiber connection to the York University Campus in the City of Toronto. ORION is a high-speed fiber network dedicated to research and education, which connects more than 2 million users including advanced computing centers across the Province of Ontario. The ORION Point-of-Presence at Southlake makes the network more accessible to York’s municipal governments, schools, local incubators and healthcare facilities; allowing the same connectivity and computing assets as the most advanced R&D institutions in Ontario.
Making It
Leveraging the existing strengths of the region, York has partnered with the Province of Ontario and the Town of Newmarket to develop NewMakeIt, a digital innovation hub and makerspace for members of the local community. It provides entrepreneurs and creative professionals with co-working space, high-speed broadband, tools and technologies to turn ideas into commercial products and services. In its first two years of operation, NewMakeIt fostered the creation of 12 new businesses and helped 17 existing ones expand their operations, with an estimated economic impact of C$3.9 million. But it is not just about business starts. NewMakeIt also offers a Repair Café, where the public can learn how to fix household items, robotics enthusiasts gather to build, and workshops train members in everything from woodworking to 3D printing.
Diversity can also mean inequality of opportunity. The Regional Municipality has launched digital equality programs in partnership with its many cities and towns. They include free Wi-Fi access at administrative facilities, libraries, transit terminals, recreational centers, hospitals and long-term care facilities. Libraries in rural communities offer the ability to check out high-speed wireless modems with a library card, and in-person and online skills training from basic computer skills to continuing adult education.
Balanced Growth
York is also investing in modernizing its transportation network to better serve residents in rural and urban areas. Mobile transit payment solutions are reducing waste and speeding processing. Expanded video monitoring along roadways and improved control of signal systems are easing congestion and delays. The C$20 million initiative uses Bluetooth device tracking and a data sharing partnership with Waze to develop a rich and real-time portrait in data of transportation patterns, so that the municipality can develop solutions that serve the entire region.
A Regional Municipality like York is an unusual thing. It enables its individual cities and towns to do much more than they could alone, and to pursue collective solutions to individual problems. It also challenges them to see past their traditional boundaries – to realize that the success of one community in winning inward investment or new jobs is not a loss for its neighbors but a multiplier that makes them all more successful. While leaving local governance to its cities and towns, the Regional Municipality is coordinating and attracting investment in the technology foundations of balanced, inclusive growth for the greater community.
Population: 1,186,900
Website: www.york.ca
Smart21 2018
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Few communities can boast of having a globally recognized scenic wonder on their border. The city of Niagara Falls can. The Niagara River divides Canada and the US and, at the Falls, more than 168,000 cubic meters (6 million cubic feet) of it plunge 60 meters (190 ft) down into the Lower Niagara.
Such a massive source of hydroelectric power attracted electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries in the first half of the 20th Century. But the rise of global competition in the Seventies and Eighties eroded their competitiveness, and tourism became the city’s most important business. The Canadian side of the Falls offers superb views, but promoting tourism was not left to nature. The province of Ontario has a legal drinking age of 19 compared to 21 in the US, which tends to draw young consumers across the border. The province also legalized gambling in the mid-1990s, and by 2004, Niagara Falls boasted two major casinos and numerous luxury hotels.
Building the Foundation
Even with a spectacular waterfall thundering nearby, tourism can be a slender threat on which to hang a community’s economy. The leadership of Niagara Falls has committed itself to laying the foundation of an economy that can prosper in the digital age, create high-quality employment, and equip its people with the skills to make the most of it.
When it became clear that communications carriers would not invest significantly in the region, the city helped found the Niagara Regional Broadband Network (NRBN) in 2004. Its original goal was to meet the high-speed connectivity needs of municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals in the region. Once the network was operational, it expanded service to business customers. Today, it consists of 700 km of optical fiber with eight points of presence serving 680 sites in the region. NRBN also leases telecom carrier hotel facilities in Toronto and Buffalo to provide high-quality global connections. It has proved instrumental in retaining employers by allowing them to optimize operations.
If technology is one foundation, people are another. Niagara Falls currently has the educational demographics typical of a tourist destination. Fourteen percent of the population has an undergraduate degree or higher, while 42% have a community college certificate or “some college” in their background. The city is investing at the ground floor in the long process of changing those demographics.
Multiple programs focus on teaching elementary and high school teachers how to use technology and incorporate it into their work. The Blended Learning Institute trains math and science teachers to effectively combine digital and online content with traditional teacher-led instruction. A computer science track teaches them programming and web design, as well as how to make these topics accessible to all learners. This is complemented by a provincial program called IT4Learning, where online content connects with in-class teaching and gives students more control over the pace at which they learn. Participating students can access coursework anytime, anywhere, and teachers can interact with students and fellow teachers in a secure online environment. The highest expression of this educational innovation is Teach One, a program that provides mastery-based learning. Students are assigned groups based on skill level and learning style rather than age. They participate in skill-building activities alone, in groups and with teachers. They are assessed daily to determine their mastery, and this assessment guides the next day’s lessons. Teach One equips teachers with unprecedented real-time data on how their students are doing, and ensures that students master one foundational principle or skill before moving to the next.
Behind much of this innovation is a government-university project called ihub Niagara. It is an incubator with portfolio companies that focus on educational technology for kindergarten through university. Like any incubator, it provides technical assistance and professional services to help start-ups develop products and services and bring their first customers on board. It is distinct in its partnership with the city’s schools and nearby community college and university. It hosts quarterly Dragon’s Den-style events that bring together educators and edtech startups to review emerging tech solutions against real challenges in school communities. It provides a safe space for educators to critically evaluate new products and offer early-stage feedback that helps develop better products to serve their needs.
Enriching the Ecosystem
The ihub Niagara incubator is only one part of an emerging innovation ecosystem in a 12-muncipality region. It includes a business development district in Niagara Falls, the Spark Niagara Accelerator, the nonprofit Innovate Niagara, the Walker Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center at Niagara College and the Biolinc incubator at Brook University focusing in biotechnology. This set of partnerships is overseen by the Niagara CIO Consortium, which unites the technology leadership of the city, a regional chamber of commerce, the school board and participating colleges and universities.
The drive to prosper in the digital economy focuses not only on the future. To address lack of digital skills in today’s population, the library system offers computer access and technology training programs, and is building a makerspace. This is part of a broader Digital Inclusion Framework that has served more than 12,000 participants ages 12 to 65 and offered 7,500 hours of training to end-users and another 3,800 to the volunteers who provide the training. Volunteerism is central to the program: 99% of the people who staff it are volunteers working with such charities as the Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club and United Way. The digital training they provide has immediate relevance to its recipients, because it focuses on health and wellness, education, employment and engagement in the community.
Beyond the Falls
In 2012, the city launched the Connect Conference as showcase for its educational technology cluster and a driver of continued innovation. Every year, it attracts 2,000 education leaders, CIOs, directors of education, IT experts, business managers and government officials, and its program covers the complete educational cycle from kindergarten to higher education, libraries and workplace learning.
The roaring Falls will never stop being a vital contributor to the economy and culture of the city on its Canadian side. Niagara Falls aspires, however, to be much more than a place to gamble, party and admire the view. It is on the path to becoming a place where digital technology drives innovation, creates new jobs and new industries, and providing a rewarding quality of life for coming generations.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons, Kai Lehmann Niagara Falls, commercial use allowed
Population: 88,071
Website: niagarafalls.ca
Smart21 2018
Kinmen County
Kinmen County is an archipelago of islands separated from mainland China by a mile or so of water. But it is part of Taiwan, whose main island lies 100 miles (161 km) to the east. That geographical oddity has done much to determine the county’s past – and also hold the keys to its future.
Kinmen became part of Taiwan in 1912 and was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on the mainland, the PRC laid claim to Kinmen, which triggered its transformation into a military base that was home to more than 100,000 soldiers. The base withstood heavy artillery fire during two Taiwan Strait crises in the 1950s. It would be nearly 40 years until the military control of Kinmen County was lifted. That milestone in cross-Strait relations, however caused annual economic growth in the county to plummet from 10.5% to under 1% in the following ten years.
By 2014, only 3,000 soldiers were still stationed in the county. But in that same year, Kinmen received 1.2 million tourists and other visitors from mainland China, the rest of Taiwan and the Chinese populations of Singapore, Malaysia and other nations. An economy built on conflict had found a new focus and the leaders of Kinmen County were determined to continue its growth and create a diverse economy capable of retaining young talent and connecting its citizens to the world.
Promoting Tourism
The epicenter of the tourist economy is the Kinmen National Park, which preserves the vast military infrastructure of what is known locally as the Battlefield. One out of every three visitors tours the military camps and enjoys digital, interactive and real-life simulation games that recreate the tensions of the 1950s. These include interactive touchscreens and a 3D tour map accessible both onsite and through a mobile app, while a Facebook page and YouTube channel provide external marketing. In 2009, the county launched the world’s only Tunnel Music Festival, which takes place in one of the vast tunnels constructed to protect military supplies. It now attracts thousands of tourists from around the world each year.
The county has also poured investment into restoring hundreds of historic buildings that showcase traditional architecture. An interest-free loan program encourages young adults to launch tourism-related businesses such as guesthouses there. Two major real estate developments are also driving tourism as well as creating local employment. The Wind Lion Plaza provides duty-free international boutiques focusing on regional culture and green technologies. The Golden Lake Hotel attracts both tourists and business people from China and Taiwan. They take advantage of Kinmen’s new role as a weekend tourist destination for Taiwanese and Chinese mainlanders, and the relocation of businesspeople to the island for easier access to the vast markets of the mainland.
Seeding a Knowledge Economy
Kinmen County leaders are not content, however, with attracting visitors and their spending. County government has invested millions of New Taiwan Dollars (NTD) in education. The Taiwan Academic Network provides gigabit connectivity to primary and secondary schools as well as universities and cultural and research centers, with a submarine cable link to the network center in Taoyuan (a Top7 Intelligent Community, most recently in 2017). Schools run robotics summer camps and Digital Opportunity Centers provide training courses and enrichment activities for students ranging from age three to seventy-eight, regardless of income level. The county operates five senior learning centers for its elderly population offering courses in life safety, healthcare, advocacy and, of course, digital skills, which have reached tens of thousands of residents.
Kinmen County is also home to multiple institutions of higher learning, including National Quemoy, Ming Chuan, Nanhua and National Tsing Hua Universities. In addition to general courses, many offer education on R&D, technology, business, innovation and food processing.
These support parts of the economy having little to do with tourism. The Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor distillery, established by the county in 1953, has substantially upgraded its operations, distribution and marketing. Its Kaoliang fortified wine has a 75% market share across Taiwan. Because the long military occupation of Kinmen left so much of the land undeveloped, the county also has a large livestock industry, which generates half of the value of the county’s agricultural economy. Beginning in 2006, with the encouragement of county government, the distillery worked with the Livestock Research Institute on re-purposing as cattle feed the large volume of rice, malt and grain residue left from brewing. The livestock industry, with support from a national government ministry, is also moving up the value chain. A NTD 100 million investment has created the county’s first meat processing plant, and innovative companies are developing businesses that turn by-products, such as excess fat, into skin care products and bath supplies instead of burying them in landfills.
Between 10 and 15% of university graduates choose to remain in Kinmen County and seek employment each year. The universities, along with the Industrial Development and Investment Committee of Kinmen, hosts career fairs and has re-purposed an abandoned military base as the home for start-up companies. County government has spurred innovation in its small-to-midsize business sector with millions of NTD for research, which has produced nearly double that level of private-sector investment and additional revenues of nearly 130 million NTD as of the end of 2017.
Connecting People
Conservation and sustainability are important values in Kinmen County. Investments in solar power systems, wind turbines and microgrid energy storage are meeting one-fifth of total demand for electricity. The Low Carbon Island program, launched in 2013, led government to install 5,000 kW of solar systems on public buildings, schools and universities, leading to a reduction of 1.24 million kilograms of carbon dioxide through May 2017.
The foundation for these positive changes lies in the network. In keeping with the national i-Taiwan program, Kinmen County has installed hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots across its offices, libraries, tourist attractions and public transport and facilities. In the five years ending in 2017, the wireless network supported more than 43,000 sessions with traffic of 3,900 Gbits. So successful has unwired broadband been that the usage rate of fixed broadband actually decreased slightly from 2012 to 2017, when mobile broadband adoption reached 93%.
Yet the past is never far away in Kinmen County. One of its unique products is the Kinmen Knife. It was developed by local artisans from the remains of the artillery shells fired by China into the county in the Fifties, and the high-quality knives are sought after by chefs and connoisseurs. In sharp contrast to those times, Kinmen County imports more goods from the mainland than from Taiwan due to the lower costs. The county’s future will continue to depend on combining the best of both worlds for the benefit of its people.
Photo by Seasurfer, Wikimedia Commons. Used under the Free GNU Documentation License.
For additional images of Kinmen County, see “Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, Only a Few Miles From Mainland China”, The Atlantic, October 18, 2015.
Population: 136,004
Website: www.kinmen.gov.tw
Smart21 2018
Olds, Alberta
Founded in the late 1800s in rural Alberta, Olds has been a small farming community for most of its history. Over the past twenty years, however, it has developed into an educational and technology center capable of luring tech entrepreneurs from the nearby city of Calgary. Olds has focused its efforts on its traditionally rural needs, bringing fiber-optic broadband access to even its most remote citizens as well as an expansive learning campus that includes both local high schools and Olds College.
A Connected Community Network
Olds was the first town in its region to offer gigabit Internet speeds through its community-owned and operated Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, O-Net. In 2010, the non-profit Olds Institute for Community & Regional Development borrowed funds from the Town of Olds and combined it with grant money from the Province of Alberta to develop O-Net. Once the network was complete, the Olds Institute sought a local provider to offer triple play services to the public, but none chose to do so. Taking the lead again, the Olds Institute created its own local telecommunications company to offer such services. As of today, 100% of sites in Olds have broadband capability with over 90% of the population making use of services.
Creating a Community Learning Center
As of 2006, the Olds High School was in serious need of a new building, as rapid development in the area had left it separated from its sportsfields and secondary facilities by a highway. Rather than simply replace the school, however, the town decided to develop a Community Learning Campus, inspired by the Alberta government’s Rural Development Initiative. Local businesses partnered with Olds College, Chinook’s Edge School Division and the Town of Olds to fundraise for the project. The result was a 77-million-dollar educational, employment and cultural “commons” in a traditionally rural region with little access to modern educational tools or the arts.
The Olds Community Learning Campus was completed in 2010 with the opening of the Ralph Klein Centre, which houses a community fitness center, the new Olds High School, the Central Alberta Child and Family Services office, the Olds Alberta Works Centre and the Olds Campus Community Health Centre. Olds College gained four new educational facilities as part of the Community Learning Campus, and its Broncos now host most of their games there as well. Since completion of the Community Learning Campus, Olds has seen greater high school completion rates, better diploma exam results and expanded course offerings. Olds High School was also chosen as one of two high schools world-wide to be included in an Innovative Learning Environments study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Developing a Culture of Use
With Internet access now available throughout the town, Olds has focused its efforts on training residents and businesses to make the most of this new resource. Beginning in 2011, the Olds Connected Community Committee developed a series of training programs, including more than 20 educational videos of people using and explaining technology in the community. The committee has also created a cyber seniors program to bring in local youth to teach seniors how to use new technologies.
Members of the cyber seniors program have gone on to help the committee develop the Digital Network Area Centre at the Olds Municipal Library. The DNA Centre is a technology demonstration center available to the whole community, where residents can go to use new devices such as a 3D printer as well as various programs and applications for work and recreation. Positive response to the DNA Centre has led the library and local schools to add more STEM programming, including tweet ups, video gaming events and social media and new media competitions.
Soaring Public Engagement
The success of local programs has fostered a strong culture of public engagement in Olds. The Olds Institute for Community & Regional Development has brought together members from the government of Olds, Olds College, Olds Regional Exhibition, the Mountain View County government, the Olds and District Chambers of Commerce and local schools to discuss new community initiatives and needs, to pool their resources for fundraising and project management and to encourage residents to volunteer their time and take up leadership positions in projects that matter most to them. This collaboration has yielded impressive results, including the creation of O-Net and the relationships needed to build the Community Learning Campus. With so much accomplished in the past twenty years and community engagement reaching new heights, Olds races toward a bright tomorrow and an even brighter future.
Population: 9,184
Website: www.olds.ca
Smart21 2018
Kelowna, British Columbia
Kelowna is the largest city in the tourist-oriented Okanagan Valley and one of the fastest-growing cities in North America. Its 127,000 people are largely employed in tourism, which spans all four seasons and brings more than C$1 billion per year into the region. It is also home to two post-secondary institutions with a combined student body of over 13,000 full-time students. With a dry, mild climate and scenic lake vistas, it is surrounded by provincial parks, pine forest, vineyards, orchards and mountains. It is, in short, a beautiful spot that is a long way from any place even close to its population size.
This relative rural isolation and the low-skilled, low-paid nature of most tourism work presents Kelowna with challenges. Rapid development has triggered sharp debate in the community while driving up property prices to a level that places Kelowna among the top 10 most unaffordable markets in Canada. It has high rates as well of property crime, illegal drug use and opiod overdoses. Changing those dynamics while preserving what makes Kelowna so attractive is the vital task that Kelowna's elected leaders have set for themselves.
Breaking Down Barriers
Kelowna already operates a dark fiber network that connects city facilities and saves money, and offers 1 Gbps service on a leased basis to nonprofits, schools and private businesses. The benefits in terms of access to markets, knowledge and services are significant and growing. Its next target is underserved rural businesses and households. The city began network expansion in February 2017 using funding from the provincial Connecting British Columbia program.
Most of Kelowna's new residents come from other parts of Canada, and retirees over 65 make up more than 20% of the population. The Silver Surfers program connects seniors with Okanagan College students, who mentor them in using an iPad to surf the web, take pictures, send email, use Facebook and connect with family and friends over applications like Facetime. Originally piloted in 2016, the program has matched 96 seniors with 40 student mentors. Before the program, participants reported connect with family members twice per month; they now are connecting an average of twice per week.
Creating a Knowledge Workforce
Kelowna projects that the local economy will demand 56,000 new workers in the next five years, but like most rural cities, it watches too much of its student population depart after graduation. To reverse this trend, the city and community groups created in 2012 the Okanagan Young Professionals Collective (OPY), an umbrella organization that fosters and supports young professional groups engaged in volunteer, social, professional, sports, arts and cultural activities. One is Motionball, which builds awareness and raises funds for the Special Olympics Canada Foundation. Motionball aims to introduce the next generation of volunteers and donors to the Special Olympics through social and sporting events that put fun into giving. It was one of the founders of OYP.
Through 2017, OYP has raised over $360,000 in funds and services and persuaded local companies to contribute more than 3,500 volunteer hours of accounting, web development and business planning services to local nonprofits. Employers in the region have begun using OYP as a tool in their efforts to recruit young professionals from outside the region – and the results are showing. Kelowna's census district has experienced growth above the provincial average in 30-34 year olds since 2011, and the increase in the number of children has been more than double the average for the province.
Foundations of an Innovation Economy
Today's young professionals tend to be entrepreneurial, and the community has begun building the infrastructure to support a startup economy. A group of local entrepreneurs, community and civic leaders set a goal in 2014 of creating 10,000 technology jobs within 10 years. Their ambitions gave rise to the Okanagan Center for Innovation, a partnership among the city, the province, the Federal government and a local tech entrepreneur. The Center offers commercial space at market rates to companies, and publicly-supported spaces and services to startup and early-stage companies, community members and social enterprises. Since the opening of the 105,000 square-foot (9,700 m2) building in May 2017, all 48 desks in the publicly-supported section have been rented and 34 companies have joined an acceleration mentorship program. Atrium Ventures, an entrepreneur-led venture capital firm funded in part by government, has an office in the building and provides access to a direct investment pool.
Investing in Climate
As a low-density community, Kelowna residents depend heavily on private automobiles, and road transportation accounts for more than 65% of greenhouse gas emissions in the city. The city's Climate Action Plan seeks to compensate with an aggressive tree-planting program in Kelowna's natural parks as well as upgrades to city-owned heating, lighting and waste-water treatment facilities. A landfill gas purification plan is reducing 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year while providing a renewable resource for provincial gas customers.
This is one aspect of a broader "Imagine Kelowna" project, which engages the public in helping to plan the community's future for the next 25 years. Kicking off in May 2016, the project has attracted hundreds of inputs online, through the mail and in community events and workshops. It envisions a future with fewer cars and more public transportation options, and the creation of vital urban centers with housing for all income levels, to take the place of urban sprawl. A diverse and inclusive economy, built on a culture of entrepreneurship, will address the community's economic and social challenges.
Kelowna approaches the future with important assets: a successful tourism industry, a growing population and the outlines of a broadband-powered, innovation-driven economy. Its success will be determined by how it fills in those outlines and how it ensures that the benefits of tech-based growth reach far and wide across the community.
Population: 127,380
Website: www.kelowna.ca
Smart21 2018
Hudson, Ohio
The population of Hudson, Ohio is approximately 22,262. It is an affluent suburban community ideally located between Cleveland and Akron. Hudson is consistently thought of as the “jewel” of Northeast Ohio. Hudson has an excellent education system, historic neighborhoods, vibrant downtown shopping and dining, and a great quality of life. The City is also home to more than nine-hundred businesses, ranging from entrepreneurial endeavors to international corporations. The last 4 years have seen unprecedented commercial/industrial development from “future-facing” businesses in technology, medical/wellness, polymers, and homeland and cyber security. Hudson offers advantages to companies that want to locate in a family-friendly environment, making it the place to do business in Northeast Ohio.
At the same time there are challenges. The Hudson community had long eschewed growing its business tax base. Despite a heavy residential tax imbalance, high home prices and an aging and flat population, the focus was on affordable living. These challenges have been compounded by an upper middle-class population whose perception is ‘all is well’. The median age of Hudson is a rapidly advancing 45.2 years with approximately 72% of residents over the age of 25 holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Median household income is approximately $129,000. But like intelligent communities everywhere, it is a place in transition from one economy to the next. Hudson seeks to secure its future at a time when smaller communities without a distinct competitive advantage are seeing their human, economic, and cultural assets drained away by bigger places.
Velocity Broadband
In late 2015, Hudson began construction of the Velocity Broadband Network. That milestone was the end of one journey and the beginning of another. As internet access became essential to businesses, the city began hearing more and more complaints about lack of reliable, affordable connectivity. The largest companies in town could afford dedicated high-capacity service but small-to-midsize companies – the backbone of employment everywhere – could not. A survey of residents and businesses in 2015 made clear that coverage, speed, performance and reliability were a big issue. Some business people reported regularly leaving town for a café with internet access because their own service was so undependable.
The city first tried to interest ISPs in upgrading their infrastructure but the proposals from providers were inadequate and expensive. It pitched potential private-sector partners on buying capacity on an open-access network to be capitalized by the city. The response was tepid. Finally, City Council agreed to become a retail service provider. It made a US$3.3 million internal loan so that its IT department could expand the fiber network already used by government to serve the business community.
Today, Velocity Broadband offers business customers a symmetrical 500x500 Mbps service with capability up to 10 Gbps. More than 250 business customers subscribe to internet service and over 100 to voice-over-internet-protocol telephone, producing revenues that exceed operating costs since 2017. In addition to satisfying existing users, Hudson has seen direct impact on business attraction. For the previous ten years, one of the city's primary business parks had only one tenant. Since Velocity Broadband started service, the park has added seven new buildings and is close to being fully occupied.
With the success of Velocity Broadband in the business sector, Hudson was eager to expand coverage to residential areas as well. The city sought input from citizens on broadband needs and challenges through a community survey and a committee of residents. In 2019, based on survey and committee findings, Hudson changed its policy to stop differentiating between residential and business structures for coverage, expanding Velocity’s potential subscriber footprint from 600 to 1,500 potential new customers. The city will seek further opportunities for network expansion in the coming years as well.
Fire Prevention via Broadband
Hudson’s historic downtown is comprised of buildings that are more than 100 years old, many of which are physically attached or at least directly adjacent to one another. Even one building catching fire in the area could spell disaster for all of downtown, wiping out businesses, lives and history all at once. The primary way to prevent such spreading fires is quick detection, but most options, such as running wires through old brick walls and ceilings, were prohibitively expensive for local businesses. The city took advantage of its Velocity Broadband to design a brand-new solution instead.
During the first quarter of 2018, the city coordinated building inspections with the Hudson Fire Department and the Velocity Broadband vendor to check signal strength and determine appropriate locations for wireless fire detection units. These units will form a mesh network that communicates back to a central fire panel, allowing Hudson’s Fire Department to learn immediately of any fires beginning. In addition, the devices include wireless horn-strobes that will alert everyone in the general vicinity if a fire breaks out. The city has made historic Main Street a pilot site for this fire detection network with plans to expand if testing goes well.
Center for Innovation and Creativity
An educated population tends to demand much from its educational institutions. In 2010, Hudson was named as one of the 100 Best Communities for Young People by an organization called America's Promise. The award was based on work that began in the 1990s to combat drug use and drive down the dropout rate by providing additional educational and cultural opportunities.
Today, the Hudson City Schools are part of the Six District Compact, a partnership of neighboring school districts, which lets students enroll in two-year higher education programs that earn college credit or provide a pathway directly from high school into employment. Vocational courses range from automotive to cosmetology, and STEM offerings as diverse as coding and robotics lead to the awarding of Microsoft and Cisco certifications. A 1-to-1 Chromebook program has equipped all students in grades 3-12 with a free laptop, and also paid for a professional Technology Coordinator to manage the project. Based on the Chromebook program’s success, the city will be providing students in grades 6-8 with 6th-generation iPads to replace their Chromebooks, giving them access to a wider variety of productivity and learning apps and tools. The same funding includes support and incentives for teachers to become certified as Google Educators. This mix of technology, training and train-the-trainer programs is a fundamental building block of the knowledge workforce. In 2016, a private secondary school, Western Reserve Academy, opened the Center of Technology, Innovation and Creativity with funding from a local foundation. In the 6,000-square-foot (557 m2) collaborative makerspace, students pursue their own projects and partner with local businesses to design, engineer and create products, beginning with banners and T-shirts and advancing to custom-branded gift items. The Center expected to offset 100% of its operating costs through such projects by the end of 2017.
Innovation does not, however, stop with the Academy's students. The Center has invited public schools to explore the facility and hosted a Digital Fabrication Camp for younger students. A 2017 gift to the school made it possible for students from rural, disadvantaged Ohio towns to spend three weeks of learning and exploration at the Center and to board at the Academy.
Engaging the Community
Hudson's economic development leadership discovered in 2017 that a highly valuable asset was hiding in plain sight. The city is home to nearly 80 Chairs, CEOs and founders of major corporations, universities and nonprofits in the region. To put that talent to work, the city and Hudson Community Foundation established the Business Leader Advisory Board, which meets biannually to prioritize opportunities arising from Velocity Broadband and other developments, and to act throughout the year as advocates for the city beyond its borders. Still in the early stage at the time of this report, the Board provides to Hudson the kind of expertise, insight and leadership access normally available only in a major city.
Another program, Leadership Hudson, introduces its citizen participants to local leaders in government, business and the community, and offers training in leadership. In addition to valuable networking and leadership development, the program offers each class the chance to develop a unique project to benefit the community. In 2014, the Leadership Hudson class partnered with the city-owned electric utility to install a Solar Education Center, complete with solar panels, at the Barlow Community Center. The class raised money for the project from local foundations, businesses and social organizations, as well as a crowdfunding effort that contributed 10% of the total raised. The money went to build a system with 55 roof-mounted and 10 ground-level solar panels, which now provide half the building's electricity and will save the city $100,000 in the next 25 years while reducing carbon emissions by 40 tons per year. Next on the agenda of the Solar Education Center is engagement with local schools to use data generated by the solar installation in STEM programs and in the Green Cup Energy Challenge, a national competition that engages more than 300 schools each year.
For those residents still left out of the loop, the city created the Hudson Commons project in 2019. The project aims to provide information and updates to citizens regardless of their media consumption habits, a formidable task in the digital age. The Hudson Commons project includes a wide variety of communication avenues, from monthly 3-4 page newsletters delivered by mail to bi-weekly “Hudson Headlines” short videos streamed online and posts on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. The city is also considering creating a new version of Hudson Community Television available through new services such as online streaming, rather than traditional television.
Getting Out of the Way of Progress
City government is making its own contribution to progress by identifying processes that stand in the way of economic growth. The city manager introduced a Continuous Improvement initiative in 2016, and one of its first projects involved the permitting process for residential, commercial and industry construction. It was locally famous for its length and cumbersome procedures: a typical residential application took 11.5 days to process and involved 45 separate steps.
The Continuous Improvement team conducted a week of exhaustive interviews with employees and analyzed the steps in the workflow. At the end of the review, the team proposed to junk the existing software system in favor of a user-friendly online interface that could accept credit card transactions and would drastically reduce the number of steps. As just one example, residents wanting to add a window or fence to their property typically waited one week for approval, a process that involved a formal review board. The new system let residents apply for and receive approval in hours without ever leaving home. That residential application requiring 11.5 days and 45 steps was reduced to 2.5 days and 13 steps, and similar gains were made on commercial and industrial applications.
The leaders of Hudson understand the privileges that come with its position as a home for well-educated, well-paid residents working at companies throughout the region. Hudson's citizens already tend to be on the winning side of the transition to a digitally-powered economy – but the city is not one to take its current success for granted. Ambitious programs in broadband, education, economic and community development provide a pathway to a stronger economy and more engaged society for all Hudsonians.
Population: 22,389
Website: www.hudson.oh.us
Smart21 2018 | 2019 | 2020
Top7 2019 | 2020
Espoo
In the far northern nations of the world, people tend to cluster southward. Espoo, Finland's second largest city, lies on the border of its biggest city and national capital, Helsinki. Both stand on Finland’s southern coast, directly across the Gulf of Finland from Tallinn, a frequent Top7 Intelligent Community and the capital of Estonia.
In 1950, Espoo was a regional municipality of 22,000, which drew its name from the Swedish words for the aspen tree and for river. Today, Espoo is still a place on a river bordered by aspen, and about 8 percent of its population still speaks Swedish as its first language.
Sixty-five years later, however, it is an industrial city of 270,000. It retains its dispersed, regional nature, however, being made of up of seven population hubs arrayed along the border with Helsinki, where many of its citizens work.
Next-Generation Challenges
In 2010, Finland’s Parliament made history by declaring that access to 1 Mbps broadband is a legal right. Today, Finland ranks second in the world for mobile broadband adoption, according to the OECD. It is also one of the leading countries in Europe for ultra-broadband adoption, with more than 50% of households having access to a fixed connection of 100 Mbps.
In such an advanced broadband economy, it is natural that the Intelligent Community of Espoo would take a next-generation approach to improving broadband access and adoption. With the explosive growth of mobile data, driven largely by video, the city sees a serious risk of capacity bottlenecks threatening city digital services and throttling the future online experience of residents. Its answer is LuxTurrim 5G, a three-year pilot project that engages Espoo companies and research institutions in evaluating smart light poles as transmitters for 5G, the emerging mobile standard that promises hundreds of megabits per second of service. The light poles will include miniaturized 5G antennas and base stations, sensors for smart city systems and digitally controlled LED lighting. Launched in the spring of 2017, the project aims to create a proof-of-concept for the technology integration and then to start building an export business for the city’s partner companies.
Transforming Education
Finland also has an educational performance that is the envy of the world. For most of the 21st Century, its 15-year olds have been among the very top performers in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an ongoing study administered every three years that tests the reading, math and science literacy. Eighty-four percent of Finnish 25-64 year olds have at least an upper secondary education, compared with 75% for the OECD, and 39% hold a higher education degree, compared with 32% for the OECD.
As with broadband, so with education. For students at secondary school level, Espoo is working with a local university and private-sector companies on a completely new model for education called School as a Service (SaaS). A school is traditionally defined as a building. The emerging SaaS model redefines school as a network of resources to support learning. In a process designed by school staff and students, teachers change their focus from imparting knowledge to helping students identify the best way for themselves to learn. They have access not only to their own facilities but to university instructors, classrooms, laboratories and science showcases.
In the first year, students have actively grasped the opportunity to attend university courses. The high school has attracted 150% more applicants than in the previous year, and the new model is reducing costs by 25% through better use of space. A second high school is adopting the SaaS model in 2018, and it will be applied in Shanghai, China as well through a partnership with Tongji University.
To help job-seekers with little education, the Employment Concert Sello project trains the unemployed in job-specific skills in partnership with large shopping centers in Espoo and the companies located there. Employers agree to offer trial places to unemployed residents. Trainers in the program find job seekers who are best suited to each company, train them in applying for jobs and the requirements of work. Since the program’s start in 2015, more than 100 companies have agreed to offer trial positions to job seekers, and over 130 job seekers have gained employment and found access to education.
Educational Innovation for Profit
In Espoo, education is not just a means of equipping the next generation with inquiring minds and employable skills. It is also an economic development program. In 2016, Espoo launched a collaborative project called KYKY Accelerated Co-Creation. It turns schools into living labs that support students’ learning and growth while giving educational technology companies a platform to develop products and services for learning. It recognizes that today’s edtech companies lack real understanding of today’s school life, pedagogy and curriculum, and is creating a new operating model to overcome the challenge.
There are risks in letting profit-minded businesses set the terms of education. The KYKY operating model sets clear steps for schools and companies to co-create new products and services that support learning and digital skills. Co-creation activities are user-driven, participatory and empowering, with school and company deciding together on structure, methods and goals. So far, schools participating in the program have seen an increase in the digital skills of students and teachers, as well as their understanding of entrepreneurship as they rub shoulders with edtech company employees. A total of 40 schools with 33,000 participants took part in the program by the end of the spring term in 2017, and the program claims credit for guiding five education startups to international markets – all of them using the “Co-Created with the City of Espoo” brand in their marketing.
Sustainable at the Core
The term “industrial city” usually describes a place where the needs of industry outweighs the needs of citizens for air they can breathe, water they can drink and a safe place to raise their children. Not so in Espoo. An international benchmark has named Espoo the most sustainable city in Europe. The city gives credit to an ongoing partnership among city government, residents, businesses, universities and other stakeholders. From 2013 to 2016, more than 100,000 people participated in sustainability events and city government launched 17 new sustainability projects in collaboration with partners and citizens.
One of the most remarkable things about Espoo is its recognition that, despite being Finland’s second largest city, it is a small player in a global economy. Espoo is a partner in the Six City Strategy, a cooperative policy uniting the six largest cities in Finland to tackle urban challenges. It focuses on open innovation, open data and open participation. The aim is to facilitate the development of smart city solutions by companies and to create an open market among the cities and companies that provides a nationally significant platform for innovation. Cities offer data while identifying their needs to better serve constituents. Companies bring their tech expertise, market knowledge and corporate objectives to the partnership. Together, they make the opening up of data a natural part of city operation, while driving the creation of commercially viable applications and businesses. From 2014 to 2017, the municipal and corporate partners have launched 26 projects with a budget of 45 million euros, with an additional 55 million euros forecast through 2020.
The cycles of the year are strong in Espoo. In mid-winter, daylight lasts only seven hours, while in midsummer, the sun is a presence in the sky for all but three hours out of twenty-four. Perhaps it is this which gives the city such an appreciation of the forces beyond its control – in particular the technology changes rippling the world’s economy and challenging every community to adapt. With 275,000 people, Espoo may be Finland’s second biggest city but its adaptability to the future is second to none.
Population: 275,000
Website: www.espoo.fi
Intelligent Community of the Year 2018
Smart21 2018
Top7 2018
Adelaide, South Australia
The capital of the state of South Australia, Adelaide also enjoys, according to The Economist, the distinction of being among the most liveable cities in the world. It is the center of a metro area of 1.3 million that contains 75% of the state’s population. That high liveability factor is the result of its comfortable Mediterranean climate and coastal location, a legacy of planning that dates back to its founding in the 19th Century, and a diverse and well-educated population, of which 30% come from overseas and more than 34,000 are international students.
The community is home to the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia, Flinders University and campuses of Carnegie Mellon and University College London. The educational connection has given birth to multiple research and development parks, including the Waite Research Precinct, Technology Park, Science Park and the Research Park at Thebarton.
Growing the IT Economy
Despite its dominance of the state’s population, Adelaide’s housing is relatively cheap – about half the average price of Sydney and two-thirds that of Melbourne. That helps support the growth of an economy that is currently and comfortably driven by government spending. The largest employment sector is health care and social assistance at 13%, followed by retail at 12%. Metro Adelaide is also home to a significant percentage of Australia’s defense industry and a major Royal Australian Air Force base.
Adelaide’s Intelligent Community programs, however, focus on building a more innovative economy. It has partnered with a company called TPG to install Ten Gigabit Adelaide, a fiber-optic network offering 10 Gbps symmetrical capacity to businesses. The network was launched in March 2018 with the goal of running fiber down every street of the central business district and other business centers. By July 2019, it had connected more than 400 buildings and 200 businesses and was on target to reach 1,000 by mid-2020. City government estimates that Ten Gigabit Adelaide will deliver between A$16m and A$76m in economic benefit, lead to the creation of 2,500 new jobs in six years, and have a major positive impact on business attraction, retention and consumer spending. It will also provide the fundamental infrastructure needed to deliver future smart city projects for better traffic management, smart lighting and security video.
Guiding Growth
The city has also retained its first Entrepreneur in Residence to guide aspiring entrepreneurs, company founders and business leaders in growing investment-ready start-ups. Kirk Drage returned to Adelaide after a decade working for Microsoft as Head of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His multi-country Asian team recruited more than 8,000 startups during his tenure. He works from the Smart City Studio, founded in 2015 in partnership with Cisco, which declared Adelaide one of its Lighthouse Cities that same year.
A different kind of guidance is provided by the Digital Hub Training Program, which encourages lifelong learning through community computer literacy training. The Hub delivered 1,392 programs in its most recent year, which brought training on computers, tablets, smartphones, virtual reality and robotics to over 4,000 residents. More than 200 organizations also sent their employees to workshops on selling online, using social media for growth, and understanding emerging technologies. As part of the Digital Hub Training Program, the city also launched its Tech Talk series in partnership with Adelaide University’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning program in February 2019. The first series featured insights from many distinguished speakers from academic and government posts throughout the country.
Supporting What Works
The emphasis on preparing for a digital economy has not diverted Adelaide from investing in the things that make it a great community today. Study Adelaide is a program that markets the city as a destination for international students. (Wonderful weather and great beaches probably help.) It targets 43 cities in 11 countries and provides a joined-up approach to attract students, provide support for them once they arrive and build connections with local employers as they prepare to leave school. The success of the program is easily measured: students from overseas currently contribute about A$1.8 billion in economic value to the city.
With quality of life such an important driver, it is no wonder that Adelaide has signed on to the Paris Climate Accord of Mayors. Its Carbon Neutral Strategy aims to have the city become the first in the world to be certified as producing zero net carbon emissions by 2020. Adelaide already slashed its carbon emissions 60% from 1994 to 2010, when a new energy management plan began to transform how the city obtained its energy. City Council reduced its energy consumption by 15% through 2015 and achieved savings of A$800,000 in the process. It is now piloting a smart LED lighting program that is expected to reduce energy consumption by a further 10% and produce an average monthly savings of 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Adelaide also developed a Sustainability Incentives Scheme in 2015 to provides financial rebates to the community to support adoption of sustainable technologies and actions that improve environmental performance and support growth in the low carbon economy. Since its inception, the program has provided over $1 million in rebates to citizens and companies in the community.
Nature, location and history have been kind to Adelaide, which is Australia’s oldest municipal authority. Like all cities, it is faced with an increasingly unpredictable future, from climate change to disruptive innovation, and Adelaide is equipping itself with the infrastructure and programs needed to turn challenge into social, economic and cultural success.
Population: 1,360,000
Website: www.cityofadelaide.com.au
Smart21 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022
Top7 2020