There are three ways a community enters the 21st Century and becomes an Intelligent Community. The first two are like choosing root canal. The third is the option to floss and brush.

Amirzai Sangin, the former Minister of Communications & IT for the Republic of Afghanistan makes an exclusive appearance at the ICF Summit on Thursday. Mr. Sangin was ICF’s Visionary of the Year in 2006 and has written a new book about his experiences in Afghanistan.

One: A region, community or an entire nation can swerve with near fatal consequences and smack into its moment of truth. It there meets the realities and requirements of the digital age. It is dragged out and hopefully recovers enough to be dragged in to the right lane. This collision often is the result of a total economic or social collapse caused by a tsunami. History does not always signal when it changes lanes. So the local industry begins to fade into the dusty pages of economic history without much warning. More often than not a company or a cluster of them, those upon which prosperity had been built, chases after some hot little trophy city in the Sunbelt. Or sails off to a country in Asia where the workers are still climbing toward the middle class and willing to work for unthinkably low wages. In this case, the community is in desperate shape and reaches out like a man caught swimming in a riptide. The good news is that if you do not panic and go laterally for a while, you can get out of a riptide.

New York, NY, May 5, 2015 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today announced that it will present the 2016 Visionary of the Year Award to Rio de Janeiro’s Knowledge Squares (Nave de Conhecimento) program. ICF is recognizing the program for its novel approach, which makes digital inclusion the centerpiece of neighborhood regeneration for some of the city’s most impoverished and excluded citizens.

Former Taichung mayor and Foreign Minister Dr. Jason Hu named Visionary of Year at 20th Anniversary of Intelligent Community Movement

(June 11, 2015 – Toronto, ON, Canada & New York City, NY, USA) – Declaring that the rebirth of the American Midwest was in full view for the world to see, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named Columbus, Ohio, USA as the 2015 Intelligent Community of the Year at a dinner ceremony in the spectacular Arcadian Court in downtown Toronto, Canada host city for the global awards program. The awards ceremony was the conclusion of the Intelligent Community Forum’s annual Summit. Columbus succeeds Toronto as the think-tank’s annual Intelligent Community of the Year. Dr. Jason Hu, the three-time mayor of Taichung and nation’s former Foreign Minister was given the group’s prestigious Visionary of the Year award. Dr. Hu gave the Keynote address.

New York, NY, April 9, 2015 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today announced that it has named Dr. Chih-Chiang (Jason) Hu (pictured right), Vice Chairman of the Want Want Group and a former three-term mayor of the city of Taichung, Taiwan, as its Visionary of the Year for 2015. The Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year Award is presented to an individual or an organization that has taken a leadership role in promoting broadband technology and applications as an essential and transformative human utility, and whose work has had global impact on the entire Intelligent Community movement. Dr. Hu was cited for his decades of work in government service, including what it called his “revolutionary leadership” of Taichung as Mayor and his work as his nation’s Foreign Minister.

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

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