Intelligent Community Forum Announces the Smart21 Communities of 2010
 
Ontario's Windsor-Essex county and Ottawa are on the global list of top 21 intelligent communities for 2010! Moncton, New Brunswick is also in the running! This exciting, recent announcement by Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) officially makes Canada the place with greatest number of intelligent communities in the world!
 
(New York City, USA - 16 October 2009) - The Intelligent Community Forum announced this evening its eagerly-awaited list of the Smart21 Communities of 2010.  The announcement was made by Co-Founder Louis Zacharilla at an event hosted by the Swedish Consulate General in New York.  Stockholm, Sweden was the ICF's 2009 Intelligent Community of the Year. 
 
The Smart21 announcement is the first stage of ICF's annual Intelligent Community Awards cycle.  It is followed by the naming of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year, selected from among the 21.  The cycle concludes in New York City on May 21, 2010, where one of the Top Seven will succeed Stockholm as Intelligent Community of the Year 2010.
 
The new list represents 13 nations and includes 10 communities that appeared on last year's list.  One community, Dundee, Scotland, returned to the list after a one-year absence.  Dundee was named to the ICF's Top Seven list in both 2007 and 2008.  One American state, Virginia, contributed three communities to the list.  There were one Chinese and two Australian communities on the list, as well as three from Canada, which has had more communities named by ICF than any other nation. 
 
To learn more, visit Intelligent Community Forum website.
 
Windsor-Essex, Ontario       Population: 393,400
Located directly across the river from Detroit, Michigan, Windsor shares its pain.  Automobile assembly, research and technology contribute C$30bn to the local economy but are in structural decline greatly accelerated by the current recession. Working in partnership with Essex County government, however, Windsor is crafting a new, more robust economy to take its place.  Assets include strong tourism and agriculture industries (which sometimes overlap, as in the case of the area's many wineries), the presence of the University of Windsor and national and provincial government support.  The university is using funding from the province to build an innovation center for engineering research as well as a virtual incubator serving the region.  The Odette School of Business has restructured its many programs to deliver MBA-level education faster and mentor small manufacturers.  Government has partnered with business to create a software technology alliance to attract entrepreneurs, mentor existing businesses and share resources for growth.  Educational, research and government facilities are connected by national and provincial fiber networks, and Windsor is partnering with Essex County and other communities to extend broadband to people in underserved rural areas.  A public-private business mentoring group is working to pool the resources of angel investors in order to increase the amount of seed capital available to start-ups.
 
Essex county is one of 14 Ontario municipalities moving forward with plans to build local broadband infrastructure in partnership with the provincial government. The province is providing Essex County with $1 million for this project, through the Rural Connections Broadband Program.
 
Ottawa, Ontario        Population: 812,000
Being the capital of Canada did not protect Ottawa from two waves of downsizing that destroyed 60,000 jobs between 1995 and 2002.  The first wave took out 40,000 jobs with the national government.  Many of these highly-educated workers found employment in Ottawa's fast-growing technology sector.  It was this sector, however, that experienced the second wave of losses in 2001-02 as the dot-com recession swept North America.  The sector responded by moving from wired to wireless technologies as well as ICT services.  The community adapted so well to change because of intensive collaboration among government, educational institutions and business coordinated by the Ottawa Center for Research and Innovation (OCRI), which serves as the city's economic development engine.  Based on a strategy called Ottawa 20/20, OCRI and its participating organizations have focused on promoting technology entrepreneurship through lifelong learning, digital literacy, business incubator and accelerator programs, small business mentoring projects, school-to-work initiatives and a global marketing campaign.  Broadband access is universally available in both urban and rural areas, and 75% of business owners told OCRI that broadband access has improved both revenues and profitability.
 
To learn more about all the Smart21 communities, visit Intelligent Community Forum website.