Intelligent Community Forum announces world’s Smart21 Communities of 2015

The Intelligent Community Forum yesterday named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2015. The Smart21 list recognises community-wide efforts that employ Internet broadband services and other information and communications technology in ways that improve economic as well as social opportunities.

“We launched the Intelligent Community Awards as a research project in 1999,” Robert Bell, co-founder, Intelligent Community Forum, told Cities Today. “For the chance to win an award, cities and regions around the world share in-depth information about how they have transformed their economies using information and communications technologies.”

The Smart21 Communities for 2015 come from diverse locations ranging from Kazakhstan to Kenya and Taiwan to the United States. The Smart21 represent a cross section of the world with five communities from the United States, four from Australia and four from Taiwan as well as three Canadian cities, plus one each from Kazakhstan, Brazil, Japan, Kenya and New Zealand.

“Our honourees are places that have worked hard to get the benefits of the digital revolution instead of just experiencing its disruptions,” explained Bell. “Fifteen years later, we are seeing them build impressive long-range plans to make those gains permanent, and we are still sharing with other communities the lessons they have taught us.”

More than 300 communities submitted nominations, and this select group of communities will now be in contention for the prestigious designation of Intelligent Community of the Year at the annual Intelligent Community Summit in Toronto, Canada in June 2015.

“The smallest community on the new Smart21 list has a population of 15,000. The largest has a population of more than 6 million,” added Bell. “What on earth can such diverse places located on so many different continents have in common? They share a vision of how to use information and communications technology to create prosperity, solve social problems and strengthen their culture. And they offer many different models for getting it done, from the network economy that tiny Mitchell, South Dakota, USA has built on top of its agricultural one, to the Knowledge Squares that bring digital literacy to the people in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.”

The Intelligent Community Forum is a think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st century community. The Forum shares the secrets of success of the world’s Intelligent Communities in adapting to the demands of the Broadband Economy by conducting research, hosting events, publishing newsletters and producing an international awards programme.

The Intelligent Community Forum produced a video about the Smart21 for 2015.