Intelligent Community Forum Announces the Top Seven Communities of 2009

The Intelligent Community Forum announced today its list of the Top Seven Communities of 2009 during a luncheon ceremony.  The Top Seven announcement is the second stage of ICF's annual Intelligent Community awards cycle. 

Gaining a place among the Top Seven is a major achievement as well as a step toward even greater recognition for communities working to create prosperity and social inclusion in what ICF terms the "Broadband Economy."  The cycle concludes in New York City on May 15, 2009 during ICF's annual Building the Broadband Economy Summit (www.icfsummit.com), where one of the Top Seven will succeed the Gangnam District of Seoul, South Korea as Intelligent Community of the Year.

 
The Top Seven of 2009
 The following communities, drawn from the Smart21 of 2009, were named to the Top Seven based on analysis of their nominations by a team of independent academic experts:
 
Bristol, Virginia, USA. As a first time honoree, Bristol made an impact after taking on incumbent telcos in court and the state legislature to win the right to deploy a fiber network called OptiNet.  Conceived as a backbone serving government and schools, OptiNet has grown into a fiber-to-the-premises network for business and residents in Bristol and four neighboring counties.  It has also attracted more than $50 million in private investment, including the region's first technology employers, and improved rural education and healthcare by connecting local providers to leading institutions. 
 
Eindhoven, Netherlands. The Eindhoven metropolitan area (a 2008 Smart21) has long been the industrial heart of the Netherlands.  Through a public-private collaboration called Brainport, the region is ramping up its knowledge economy to maintain and accelerate growth in a hyper-competitive global market, while at the same time coping with an aging population and shrinking workforce.  Among more than 40 public-private projects are an award-winning coop that has brought FTTP and a broadband culture of use to the suburb of Neunen, and the SKOOL outsourced IT management system for public schools.

Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. For most of its history, government and education were the economic mainstays of Fredericton (a 2008 Top Seven).  When it could not get broadband from the private sector, Fredericton founded the e-Novations coop, which deployed a fiber ring that spurred competition, giving the city a 70% penetration rate at speeds of up to 18 Mbps.  The next step was the Fred-eZone wireless network, which provides free WiFi service across 65% of the city.  The combination of broadband, entrepreneurship and Fredericton's universities has powered the creation of over 12,000 jobs.

Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. Issy-les-Moulineax (a 2006 Top Seven) became the industrial zone of Paris in the early 20th Century only to suffer de-industrialization in the post-war years.  Beginning in 1980, a visionary mayor focused policy on creating an innovative, IT-based knowledge economy, implementing e-government, outsourcing IT needs, and taking advantage of liberalization to attract competitive fiber carriers deploying cost-effective broadband.  Public-private innovation includes a cyber-kindergarten for children, cyber tearooms for older citizens, citizen e-participation in decision-making, a successful business incubator and ICT-based real estate projects.

Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Twenty years ago, the Moncton region was a former railroad and industrial hub facing a doubtful future.  Since then, this bilingual community has become a major Canadian customer contact and back office center, and built a "near-shore" IT outsourcing industry.  Private-sector carriers have collaborated in the city's growth as a telecom-centric economy, and helped power the addition of 20,000 new jobs since the early 1990s. 

Stockholm, Sweden. In the mid-90s, Stockholm, the economic and political capital of Sweden, established a company called Stokab to build an open-access fiber network.  Today, the 4,500 km network connects more than 90 competing service providers to government and business customers.  Though the city already has a 98% broadband penetration rate, Stokab will also provide