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Digital Communities
Industry Members
On the Road to the Intelligent Community of the Year
January 20, 2012 By Louis Zacharilla
This morning I woke up in Honolulu and I realized that this would be the last morning for a long while before I am able to get out of bed and walk to a balcony to look at the calm roll of the Pacific Ocean and feel the trade winds. I also realized that this was the day when I would go the podium at the Mid-Pacific Conference Center to announce the new Top Seven. The wheel started from New York, where Eindhoven was named Intelligent Community of the Year in June, is turning. We are at the next phase now. My first message on my Blackberry was from the office of Mayor Rob van Gijzel of Eindhoven. He was asking for the email address for each of the new Top Seven, after they are named, so that he can congratulate them each personally. If you are named a Top Seven at 1:00 PM (HPT) today, this may be the first email in your in-box tomorrow or the next day.
Last night at Sorabol Korean restaurant I had a private luncheon for the handful of Smart21 communities in Honolulu, as well as ICF supporters and jurists who are in attendance here at PTC. It was an eclectic group on the surface, but in addition to the smell of grilled kalbi (beef) and garlic on our clothes, we each had a role in enabling communities and the telecommunications industry to go forward. Among many things, the PTC conference is a fantastic networking venue and so was the little wooden room in Sorabol (which I was told ICF’s Jury Chairman, Jag Rao, is the ancient name for Seoul.)
Among the highlights of the dinner was Allied Signal’s Hunter Newby sharing his vision for his new national fiber network across the United States, and Stratford (Canada) Mayor Dan Mathieson telling the group how his community (the smallest in population of this year’s Smart21) has used technology in agriculture to expand production and allow farmers to make a better living. With the world expected to grow to 10 billion in population, agricultural communities can innovate themselves back to prominence.
I was struck by Yuka Nagashima’s question to the representative from Oulu, Finland. Yuka, who is the CEO of Hawaii’s High Tech Development Corporation, which is tasked with technology economic development here, wanted to know how the “triple helix” worked in Finland, given the nation’s performance, which includes a brilliant turnaround in Oulu, which has weathered Nokia’s bumpy ride of late. Olli Loytynoja of Business Oulu explained how, in many ways, the community’s independence and distance from Helsinki, the national capitol, contributed to a persistent tribal response. He elaborated further. (I just wanted to know how in the world they survived 30 hours of flying to get here from Finland! But as he spoke you could tell that they would go to any length to learn.)
As I have written and said in my speeches often, my father had one piece of advice for me and one only. He said simply to make sure that I always surrounded myself with the best and the brightest people I could find and befriend. In another blog, I wrote about his journey here in 1942 with the American Army and for a different purpose. I said to the group at the end of the evening that he would have been proud to see how well I had taken his advice.
There was much more eating, laughing and bonding (and a few bottles of OB Beer were consumed) among those of us before we left and walked into the “Kona winds” of evening Oahu. I am sure new friendships were made and some new business will be done as a result. Most important, on the night before the announcement of the new Top Seven, we realized, as Mayor van Gijzel had said in June on the stage in New York, “we are all winners and shoulder-to-shoulder are building something the world has never seen.”
About the Intelligent Community Forum
The Intelligent Community Forum is a think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st Century community. Whether in industrialized or developing nations, communities are challenged to create prosperity, stability and cultural meaning in a world where jobs, investment and knowledge increasingly depend on advances in communications. For the 21st Century community, connectivity is a double-edge sword: threatening established ways of life on the one hand, and offering powerful new tools to build prosperous, inclusive and sustainable economies on the other. ICF seeks to share the best practices of the world's Intelligent Communities in adapting to the demands of the Broadband Economy, in order to help communities everywhere find sustainable renewal and growth. More information can be found at www.intelligentcommunity.org.
Robert Bell
Robert Bell is co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, where he heads its research and content development activities. He is the author of ICF's pioneering study, Benchmarking the Intelligent Community, the annual Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year white papers and other research reports issued by the Forum, and of Broadband Economies: Creating the Community of the 21st Century. Mr. Bell has also authored articles in The Municipal Journal of Telecommunications Policy, IEDC Journal, Telecommunications, Asia-Pacific Satellite and Asian Communications; and has appeared in segments of ABC World News and The Discovery Channel. A frequent keynote speaker and moderator at municipal and telecom industry events, he has also led economic development missions and study tours to cities in Asia and the US.
John Jung
ICF co-founder John G. Jung originated the Intelligent Community concept and continues to serve as the Forum's leading visionary. Formerly President and CEO of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance and Calgary Economic Development Authority, he is a registered professional urban planner, urban designer and economic developer. He leads regular international business missions to US, European, Asian, Indian and Australian cities, and originated the ICF Immersion Lab program. John is a regular speaker at universities and conferences and serves as an advisor to regional and national leaders on Intelligent Community development. The author of numerous articles in planning and economic development journals, he has received global and Toronto-based awards for his work in collaboration and strategic development and sits on numerous task forces and international advisory boards.
Louis Zacharilla
ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla is the creator and presenter of the annual Smart21, Top Seven and Intelligent Community Awards and oversees ICF's media communications and development programs. He is a frequent keynote and motivational speaker and panelist, addressing audiences of tech, academic and community leaders around the world, and writes extensively for publications including American City & County, Continental Airline's in-flight magazine and Municipal World. His frequent appearances in the electronic media have included both television and radio in South Korea, China and Canada. He has served as an adjunct professor at Fordham University in New York and is a Guest Lecturer at Polytechnic University's Distinguished Speaker Series. He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Notre Dame.
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