to narrow the 21 to the Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year ®, which are announced in June of each year . This year ’ s announcement takes place in the Durham Region near Toronto , Canada , on 20-21 June . The Top7 receive local and international media coverage and become the finalists for ICF ’ s Intelligent Community of the Year award .
ICF interviews each of the Top7 to gain additional insight into the programs they have described and produces reports on each , which are reviewed by an international team of jurors along with the Smart21 and Top7 data . Their votes are combined with the scoring from the Smart21 and Top7 stages to select the Intelligent Community of the Year ®, which is named on the closing day of the Global Summit in October . This year ’ s Summit takes place 25-26 October in New York City .
AUSTRALIA ’ S INTELLIGENT COMMUNITIES Australia is home to 12 cities and regions honored in ICF ’ s Award program . Of these , only two – Adelaide and Melbourne – have reputations that reach around the globe . The remaining 10 should be better known but are not yet . They include Sunshine Coast in Queensland and Prospect in South Australia , Armidale in New South Wales and Whittlesea and Greater Geelong in Victoria .
Whittlesea , Victoria For ICF , understanding the cities ’ achievements is at least as important as honoring them in a public forum . One of our most important tools is story-telling . For example , Whittlesea contributed a brilliant best practice in development of their small business community that we share with other communities in our network .
Sunshine Coast , Queensland
Small businesses tend to be slow adopters of the digital technology that could boost their revenue . To speed them up , Whittlesea began by doing what many communities do , which is to survey their small business owners on digital readiness . But they took a compelling step further . Each business owner who completed the survey received a digital readiness score – and a comparison of that score with peer businesses across the community . While few small businesses worry about being outclassed by Atlassian or Xero , they do not want to be outdone by neighboring businesses , especially competitors . The comparison scoring got their attention , and the city was ready to follow up with digital training and technology consulting to close the gap . Thousands of businesses have benefited .
Sunshine Coast , Queensland Like many Australian communities , Sunshine Coast had pretty bad broadband connectivity by global standards , due to legacy copper wiring . While waiting for NBN and the market to improve things , they made two very smart moves . One was to invest in programs that built demand for digital services . There was training for citizens and businesses in digital skills , publicly-available mapping of broadband availability and surveys revealing massive needs for connectivity . All contributed to successful negotiations with ISPs to expand coverage and speeds .
The second was a deal with a submarine cable provider to locate a landing station in Sunshine Coast . Through it , a new 500 km submarine fiber-optic cable now connects to the 9600 km Japan-Guam-Australia cable . Suddenly , the city was on the map for Australia ’ s biggest telecom carriers – with tangible results . They changed the city ’ s status in their system from “ regional ” to “ metropolitan ,” which immediately slashed connectivity costs for businesses by 35-40 %. It also led Sunshine Coast to be named a Cyber Security Innovation Node , one of only two regional nodes in Australia .
Just because few people have heard of your community – yet – there ’ s no reason to lower your ambitions or downsize your dreams for its future . In a world as connected as ours is today , the “ middle of nowhere ” is no more .
Whittlesea , Victoria
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN G . JUNG John G . Jung originated the Intelligent Community concept and continues to serve as the Intelligent Community 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 has led international business missions to US , European , Asian , Indian and Australian cities , and speaks frequently at universities and conferences .
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