Dublin Named Smart21 International Intelligent Community for Fourth Consecutive Year

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010

For the fourth year in a row, the City of Dublin has been named a Smart21 Community by the Intelligent Community Forum, which also recognized Northeast Ohio; Shanghai, China and Jaipur, India in the international awards competition. Ohio led the U.S. cities named to the list, which included Chattanooga, Tenn.; Dakota County, Minn., Danville, Va.; and Riverside, Calif.

The Intelligent Community Forum announced the 21 finalists today at an event hosted by Suwon, South Korea, ICF’s 2010 Intelligent Community of the Year. The Intelligent Community Forum is a New York-based think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st Century community. The ICF seeks to share the best practices of the world's Intelligent Communities in adapting to the demands of the Broadband Economy. It defines five critical success factors for the creation of Intelligent Communities: broadband connectivity, knowledge workforce, digital inclusion, innovation, and marketing and advocacy.

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, which will take place Jan. 19, 2011 at the annual Pacific Telecommunications Council conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. The cycle concludes in New York City on June 3, 2011 during ICF’s annual Building the Broadband Economy Summit, where one of the Top Seven will succeed Suwon as Intelligent Community of the Year 2011. Dublin achieved Top Seven status in last year’s competition.

Each year ICF defines a theme that guides the nominations for the Intelligent Community of the Year. The 2011 theme is "Health in the Intelligent Community." According to the ICF, the Smart21 Communities of 2011 have shown moving and innovative approaches to the delivery of better care as well as an increase in productivity and elimination of unnecessary costs. At the same time, they are promoting the growth of highly competitive clusters of companies in traditional healthcare as well as emerging fields in which information and communications technology are used to improve quality, transparency and productivity in healthcare and life sciences.  

The 2011 honorees include communities from 12 nations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. They include 10 communities that have appeared among the Smart21 before and seven that appeared on last year’s list. A community from Hungary joins the Smart21 list for the first time. Canada has four communities in the 2011 Smart21 while the U.S. leads the overall count with six communities.

The Smart21 of 2011 are:

  • Birmingham, UK

  • Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

  • Chongqing, China

  • Curitiba, Paran, Brazil

  • Dakota County, Minnesota, USA

  • Danville, Virginia, USA

  • Dublin, Ohio, USA

  • Eindhoven, Netherlands

  • Ipswich, Queensland, Australia

  • Issy-les-Moulineaux, France

  • Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

  • Northeast Ohio, USA

  • Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

  • Riverside, California, USA

  • Shanghai, China

  • Sopron, Hungary

  • Stratford, Ontario, Canada

  • Taoyuan County, Taiwan

  • Trikala, Greece

  • Windsor-Essex, Ontario, Canada

  • Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

A video announcing the Smart21 of 2011 and short profiles of each community are available on the ICF website at www.intelligentcommunity.org. The Smart21 were selected from among candidates large and small identified by nomination and independent research by the Forum.  

 

Page Last Updated: Oct 21, 2010