Toronto, Canada to Host 2015 Intelligent Community Forum Summit & Awards
New York, New York (PRWEB) September 11, 2014 -- The Intelligent Community Forum today announced that it will hold its 2015 Summit & Awards program from June 9 through June 11 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This is the first time in 10 years that ICF will hold its annual event outside its home base in New York City. ICF Canada, a newly-formed entity of ICF, will host the event. Waterfront Toronto, which was instrumental in the city’s rise to Intelligent Community of the Year status in 2014, will collaborate with ICF Canada as host. “Waterfront Toronto is proud to co-host the ICF’s 2015 Summit and the important work the ICF is doing in supporting smarter, more connected and more accessible communities that create economic opportunities for everyone, “ said John Campbell, CEO Waterfront Toronto.
Waterfront Toronto is the public advocate and steward of Toronto’s waterfront revitalization, the largest project of its type in North America and a project inspired by the ICF’s Intelligent Community framework. Organizations across the Greater Toronto Area are also anticipated to help host the event and showcase what makes their city and region successful Intelligent Communities.
The Intelligent Community Forum’s Annual Summit and Awards program is an international gathering of several hundred mayors, chief administrative officers, chief information officers and economic development officers from cities, states and regions around the world including many of the 126 Intelligent Communities designated by the Intelligent Community Forum. In addition, educators, and the private sector actively participate representing the other parts of what is called the “global innovation triangle”.
“The 2015 Summit marks the 20th anniversary of the world’s first Smart City event, which took place in Toronto in 1995 under the name, SMART’95,” said John G. Jung ICF co-founder and director of the newly formed ICF Canada. “ICF’s co-founders helped produce that historic event, which launched what is now the Intelligent Community movement.”
“As we mark the 20th anniversary of the Intelligent Community movement, I am pleased that we will be able to take our annual Summit and Awards program on the road for the first time in 10 years,” said Louis Zacharilla, ICF co-founder. “Our Intelligent Communities of the Year, like Toronto, are ready to demonstrate what they have accomplished,” added Robert Bell, ICF co-founder. “All of us are pleased that Toronto, which hosted that very first event, stepped forward to celebrate this important anniversary. Certainly Toronto demonstrates how far we have all come in 20 years toward the goal of making every community as prosperous and vibrant as it can be.”
The SMART95 event is considered to be the birth of the Intelligent Community movement because for the first time the telecommunications industry and the world of urban planners, political policy makers and economic development officials gathered to examine the impact of telecommunications on communities and economies.
As the current Intelligent Community of the Year, Toronto plans to show Summit attendees what made it a three-time Top7 finalist. In addition to the regular ICF Summit program, Toronto expects to take attendees on tours of its innovation districts and Waterfront Toronto plus host meetings and networking sessions with the world’s Top7 communities, their businesses and the people behind the city’s economic and social engines. Toronto, located in the Canadian province of Ontario on the shores of Lake Ontario, is a major tourist destination. The city is located near famous tourist destinations such as Niagara Falls, Muskoka, Stratford and its Shakespearean Festival and the Finger Lakes wine country in nearby New York State.
For more on the 2015 Summit, including the preliminary program, visit http://www.icfsummit.com.
About the Intelligent Community Forum
The Intelligent Community Forum studies and promotes the best practices of the world's Intelligent Communities as they adapt to the demands and seize the opportunities presented by information and communications technology (ICT). To help communities build prosperous economies, solve social problems and enrich local cultures, the Intelligent Community Forum conducts research, hosts events, publishes and produces its high-profile international awards program. Over more than a decade, the Intelligent Community Forum has become an international movement that attracts the attention of global leaders, thinkers, and media observers. The Intelligent Community Foundation consists of 126 cities and regions that have been designated as Intelligent Communities and which participate in an ongoing global dialogue to strengthen local economies. The Intelligent Community Forum recently announced publication of its third book, Brain Gain. For more information, go to http://www.intelligentcommunity.org
Intelligent Community Forum Media Contacts
Matthew Owen
Communications Director
Intelligent Community Forum
Phone: 001-646-291-6166 (x105) or 001 212-249-0624
Email: mowen(at) intelligentcommunity(dot)org
Paul Brent
Senior Communications Strategist
market2world communications inc.
Phone: 001-613-256-3939
Email: paul(at)market2world(dot)com
Paul Brent, market2world communications inc., http://www.market2world.com, 613-256-3939, [email protected]
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