Urenio Watch Watch: IntelCities Measurement

Intelligent Communities of 2006

Seven cities and regions were selected as top intelligent communities of 2006 by the Intelligent Community Forum.

Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Flagship project: OneCleveland (www.onecleveland.org) having the mission to deploy a community-based ultrabroadband network in the metropolitan area and to build a new knowledge economy on its foundation. In 2005, Intel named the greater Cleveland area as one of three Worldwide Digital Communities deploying wireless broadband applications to improve government and other services.

Gangnam District, Seoul, South Korea. Flagship project: Gangnam digital government (www.gangnam.go.kr). Gangnam is a major local government in the greater Seoul metropolitan area, home to 550,000 citizens, the headquarters of top South Korean companies, and the Teheran Valley information technology cluster. Digital government began in 1995. Since then, the district has launched 71 projects including online license application and issuance, an Internet-based tax payment system, cyber civil defense drills, an online road control system, and IP broadcasting for the National Learning Ability Test.

Ichikawa, Japan. Various projects, including Ichikawa Business Plaza, which is a business incubator offering broadband-enabled office space for small office, home office companies and larger enterprises, as well as public space offering PCs and a regional data center for the use of surrounding communities, nonprofit organizations and residents’ associations; Ichikawa Cable Network, with broadband penetration in the city now exceeds 46%; Ichikawa Safety e-Net program in cooperation with neighborhood associations; Media City Ichikawa which is the city’s latest project.

Manchester, United Kingdom. Flagship project: The Eastserve Project; at first glance, Eastserve is a Web portal (www.eastserve.com). It began by surveying residents on their needs for information and their ability to access it. Residents identified four priorities: employment and training, housing, policing and street-based services. The portal design included a virtual police station with anonymous crime reporting, a home-finder system for public housing, and online job searches and resume preparation system, among many other features. In Phase Two, the project created a wireless Eastserve Broadband network that now links 1,700 households, six community centers and 14 schools and is being extended to adjoining neighborhoods.

Taipei, Taiwan. Flagship project: Taipei CyberCity. The first phase of the project (1999-2002) focused on building broadband infrastructure and using the Internet to improve public services. The second phase of the CyberCity program (2003-2006) has focused on several priorities. The first was to better integrate broadband and online services into citizens’ lives. Its Internet portal is offering over 400 services used by an average of 3,500 citizens per day, and over 5,200 small-to-midsize companies had created.

Tianjin, China. Tianjin’s Intelligent Community initiative is focused on broadband deployment for citizens, business and government; on e-government applications to make government more responsive and efficient; and on development of new high-tech industrial zones.

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The Waterloo region, also known as Canada’s Technology Triangle (www.techtriangle.com), was one of Canada’s top two areas for economic growth in 2005. Many of Waterloo’s leading businesses are spin-offs from the University, including Research in Motion (RIM), Open Text, MRS, Desire2Learn and WatCom, which was acquired by Sybase. The latest example of cooperation among Waterloo’s leaders involves the development of a new Research and Technology Park to house technology-intensive companies.

Source: Intelligent Community Forum
http://www.intelligentcommunity.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=2