The Intelligent Community

Becoming an Intelligent Community offers four distinct advantages for regions, cities and towns on their way upward. In this unique edition of The   INTELLIGENT Community Podcast, Soul of the City ,  ICF Co-Founder  Lou Zacharilla describes the beauty of the "AMEN" stages of the ICF program.  The "soul of the city" is found along the way and so is business growth, social trust and a global network...

Tempe, Arizona is the city everyone likes. With a population of 190,000 it has been growing and prospering for several years. A tourist attraction with its amazing Tempe Town Lake and a university town, with a school nicknamed "The Sun Devils," it is producing significant volumes of global and national research - and retaining its talent. Tempe doesn't seem to need the ICF method or network. But w...

Most New Yorkers and many of the 63 million people who visit New York each year as tourists will connect the words "Cookshop," "Shuka," and "Vic's" as outstanding restaurants and part of a chain owned by Marc Meyer. But Meyer admittedly is more than a cook. His vision of community, food and the people who prepare and serve it drove him to not only engage his workers at a deeper level than most own...

David Staley has been described as an "avant garde scholar." A professor in the departments of History and Design at The Ohio State University in the USA he is the author of several books including  Knowledge Towns: Colleges and Universities as Talent Magnets . In 2022 he was named the "Best Freelance Writer" by the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists for his  Next  futures column with Columb...

In this edition of the  Intelligence Test   podcast, ICF co-founder Robert Bell has a conversation with  Bryan Paterson , Mayor, Kingston, ON, Canada and  Kelly Rowe , Fellow, Canadian Urban Institute. How can you grow a city's economy if the best and brightest keep leaving town? That was the challenge facing Bryan Paterson when he was elected as mayor of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Kingston is a g...

For most cities and regions the idea of a real circular economy and stable, sustained innovation in every detail of business and life remains a goal to be chased. In the Brightlands-Limburg region of The Netherlands however, a region of 1.1 million people, the goal is being achieved. With multiple "innovation campuses" producing products and services focused on sustainability in areas as diverse a...

In this edition of  THE INTELLIGENT COMMUNITY: The Soul of the City,   Lou speaks with fellow ICF Co-Founder John Jung . In response to requests from ICF podcast listeners the two dive into a robust conversation about the connection between the world's Intelligent Communities, the history of ICF and the world-famous awards program. The two also discuss ICF's ongoing VIP tours and delegations to As...

In this edition of  THE INTELLIGENT COMMUNITY: The Soul of the City,  ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla gives speaks with  Dr. Karen Sutherland , SFHEA, Senior Lecturer, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Across Australia, young people under 16 were from social media use after the Government passed the Online Safety Amendment. The law took effect in November 2025. We ask an Australian Intell...

The 2015 Intelligent Community of the Year will celebrate the anniversaries of its award and its hosting of the 2016 ICF Summit this October. Since it was named Intelligent Community of the Year the city of Columbus has built on its prowess as representative of the rise of the American Midwest. The State of Ohio, inspired by the Intelligent Community movement in Columbus has since produced several...

In this edition of  THE INTELLIGENT COMMUNITY: The Soul of the City,  ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla gives speaks with Dario Paixão , CEO of the Curitiba Agency for Economic Development and Innovation, Curitiba, Brazil . The ICF trilogy of conversations with the three cities that will host this year's Awards announcements and conferences begins in Brazil, where Curitiba's former City Secretary for...

The 200+ Intelligent Communities in the world are conservative and liberal. Rich and poor. Large, medium and small. They are located in Asia, South America, North America, Europe and Australia. Despite their vast differences culturally they share something which ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla identifies as being core to their energy and success. It is the thing which, in the long run, makes their s...

In this edition of  THE INTELLIGENT COMMUNITY: The Soul of the City , Lou speaks with  Rachael Cain , Founder of  Pick Up Pigeons , a volunteer club with hundreds of participants who nightly during the week scour the five boroughs of New York City picking up volumes of trash and collecting data. The group was recently named " New Yorker of the Week ." Rachael is a New York resident, lawyer and urb...

In this edition of  THE INTELLIGENT COMMUNITY: The Soul of the City , Lou speaks with Ms. Richmond who was the ICF Site Auditor of the community that was named the new Intelligent Community of the Year in December 2025 (Durham Region, Ontario, Canada).  Cynthia Richmond, who was responsible for investigating Durham's activities and reporting to the ICF Jury, has three decades of experience in econ...

Winnipeg is the capital of the Canadian province of Manitoba, located in the center of the North American continent. Winnipeg's economy is dominated by agriculture, energy, manufacturing and a growing tech scene. Over the past decade, the city has built a new economic foundation by connecting industry, education and a rising technology sector. Winnipeg's digital transformation began when local bus...

John Jung and Wendy Dupley discuss the critical and common elements of community intelligence, using two Top7 Communities of 2025: Bursa Metropolitan Municipality (Türkiye) and Hilliard, Ohio (USA) as examples.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla has a conversation with  Michel Ângelo Bomtempo , mayor of Assaí, Paraná, Brazil. Mayor Bomtempo and a team of young people engage ICF to promote their city. It's fresh and shows why the ICF Awards are so important. Businessman in the metalworking industry, mayor Bomtempo was elected mayor four times in the city of Assaí,...

In our new podcast, Intelligence Test, Robert Bell speaks with the inventor of a technology that could harvest the waste heat from factories, power plants and data centers and turn it into electricity, Brendan MacDonald, and Alison Burgess, who runs communications and engagement for the Durham Region, Ontario, Canada. You need to hear from them both because this remarkable advance is not just the...

In part 2 of this conversation with the City of Bursa on The Intelligent Community , ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla has a conversation with Demet Sinmez, Smart Urbanization Branch Manager, Bursa Metropolitan Municipality. The Ottoman Empire's first capital city has transformed itself into a forward-looking community of three million while maintaining its cultural roots and skill at bringing togethe...

The Ottoman Empire's first capital city has transformed itself into a forward-looking community of three million while maintaining its cultural roots and skill at bringing together groups for collaboration. Bursa is a UNESCO Heritage site where one can still see the Ottoman's urban planning. Our conversation with Demet Sinmez, Head of the Smart Urbanism branch of the metropolitan municipality rang...

The smallest community in terms of population this year, Fairfield, Iowa not only thinks globally – but deep and universally! A unique place in America's heartland, Fairfield has the advantage of being in a rural setting with natural beauty and is a place where people know each other and are quick to lend a helping hand. But its leaders were among the first in the intelligent community movement wh...

The smallest community in terms of population this year, Fairfield, Iowa not only thinks globally – but deep and universally! A unique place in America's heartland, Fairfield has the advantage of being in a rural setting with natural beauty and is a place where people know each other and are quick to lend a helping hand. But its leaders were among the first in the intelligent community movement wh...

It has been an urban revitalization like few others in the world. Legendary in fact. Bilbao and its metropolitan district has a strategic location near the sea which confirmed its strength as a trading center and evolution into the great economic giant of the Basque Country in the days of iron and steel, shipyards mining. But in the 1970's and 1980's it hit the skids and went into a deep crisis. A...

ICF has its international awards program for which it is famous.  But that does it take to become one of America's "Most Dynamic Metro Areas?" and where are they located? Heartland Forward's Chief Reseach Officer discusses the results of the "think and do tank's" long-awaited report and drops facts behind the reason that, despite the fact it has 39% of the national population, this vast American e...

ICF has its international awards program for which it is famous.  But that does it take to become one of America's "Most Dynamic Metro Areas?" and where are they located? Heartland Forward's Chief Reseach Officer discusses the results of the "think and do tank's" long-awaited report and drops facts behind the reason that, despite the fact it has 39% of the national population, this vast American e...

ICF's Lou Zacharilla speaks with Mr. Stephan Satijn, Regional Minister for Economy, Finance & Business Operations, Province of Limburg, in this sit-down interview discussing the Brightlands-Limburg Region, a Smart21 Community of 2025.  Perhaps best known as the place where the Maastricht Treaty was signed to establish the European Union, the Brightlands-Limburg Region has undergone a decade of gro...