What Makes an Intelligent Community of the Year? Part 2 of Reflections by ICF's Jurors and Analysts

When you watch ICF’s videos on Youtube, what you see publicly are representatives from a city celebrating when their city is named Intelligent Community of the Year. Sometimes, as in the case of the mayor of Espoo, Finland, you see tears of joy. Sometimes, you see Eindhoven representatives from The Netherlands donning red shirts in celebration or Columbus representatives from Ohio storming the stage behind their mayor like a football club.

What you do not see is the incredibly hard work done by a group of people from around the world to analyze the information from these cities, assess it and judge them for you, the world’s media and other aspiring places. They are the ICF Analysts and Jurors, the heart and soul – and the brains – of the ICF Awards program.

In Part 2 of this podcast series, ICF co-founder Lou Zacharilla speaks further with 6 of them to collect their memories, thoughts and advice for cities around the world as ICF heads toward naming a successor to New Taipei City as the 2023 Intelligent Community of the Year this October.

You'll hear from:

  • Moez Chaabouni, Managing Partner and Chief Revenue Officer at Summit Technologies LLC and Chair of the ICF Jury
  • Bill Coleman, Owner of Community Technology Advisors
  • Professor Shirley Fenton, Research Associate, CSG at the University of Waterloo, VP of the National Institutes of Health Informatics and Co-Founder of Waterloo MedTech
  • Dr. Jay Edwin Gillette, Professor Emeritus of Information and Communication Sciences and Senior Research Fellow at Ball State University's Center for Information and Communication Sciences
  • Dr. Norman Jacknis, Professor of Practice, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Northeastern University and ICF Senior Fellow
  • Gordon Kennedy, Director at Clearbluewater 2.0 Ltd.


Louis Zacharilla
Co-Founder of the Intelligent Community Forum. Louis Zacharilla helped found the Intelligent Community movement. He is the developer of the Intelligent Community Awards program. He is a frequent keynote speaker and a moderator at conferences and events.

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