The Intelligent Community The Intelligent Community Forum

What makes Canadian cities such as Waterloo, Ottawa, and Toronto hubs of high-tech entrepreneurship and successful Intelligent Communities? Since moving to Canada, Professor Darius Ornston, author of When Small States Make Big Leaps, which chronicled how the Nordic countries developed the ability to enter new, tech-based markets, has similarly studied two Intelligent Communities of the Year in Canada and tells us how these Canadian communities represent a collaborative approach which has resulted in Canada having more designated Intelligent Communities than any other nation. Darius Ornston is an Associate Professor at the prestigious Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto where he specializes in innovation policy and the relationship between cooperation and economic change.

What makes Canadian cities such as Waterloo, Ottawa and Toronto hubs of high-tech entrepreneurship and successful Intelligent Communities? Since moving to Canada, Professor Darius Ornston, author of When Small States Make Big Leaps, which chronicled how the Nordic countries developed the ability to enter new, tech-based markets, has similarly studied two Intelligent Communities of the Year in Canada and tells us how these Canadian communities represent a collaborative approach which has resulted in Canada having more designated Intelligent Communities than any other nation.

Darius Ornston is an associate professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto where he specializes in innovation policy, specifically the relationship between cooperation and economic change. His first book, When Small States Make Big Leaps, illustrates how the Nordic countries use cooperation to enter new, high-technology markets. In Good Governance Gone Bad, he demonstrates how the same, tight-knit networks which accelerate reform and restructuring can lead to policy overshooting, overinvestment, and economic crisis. Professor Ornston’s work with Dan Breznitz on the politics of innovation and the design of innovation agencies has been published with multiple outlets, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the OECD. Since moving to Canada, Professor Ornston has focused on high-technology entrepreneurship in Ottawa, Waterloo, and Toronto. 

This week marks the start of another global awards campaign at ICF. We begin the search for the successor to the current Intelligent Community of the Year, Binh Duong, Vietnam. Who will it be? We begin by naming theSmart21(see the video) on March 20th.  This year’s S21 Awards and Conference will be held in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei was the 2006 Intelligent Community of the Year and this year hosts the Smart City Expo andThe Smart Cities and Intelligent Communities Forum, produced by the Taiwan government and ICF. What will that event be like? What is Taiwan like and why does it have 15 Intelligent Communities!? We hear directly from Tiffany Lin of ICF Taiwan, who is the Acting Deputy Manager for the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan. In a delightful conversation with Lou, she talks about life in Taiwan, freedom and why the country has embraced the ICF program. 

A NY tech exec and mother decides to serve her community by running for office in one of the most high-profile districts in Manhattan.  Elizabeth Golluscio looked at her city’s $106 billion budget and found that there was limited transparency on how decisions were being made.  She looked at challenges like unlicensed E-bikes (part of the 56,000 deliveries of food in NYC each day!) and met with Police and found a basement in the precinct full of them.  She got a sense of what was happening with local crime and safety. Then she did what people who want answers from their local government and know they can do better often do: she ran for office. She used social media against an incumbent whose party dominates the city. (Oh, and in between she attended ICF’s Top7 Reception to find out what Intelligent Communities can teach.) Listen to her talk frankly about the experience.
Elizabeth Golluscio has lived in Carnegie Hill for nearly 15 years, and served on the board of her Coop for a few years after first moving into the neighborhood - on 90th Street between Lex and 3rd Aves. - from the west side.  Her two sons attended the La Scuola Italian school on East 96th St, for their early school years.  They are now in public high schools (ages 15 and 16).
Ms. Golluscio is not a politician and this would be her first campaign; she’s spent her career in the high tech (software) industry.  Most recently, she was a Managing Vice President at Gartner, leading the team of research analysts who advise clients on their software design & development strategies.  She started at Gartner as a Research Analyst in 2015, covering application architecture and integration topics.
Prior to that, she held a variety of roles in product management, marketing and sales in early-stage software start-ups, experiencing a wide variety of opportunities and challenges, e.g. helping raise VC funding, launching new products, working abroad to integrate newly acquired businesses, an IPO, etc.   She’s lived and worked in Australia, Ireland, and Italy.
Ms. Golluscio’s completed dozens of marathons, half marathons and triathlons, and is now a Crossfit enthusiast, so you’re likely to find her in Central Park or at the gym.  She earned her engineering degree from Cornell, and her MBA from MIT Sloan.

ICF announced early this year that it issued a license for its third Institute. The new ICF Institute will be based in Atlantic Canada, in the city of Fredericton, New Brunswick at New Brunswick Community College. The new Canadian institute joins those established in Dublin, Ohio (USA) and Hsinchu, Taiwan to further promote the Intelligent Community Forum’s method for accelerating the growth of regions and states by transforming clusters of cities and towns into economically robust and socially stable “Intelligent Communities.” Dr. Simon Potter, the Director for the College Office of Research Enterprise at New Brunswick Community College discusses the importance of the new Institute, how he hopes it will increase innovation and collaboration throughout the region and why New Brunswick was chosen as the site of Canada’s first ICF Institute.

Dr. Simon Potter joined NBCC’s research office with extensive experience in biomaterials, composites, forestry, precision health and genetics applied research. He is responsible for NBCC’s overarching research program which, based on its exceptional strength and depth in ICT, is now expanding into new areas such as agriculture, precision health, and educational and accessibility research. Simon holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh, a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Bath and has built a global reputation in the implementation of large-scale research initiatives in Canada and Australia.

A NY tech exec and mother decides to serve her community by running for office in one of the most high-profile districts in Manhattan.  Elizabeth Golluscio looked at her city’s $106 billion budget and found that there was limited transparency on how decisions were being made.  She looked at challenges like unlicensed E-bikes (part of the 56,000 deliveries of food in NYC each day!) and met with Police and found a basement in the precinct full of them.  She got a sense of what was happening with local crime and safety. Then she did what people who want answers from their local government and know they can do better often do: she ran for office. She used social media against an incumbent whose party dominates the city. (Oh, and in between she attended ICF’s Top7 Reception to find out what Intelligent Communities can teach.) Listen to her talk frankly about the experience.
Elizabeth Golluscio has lived in Carnegie Hill for nearly 15 years, and served on the board of her Coop for a few years after first moving into the neighborhood - on 90th Street between Lex and 3rd Aves. - from the west side.  Her two sons attended the La Scuola Italian school on East 96th St, for their early school years.  They are now in public high schools (ages 15 and 16).
Ms. Golluscio is not a politician and this would be her first campaign; she’s spent her career in the high tech (software) industry.  Most recently, she was a Managing Vice President at Gartner, leading the team of research analysts who advise clients on their software design & development strategies.  She started at Gartner as a Research Analyst in 2015, covering application architecture and integration topics.
Prior to that, she held a variety of roles in product management, marketing and sales in early-stage software start-ups, experiencing a wide variety of opportunities and challenges, e.g. helping raise VC funding, launching new products, working abroad to integrate newly acquired businesses, an IPO, etc.   She’s lived and worked in Australia, Ireland, and Italy.
Ms. Golluscio’s completed dozens of marathons, half marathons and triathlons, and is now a Crossfit enthusiast, so you’re likely to find her in Central Park or at the gym.  She earned her engineering degree from Cornell, and her MBA from MIT Sloan.