Fredericton named as one of the top seven intelligent cities in the world
The Intelligent Community Forum has released it’s top seven picks for the most intelligent city in the world. Fredericton, New Brunswick is singled out for its municipal fiber carrier (e-Novations) and Fred-eZone its freely available municipal wireless network.
One must take into account that the Intelligent Community Forum is a “think tank that focuses on the creation of local prosperity and social inclusion in the ‘broadband economy’ of the 21st century.”, so the factors which the forum use to assess cities are probably skewed towards cities with municipal wi-fi and other broadband deployment initiatives. Unfortunately simply having a wireless network and broadband deployment doesn’t make you smart. Having the vision to implement this infrastructure is smart but how the infrastructure is used to “create local prosperity” is what I think is very important.
Along with Fredericton, Dundee, Scotland; Gangnum District of Seoul South Korea; Northeast Ohio, USA; Tallinn, Estonia; Westchester County, New York; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina have been shortlisted. ICF will announce the winner from its top seven list on May 16, 2008. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Fredericton wins. It would be great PR and exposure for the city and New Brunswick as a whole.