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ICF Immersion Lab President and guest speaker at the event, Ms Glynnis Rennger, shared the learning from the ICF Immersion Lab tour of Asia in January this year.
Seminar delegates listening attentively to one of the presenters.
The ICF conducts research, creates conference content, publishes information and presents annual awards to:
Identify and explain the emergence of the broadband economy and its impact at the local level
Research and share best practices by communities in adapting to the changing economic environment and positioning their citizens and businesses to prosper
Celebrate the achievements of communities that have overcome challenges to claim a place in the economy of the country. |
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As part of the Tshwane SmartCity Project, The Innovation Hub partnered with the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) Immersion Lab in April this year to host a breakfast seminar with a focus on Breakthrough Smart City Developments in Asia. The event took place in the Conference Venue at the Hub.
The ICF is a non-profit think tank that focuses on job creation and economic development in the broadband economy. Their area of interest is large and small local communities in the developing and developed economies of the world.
ICF Immersion Lab President and guest speaker at the event, Ms Glynnis Rennger, shared the learning from the ICF Immersion Lab tour of Asia in January this year. The aim of the tour was to visit "Smart Cities' in Asia to look at how to incentivise the private sector to create jobs, develop technology leadership and transform the standard of living of communities. The cities visited were Gangnam in South Korea, Tianjin in China, Mitaka in Japan and Taipei in Taiwan.
Lessons learnt included the need for communities to respond to knowledge era challenges such as operating in a broadband economy, improving the standard of living and leveraging unique qualities and strengths in a new economic development. Rennger suggested that the Tshwane SmartCity initiative focused on following five Intelligent Community Indicators to achieve success:
- Broadband infrastructure - deploying broadband to businesses, government facilities and residences.
- Knowledge workforce - building a knowledge worker labour pool work through effective education, training and skills development.
- Digital inclusion - promoting digital inclusion through government and private-sector programmes to expand citizen participation in all aspects of community and economic development.
- Innovation - fostering innovation through government programmes, creating an environment that attracts creative people and attracting risk capital that fuels new business growth.
- Marketing - effective economic development marketing and advocacy to leverage the community's broadband, labour and other assets.
Mr Douglas Cohen from the ICT Broadband Programme at the City of Johannesburg also gave a presentation on the current initiatives in developing Johannesburg into a 'Smart City'.
The attendees at the workshop included representatives from the City of Tshwane, City of Johannesburg, Universities, the Departments of Science & Technology and Trade & Industry, private sector companies, The Innovation Hub's INNOV8 community members and representatives from B-Link and Blue IQ Investment Holdings' Broadband Programme.
Mr Charles Kuun who is responsible for the Tshwane Digital Hub, a Broadband Roll-out Programme for the City of Tshwane also gave an overview of the ingredients of Tshwane becoming a Smart City. The City of Tshwane is the city of governance with all national government departments' headquarters. The city has 4 universities, University of Pretoria, Tshwane University of Technology, University of South Africa and MEDUNSA. Seven of the eight government statutory councils (such as CSIR, HSRC, ARC, SABS) are based in the City of Tshwane. The city is also host to two of the successful Blue IQ projects; The Innovation Hub and the Automotive Supplier Park. The city also has a 'fiber-optic network' infrastructure that will be conducive for rolling out broadband to citizens, businesses and government facilities.
The workshop was concluded with Ms Rennger urging Smart City initiatives in South Africa to register with the ICF in order to help put Africa on the global map of intelligent communities.
| ICF - Smart 21 Communities of 2007 |
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For more information, please see www.intelligentcommunity.org or www.immersionlab.com.
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