17 January 2008

Dundee named among world's top seven `intelligent communities'

Dundee has been selected as the one of the seven most intelligent communities on earth for the second year running by an influential US-based think tank. The non-profit Intelligent Community Forum has pitted the Tayside city against three conurbations in the USA and one each from Canada, South Korea and Estonia for the overall winner to be picked in May. Leader of Dundee City Council Kevin Keenan welcomed the accolade, which marks Dundee's continuing transition from a manufacturing based economy to one which uses what people know to generate wealth rather than what they can make. He said: "It is vital that the council, its partners in the universities, the public and private sectors and the wider community of Dundee keep taking initiatives to build on the city's growing reputation as one that is transforming itself into an attractive modern and dynamic place to live and work." Shortlisting the city, ICF co-founder Louis A. Zacharilla said: "This former industrial centre has transformed itself through intensive government-academic-business collaboration and broadband deployment into a UK centre for life sciences and digital media."

"With rising net job growth and business starts, Dundee has created a Digital Observatory to track its future progress as an intelligent community." The observatory, a partnership between the council, academia and business has been set up to collaborate on delivering a world-class broadband infrastructure for the city and to help establish collaborative creative communities to take advantage of the capability of the new infrastructure.

Last year Waterloo, Ontario, the home of the Blackberry hand held mobile messaging device was top of a list of role models for the world's cities to aspire to.

This year's winner will be announced by the ICF at a ceremony in New York in May.

Media enquiries: Mike Boyle 01382 434196.

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