Building on the Community Accelerator – the Abbotsford Story
Abbotsford, British Columbia (Population 149,500) is the hub of the Fraser Valley located adjacent to the Canada-USA border, just east of the Greater Vancouver area. It is a growing community that celebrates its extensive diversity, the third highest after the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Vancouver. The city is home to the Abbotsford International Airport, Abbotsford Regional Hospital & Cancer Centre, University of the Fraser Valley, and Tradex. It promotes its active sectors- agriculture, advanced manufacturing, aerospace and retail. The community benefits from a recent $85 Million broadband investment by Telus in which 90% of the community now has access to it. Abbotsford also benefits from access across Canada via the Transcanada Highway, access to the USA at its local border crossing and through its international airport. Among its most precious assets are its young people at the University of the Fraser Valley and the innovation that it supports in its key sectors of agribusiness, aerospace and advanced manufacturing. And, among other community assets, its diverse community inspires and encourages new ideas, evolving into a unique culture of innovation. In that context, the ICF Community Accelerator was executed.
On August 15, ICF’s Co-Founders, Robert Bell and John G. Jung visited Abbotsford to hold a Community Accelerator with a focus on developing the tools needed to ultimately support the community to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Investors are seeking opportunities to invest in innovative communities with excellence in talent, smart infrastructure, and good governance, but also which care about the health and livability of the city for its citizens and the community’s sustainability.
Following a keynote address introduced by Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun, Robert Bell covered the issues and challenges of communities such as Abbotsford and raised a number of opportunities, case studies and solutions that communities pursue to become Intelligent Communities. In addition, John G. Jung, a veteran leader in the urban planning and economic development fields and formerly President and CEO of the economic development and marketing agencies in Calgary, Greater Toronto Area and Waterloo Region, and the Chairman and Co-Founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, addressed the audience with an overview of investment attraction criteria and methodologies. Bell’s keynote address was followed by a day-long workshop, also delivered by Robert Bell, with an audience of Abbotsford thought leaders and heads of agencies including the Abbotsford International Airport, UFV and the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. The key areas covered were within the context of ICF’s methodology which included Smart Infrastructure, especially the importance of broadband-enabled services necessary for a community such as Abbotsford; development of a solid knowledge workforce reflective of the region’s key sectors; and the importance of innovation. Advocacy, sustainability and digital inclusion were also discussed. At the conclusion, the discussion turned to how Abbotsford could use the ICF platform to focus on potential investment attraction opportunities. A checklist of investment attraction criteria were presented. After each presentation, the workshop agenda allowed for discussion around the table followed by group discussion, led by a table rapporteur. The highly energetic discussion was well received by the organizers and the presenters. The aim of the workshop was to engage the community and provide it with the basic tools it would need to have the community apply for the SMART21 designation. The successful completion of the application is due September 21 and the announcement will be on October 25 at an ICF Canada event in Hamilton, Ontario.
Abbotsford indicated that it is prepared to make a submission to ICF this year and it is hopeful that it may be able to celebrate their win in 2018. However, as there is no guarantee that the Community Accelerator will meet the expectations of what the independent adjudicators of the SMART21 award expect, Abbotsford is prepared to come back to a Task Force with an Accelerator Metrics Report and evaluate their next steps in the event that they did not meet the criteria to be named as a 2019 SMART21 community. This could include recommendations to improve or fix gaps that the community has relative to its global competition and thereafter reapply the following year. If Abbotsford makes it to this year’s SMART21 level, the metrics report and mentorship will instead focus on the next level opportunity, called ICF’s TOP7 Intelligent Community Award.
Abbotsford’s enlightened workshop audience was able to look past its potential insecurities as a community and speak forthrightly on its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for each of ICF’s key Intelligent Community indicators. There is much strength in its smart infrastructure capacities, including Telus’ new broadband deployments in Abbotsford; its air and highway transportation advantages; and its knowledge workforce advantages with a university (UFV) dedicated to Abbotsford’s local sectors, including agriculture, advanced manufacturing, aerospace and retail. There were some areas discussed where Abbotsford could improve as well, such as ways to expose its competitive advantages to outside investors; the opportunities to create earned media; potential opportunities for collaboration among all Fraser Valley communities; and the need to ensure the community is seen as an attractive and business-friendly location in which to attract investment. The workshop discussions noted ways in which these might be achieved. Overall, the day achieved the confidence-building and capacity development necessary for the City of Abbotsford’s Economic Development agency, CAED, to be able to make a submission to the ICF Awards program in order to benefit from the branding, benchmarking, networking and global connections through the Intelligent Community Forum Foundation.
CAED’s next steps are to develop a report on what they heard from the day’s workshop, both from the presenters and the audience’s responses and to utilize the lessons from the day for the application. In partnership with CAED, ICF and ICF Canada will follow their participation in the ICF Awards process and report on their progress in the following ICF Newsletters. Ultimately, ICF will produce a guide on the application process for other communities around the world to learn from the process that Abbotsford experienced and to monitor the results of the ICF methodology in help a community such as Abbotsford to become even more ready to attract investment to their region. If you are a community considering the ICF movement as a potential way for your city to be able to achieve free earned media, increased recognition through ICF’s SMART21 designation and to build an arsenal of marketing data and materials to help your community target investment opportunities, follow along Abbotsford’s saga over the next year. Thanks again to the leadership in Abbotsford for allowing ICF Canada and ICF to monitor your progress. It is an important opportunity that you are sharing with the world!
Want to have a voice in iCommunity.ca, the official newsletter of ICF Canada? Please send your blogs, announcements and other interesting content to John G. Jung at [email protected]
ICF Canada 1310-20 Bay Street Toronto, Ontario M5J 2N8 www.icf-canada.com
Contact: John G. Jung at [email protected] 1-647-801-4238 cell
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