ICF Global Summit 2018

When: June 4-6, 2018
Where: London

What will you take away from the ICF Global Summit?

The annual ICF Summit is unlike any municipal, urban planning or economic development conference you attend.  You will take away value that translates into direct benefit to the citizens, businesses and institutions you serve:

• Economic development leads.  Identify site location and investment opportunities, as well as “soft landing” targets for local business, at our economic development matchmaking session.
• Ideas you can put to use. Meet officials from cities, counties and metro areas who face similar challenges and have created strategies and programs to deal with them.  Many may have developed solutions that apply to your community. Peer mentoring starts at the Summit and continues long after through the relationships you forge.
• Inspiration to act.  Too often, efforts to build a better community wind up in an endless loop of meetings, analysis, workshops and more analysis.  The inspiring examples you encounter at the Summit show you how to take the first essential steps on the journey.
• International reach. McKinsey & Company estimates that 80% of the world’s trade will cross international borders by 2027.  Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow has proven that 80% of economic growth comes from technology innovation.  The Summit is your most direct route to international opportunity in the innovation economy.

The Summit Comes to London

For the first time in its history, the ICF Global Summit will be taking place in London. ICF, together with NextGen, is looking forward to welcoming mayors, civic leaders, CIOs and industry representatives from around the world to an iconic city for this unique event.

Annual Theme: Humanizing Data

Data has become the heartbeat of the new economy and the lifeblood of smart public policy in the 21st Century.

Two words born in the mid-1990s still shape our understanding of data’s central role. Engineers at Silicon Graphics, an early tech innovator, began talking about “Big Data” at about the same time the words “Open Data” first appeared in a report, which advocated for the free exchange of scientific information.

Two decades later, Big Data describes the high-speed collection, processing and availability of huge volumes of information. What once required days, weeks or months of computer time can now be processed and displayed in real time. Greater processing capacity has encouraged us to add sensors to objects, animals and even to ourselves, and to “scrape”the digital streams of the Internet to generate an even greater flood of data. By getting us answers sooner, Big Data delivers greater value. It also reveals patterns we might never have suspected were there, but which alter our decisions, investments and our well-being. The impact on businesses and institutions already mounts into the billions, measured by cost-savings, convenience, operational improvements and new forms of economic activity. Read more >>>

Key Events at the Annual Summit

• Urban and Rural Master Classes teaching development strategies based on information and communications technology
• Economic Development Matchmaking for public and private-sector organizations seeking new opportunities.
• Top7 Intelligent Communities Reception, honoring the finalists for the Intelligent Community Awards
• Top7 Conversations with the mayors and administrative leaders of our finalists
• Intelligent Community Awards Dinner, where one of the Top7 is named Intelligent Community of the Year

Get Involved

The ICF Summit is part networking, part immersion in best practices and part entertainment. We are inviting sponsors, speakers and partners to come forward. Please contact Marit Hendriks – [email protected] – to discuss.

More about ICF Summits

Each year, the leaders of Intelligent Communities gather with their partners in technology, education, business, economic development, healthcare and other sectors at the ICF Summit.

Many participate in meetings of ICF’s membership.  Working through our Board and committees, they determines the Forum’s policies and steer its research and development programs.  These meetings are open to both Full and Associate members of the Forum, as well as to invited guests.  They engage in economic development matchmaking and a master class on challenges and best-practice solutions.  They hear thought-provoking keynotes and conversations from the innovators who are creating inclusive prosperity and solving social problems on a foundation of information and communications technology.  They network at lively social events and that honor the Top7 Intelligent Communities and witness the selection of the Intelligent Communities of the Year.

Summits take place in New York City, home of the Forum, and in Intelligent Communities around the world.

Sponsors and Partners

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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