Waterloo, Ont., in battle to be named world's most intelligent community MIKE OLIVEIRA
Sun Jan 22, 4:33 PM ET
TORONTO (CP) - The Canadian home to a high-tech hub of companies and think-tanks housing some of the world's brightest minds has been shortlisted in a contest to be named the world's most intelligent community.
Waterloo, Ont., is running against Cleveland, Ohio; the Gangnam District in Seoul, South Korea; Ichikawa, Japan; Manchester, United Kingdom; Taipei, Taiwan; and Tianjin, China, to be recognized by the Intelligent Communities Forum, which will declare a winner in June.
To be considered, communities have to prove they are attracting new business, creating jobs, investing in infrastructure, and improving or innovating in the delivery of government and public services such as education, administration, law enforcement or citizen participation.
While the contest recognizes many cities that have turned around their fortunes by means of technology, Waterloo has a different story, says city Coun. Mark Whaley.
"Waterloo has never been a turnaround story but one of continuing prosperity and good growth," Whaley says.
"The University of Waterloo is 50 years old and it's been the catalyst of some remarkable change in the community, in both government and in business."
The university has the world's largest post-secondary co-op program, getting more than 11,000 students into work placements with 3,000 companies.
Those co-op placements not only enrich the talent of the local community but they also attract some of the world's smartest people to the area, he says.
"People come from all over the world (to study at Waterloo) and then transport their experience around the world. Waterloo is a name that is very well known around the world because of our remarkable university experience.
"The university has created so many opportunities for people that it has kind of ignited Waterloo to be the centre of high-tech and that's something that's celebrated throughout the community."
The world's biggest high-tech corporations, such as Microsoft, have been mining the student body for years to build their companies.
"There are many years where Waterloo is the university we hire the most people from of any university in the world. Waterloo has always been in the top five every year," Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said during a visit to the school last October.
The city is home to hundreds of technology companies including Open Text, Sybase and Research in Motion, maker of the ubiquitous Blackberry e-mail pager.
And the city of about 111,000 also houses more than 150 think-tanks and research centres that have attracted top researchers from around the world, including the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Burlington, Ont., Fredericton, Ottawa-Gatineau, Nunavut, and Sudbury, Ont., had also been shortlisted among the so-called Smart 21 cities before the list was narrowed down to seven.
Calgary shared the annual award with Seoul, South Korea, in 2002. Calgary was recognized for pushing the development of high-speed Internet by laying more kilometres of optical fibre than any other Canadian city and hosting a fast-growing IT and telecommunications sector.
