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The
World Foundation for Smart Communities
A
Smart Community is a community that has made a conscious effort
to use information technology to transform life and work within
its region in significant and fundamental, rather than incremental,
ways.
The
World Foundation for Smart Communities is a nonprofit educational
organization
founded to promote the concept and facilitate the implementation
of
"smart communities" -- communities using information technology
as a catalyst
for transforming life and work to meet the challenge of the new
millennium.
Founded
in 1997, the Foundation operates in partnership with the California
Institute
for Smart Communities at San Diego State University. The Institute
chaired
and staffed the first City of the Future initiative in 1992, wrote
the
Smart Communities Guidebook, and developed the smart communities
program for
the state of California in 1996.
Unlike
towns and cities of an earlier era, built along railroads, waterways,
or
interstate highways, smart communities will be build along information
highways
-- broadband systems of communications connected to every home,
office
school, library and health care facility in the region and through
the World
Wide Web, to millions of other institutions across the globe. Most
striking is that these information-age metropolises are not cities
or counties
or townships in the usual sense. They are instead powerful regional
economies
built on a shared sense of mission and a recognition of the values
of
collaboration and cooperation. Nor is their future dependent upon
cyberspace,
the Internet or the World Wide Web for their existence. Smart communities
are real places inhabited by real people whose interests and needs
have changed as all things are changing or must change in the face
of a dramatic
shift in the basic structure of the world's economy and society.
Today
as the world moves swiftly into a new century, critical issues are
being
raised regarding the role of communities the world over. To help
public
sector leaders at the national, state and local levels successfully
navigate
this uncharted new territory, the World Foundation for Smart Communities
was launched in August of 1997.
The
goals and objectives of the World Foundation are accomplished in
part by providing
a worldwide forum for corporations, government, academe, associations
and community leaders to meet and discuss the best applications
of IT in
emerging smart communities, and innovations in governance, particularly
private/public
partnerships. Additionally, seminars, tutorials, and a "boot camp"
for key government and community leaders, and a clearinghouse of
smart community
projects are accessible along with reports, monographs, white papers
and other articles of interest.
The
foundation, through the Institute and its other academic partners
worldwide
provides:
- Seminars
for industry, the general public, and nonprofit associations,
as well
as
tailored educational conferences and seminars for local and state
governments
- Research
reports, monographs, and other informational reports on applications
of technology and innovations in governance of special interest
to
businesses and governments following smart communities development
- Consulting
services related to technology infrastructure and assessment,
procurement
and the development of private/public partnerships, development
of
vision and mission statements and related smart community matters
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