Lou Zacharilla, Co-Founder, Intelligent Community Forum
Louis Zacharilla helped found the Intelligent Community movement. He is the developer of the Top7 and Intelligent Community of the Year Awards programs and guides the strategy for the New York-based think tank’s programs. Mr. Zacharilla oversees the development of institutes for the Intelligent Community Forum.
Podcast
Overview
The Intelligent community forum is a network connecting cities and regions globally to empower each community. This aim is accomplished by carrying out plans that enable the exchange of information, generate employment and boost economic development.
You must be familiar with the term “Smart City” already but may not have heard about Intelligent city. Well then, it’s time you understand what intelligent communities are as well as the role of the Intelligent Community forum in their selection and functioning.
TBCY features today, the co-founder himself, to throw light upon the subject so that you know everything you need by the end of this video.
Tune in to wise up the difference between smart and intelligent with Lou Zacharilla.
About Lou:
Lou Zacharilla helped found the Intelligent Community movement and has several achievements under his belt. He comes with a strong marketing background, having run the award-winning “all you can be” campaign for the US Army. He has co-authored a number of books including Brain Gain and Broadband Economies: Building the Community for the 21st Century and Seizing Our Destiny. Lou is also a member of the board of directors of the METRO New York Library Council. And yet that’s just the brief of his career and achievements. So, tune in to this episode, where our guest, Lou shares his journey, talks about his community and explains the whole concept of Intelligent Community Forum.
Discussion:
What is an Intelligent Community Forum?
The person behind the intelligent community movement speaks how ICF develops methods that can apply to local governance to take broadband connectivity everywhere including the small and mid-sized cities. This will prevent the depopulation of rural areas and enable the places to revive themselves.
When asked about the main goal of the Intelligent community forum, Lou replies:
We want any place a human being calls home to be a great place to live.
He believes that any place can be revitalised when various other factors are taken into account along with technology. People return to their places when they see some kind of possibilities and that they are seeing now. As a result of this, Lou asserts, people are returning to their homes from urban areas.
What does ICF Offer?
Lou explains the circumstances that prompted him to move from smart to intelligent and the difference between smart and intelligent.
Intelligent Community forum aims at creating a cohesive community. Here, unlike smart cities, technology isn’t the only thing used to solve the problems.
“Smart is technology. You have to have it. But you can’t allow that stuff to run you over. It’s a tool that serves the human species. What we have tried to do with the ICF is look for human values. “
Technology is just a tool. Granted, you cannot do without it but to make people feel safe in their community, there must be something more than that. And that Lou says is intelligence. Intelligent communities not only make the best use of technology to solve the problems but also use the minds of local universities, entrepreneurs and businesses. They work together to bring about innovative ideas and carry out the project inclusively.
This is a way to unlock human intelligence which is an endless natural resource.
More:
Lou further shares the activities undertaken by the Intelligent Community Forum. These include programs that enable them to obtain information from 300-400 communities each year which is then shared with other communities.
The data that is gathered is used to evaluate the performance of cities as well as provide them help wherever required.
He talks about other activities carried out by ICF and shares some interesting insights. To know all about it, tune in and listen to the conversation.
Profile
Louis Zacharilla helped found the Intelligent Community movement. He is the developer of the Top7 and Intelligent Community of the Year Awards programs and guides the strategy for the New York-based think tank’s programs. Mr. Zacharilla oversees the development of institutes for the Intelligent Community Forum. He is a frequent keynote speaker and a moderator at global conferences and events. He appears regularly in the media to discuss what ICF calls “the new Renaissance” within the world’s communities.
Mr. Zacharilla is co-author of the books Brain Gain, Broadband Economies: Building the Community for the 21st Century and Seizing Our Destiny. His articles, opinion pieces and blogs appear in publications worldwide, including Canada, Sweden, the United States, and Australia. His work was the subject of a multi-part series in Taiwan’s Ideas Magazine and his views were quoted in the influential 2012 World Wealth Report. He has been the subject of interview for in the Financial Times of London and VICE.com. He authors a blog, “Community as Canvas,” and is regular contributor to Satellite Executive Briefing, Digital Communities, Mayors & Cities and Public Sector Digest.
Mr. Zacharilla has served as an adjunct professor at New York’s Fordham University,a a guest lecturer at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute’s School of Innovation Technology & Enterprise, Laval University (Quebec City) and the Central European University (Budapest.) He was named a judge for the French-based World E-Democracy Awards program, is a member of the Australian-American Dialogue Council, a trustee of the Board of Directors of Walsh University (USA) and recently a member of the board of directors of the METRO New York Library Council. He was born in Lyons, New York, earned his Masters degree from the University of Notre Dame and lives in Manhattan.
