By Ray Hudson
Photo: Ray Hudson
Surrey: Robert A. Bell, the co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, a New York-based think tank, was introduced this morning at Surrey City Hall, to begin the adjudication visit in the final stage of the Intelligent City of the Year competition for 2015.
Surrey is competing with six other cities in the world for the top honour of for 2015. This includes three communities in the US, one from Taiwan, Australia and Brazil,
“The fact that Surrey has made it to the final round of the Top Seven Cities, is a validation that what we are doing is making a positive difference in the people who live and work in our city,” says Mayor Linda Hepner. “Whether it’s in our efforts to bring about the best and most advanced ideas or how we can better engage and interact with our citizens, what we have in Surrey is a phenomenal group of people working together to shape a positive vision of the future for our city.”
During the visit, Surrey will showcase such initiatives as Innovation Boulevard with the agile partnership of health, business, higher education and government in creating new health technologies; SFU Surrey with its programming and labs focused on mechatronics engineering, arts and technology and entrepreneurship; the partnership-driven early childhood development initiatives and progress made since the city’s participation in the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge; Citywide Wi-Fi service offered free at more than 40 key locations throughout Surrey, in partnership with Shaw Communications; and the city’s state-of-the-art Traffic Management Centre, which the Asian Journal profiled in January.
One community will be chosen to receive the award in June, during ceremonies to be held in Toronto.
A detailed report on Robert Bell’s address will appear in next week’s edition.
