Oulu is the only European city to make it into the final seven to be considered for the ‘Intelligent Community Award.’

The award, which recognises cities with which use information technology to ‘power growth, address social challenges and preserve and promote culture’ is given by the ‘Intelligent Community Forum’ (ICF) every year.

The Top Seven were announced at their meeting on 18th January in Honolulu. The eventual winner will be crowned on 8th June at the Intelligent Community Forum Summit in New York.

Louis Zacharilla, Director of Development and a founding member of Intelligent Community Forum, stated that “it was extraordinary that Oulu made it already to the Top 21 with their first time ever application. And now that they’ve made it to the Top Seven is a success story beyond comparison in the history of ICF.”

According to the ICF, ‘The Top Seven represent models of economic and social transformation in the 21st Century. Each community exemplifies best practices in broadband deployment and use, workforce development, innovation, digital inclusion and advocacy that offer lessons to regions, cities, towns and villages around the world.  They are charting new paths to lasting prosperity for their citizens, businesses and institutions.’

ICF defines every year a theme that guides the nominations for the Intelligent Community of the Year.  The 2012 theme is Intelligent Communities – Platforms for Innovation.  The other judging criteria include the city’s broadband connectivity, ‘knowledge workforce’ and ‘digital inclusion.’

The ICF claims that all of these criteria were evidenced in ‘Oulu exceptionally well. The international jury was especially impressed by the degree of close collaboration of business and research institutions on all levels in Oulu.’

During the final stage of the competition, an ICF representative will be visiting Oulu to test the accuracy of the city’s application. The representative will then produce a report for the jury.

Barcelona, Frankfurt and Heraklion (in Greece) also made it into the Top 21 but Oulu will be Europe’s sole representative in the final. The rest of this year’s Top Seven are Austin (Texas), Quebec City, Riverside (California), St John (New Brunswick), Stratford (Ontario), and Taichung City (Taiwan).

Oulu’s application was jointly submitted by the Innovations and Marketing Group of Oulu, BusinessOulu and the Centre for Internet Excellence.