Episodit

  • In a year when democracies around the world go to the voting polls to select leaders and representatives in nations and local towns and regions, we see much has changed due to an adoption of the “Intelligent Community” idea and through the evolution of technologies like broadband and AI, which have crept into our daily lives. The COVID Pandemic altered our rhythms and impacted our local economies, especially commercial real estate, healthcare advances and the nature of work.

    Can it be very long before we elect a robot for mayor? What is the new normal with AI in our communities? Are the forces too overwhelming or are we managing? Picking up on ICF’s July 2024 webinar “Sharing Public Spaces with Robots” Lou went to the “bullpen” to bring in ICF’s Senior Fellow, Dr. Norman Jacknis to ask him what his research and teaching has revealed. Norm, who leads ICF’s Analysts also shares his views about this year’s Top7 Intelligent Communities, one of which will succeed Binh Duong, Vietnam as Intelligent Community of the Year!

    Dr. Jacknis has decades of executive and leadership experience in the public and private sectors. He has successfully led organizations to adopt innovations, creatively use technology, and embrace data-driven cultures.

    Dr. Jacknis is currently Professor of Practice in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship program of the business school of Northeastern University. Prior to that, for eight years, he was on the full- time faculty of Columbia University, teaching machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as product design, in its Executive Master’s degree program for technology leaders. He is also Senior Fellow of the global Intelligent Community Forum, where he has worked for years with regional/state and local public officials and businesses on the intelligent use of technology to improve quality of life and the built environment.

    Government Technology Magazine selected him as one of the nation’s “Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers who, using technology ... broke bureaucratic inertia to better serve the public”. Under his leadership, Westchester County won numerous awards, including the Center for Digital Government’s top ten digital counties in the country, American City & County's Crown Communities Award for technology and was selected as one of the top seven Intelligent Communities in the world.

    Among many activities beyond his work, he is Chairman Emeritus and former President of the regional chapter of the national association of chief information and technology officers (SIM) as well as Vice Chair of the Westchester County Community College Board Of Trustees.

    Dr. Jacknis received his Doctorate, Master's and Bachelor's degrees from Princeton University. He also studied for a semester at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and has graduated from executive courses at Harvard University.

  • The ”Heartland” of the United States is a geographical expanse that is breathtaking in its size and scope. Covering 20 states, from North Dakota to Texas, it is among the most diverse places on the globe. Yet for the past decades it has underperformed the ”Services” economies of America’s coastal states and cities.

    But that is changing dramatically thanks to the efforts of groups like Heartland Forward. With entrepreneurial programs and toolkits, this ”Think and DO” tank as they call themselves has been unlocking the intelligence, culture, and capital in places as diverse as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Oxford, Mississippi, and attempting to drive investment to the heartland of USA. How’s it going?

    As the American economy continues to generate prosperity and opportunities, Heartland Forward’s
    Senior Economist and Chief Research Officer talk to Lou about place-based economic development, the workforce of these 20 states and the linkages between their work and ICF’s.

    This one changes the narrative about the ” flyover country” within the United States and gives examples of how every community can seize its destiny (Sound familiar?) https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/seizing_our_destiny

    You will enjoy their insights into this continuous rebirth of the American spirit.

    Julie Trivitt joined Heartland Forward from the University of Arkansas where she was a faculty member in both the Economics and Education Reform departments for eight years and has lived in the heartland her entire life. She leads the research initiatives on labor markets and talent pipelines as they are now and how we need them to adapt so the people of the heartland have opportunities to realize their full potential and employers have the best qualified talent.

    She has a PhD and MS in Economics from the University of Arkansas. Her bachelor’s degree is also in Economics and was earned at Missouri State University. She aspires to be an herb gardener, a cruise director, and a librarian.

    David Shideler serves as the chief research officer for Heartland Forward’s research team which includes visiting senior fellows Richard Florida and Maryann Feldman. With a mission to help improve the economic performance in the heartland and change the narrative of the middle of the country, the original research efforts focus on four key pillars: innovation and entrepreneurship, human capital, health and wellness and regional competitiveness.

    Shideler joined Heartland Forward after more than a decade at Oklahoma State University, serving as a professor and Community and Economic Development Specialist in the Department of Agricultural Economics. In these roles, he oversaw projects in community and rural development and small business development, and published peer-reviewed research articles on the economic impacts of internet access, incentive programs, and local food production.

    Shideler holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics and an M.A. in Economics from the Ohio State University, an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the Pennsylvania State University, and a B.S. in Community and Rural Development from Clemson University.

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  • In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Ambassador Jarmo Sareva, Finland’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs before being named the country’s first Ambassador for Innovation.

    Sareva was Finland’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs before being named the country’s first Ambassador for Innovation. These two jobs were central to the success of Finland, which is known for its innovation in technology and the development of showcase cities, including ICF’s 2018 Intelligent Community of the Year, Espoo. He also served in directorships at the UN’s Office for Disarmament Affairs and the Institute for Disarmament Research. His advocacy for Finland as it current Consul General in New York and vision for the world’s cities keeps the focus on humanity as the center of the human experience. He discusses what he calls “frugal innovation” methods to continue to improve social quality of life.

  • Sareva was Finland’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs before being named the country’s first Ambassador for Innovation. These two jobs were central to the success of Finland, which is known for its innovation in technology and the development of showcase cities, including ICF’s 2018 Intelligent Community of the Year, Espoo. He also served in directorships at the UN’s Office for Disarmament Affairs and the Institute for Disarmament Research. His advocacy for Finland as it current Consul General in New York and vision for the world’s cities keeps the focus on humanity as the center of the human experience. He discusses what he calls “frugal innovation” methods to continue to improve social quality of life.

    Ambassador Jarmo Sareva is the Consul General of Finland in New York since September 1, 2022.

    The Consulate General in New York promotes Finland’s commercial & cultural interests in the United States, focusing on thirty-five eastern states. It is also responsible for consular services in New York as well as in other states in its jurisdiction.

    Mr. Sareva brings a wealth of experience to his position from both multilateral and bilateral diplomacy, especially in the field of arms control. Prior to his appointment in New York, Mr. Sareva served in Helsinki as Finland’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs from 2021 to 2022 and Finland’s first Ambassador for Innovation from 2018 to 2021. From 2006 to 2018, he served in various positions at the UN in New York and Geneva, including as Director of the Geneva Branch of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs and Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

    Mr. Sareva’s previous diplomatic experience includes serving as Director for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Helsinki and as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Finland to the UN in New York, as well as postings in Moscow, Washington, D.C., and Vienna.

    Mr. Sareva is passionate about helping Finnish businesses expand to the U.S. market, promoting Finnish culture, and strengthening Finland’s country brand in the United States. Mr. Sareva holds an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He is married with two children and two grandchildren.

  • In this second episode, best-selling author of the “Overview Effect” Frank White talks about the hope and plan he has to establish a group of people who will be the heart and soul of bringing the overview effect “down to Earth.” How can experiencing a vision of unity and a tightly-knit community off the planet (“the overview effect”) improve communities on it? Mr. White is at his fascinating best when discussing this with ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla.

  • Many astronauts say that when they initially see the Earth from afar, they look first for their hometowns….Eventually, they realize that their true identity as a human….is ‘with that whole thing.’”

    One of the world’s most esteemed authors and Space philosophers, best-selling author Frank White, wrote The Overview Effect nearly 40 years ago while gazing down at Earth. His hundreds of interviews and reporting since have changed the way people view our planet and their lives, and has influenced our outlook on the idea of “community.” After hundreds of interviews with every human being who has left Earth for Space and working with the best minds the human community offers, he narrowed the process of understanding into three words.

    In this remarkable Podcast with his friend, Lou Zacharilla, he shares them as they talk about the cognitive shift that an “overview effect” has had and what it might mean for the future of Intelligent Communities.

    Frank White is an educator, writer, and communications consultant. He has authored or coauthored numerous books on topics ranging from space exploration to artificial intelligence to Zen Buddhism. His best-known work is The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution. He is the co-founder, president, and board chair of The Human Space Program, Inc.

  • Lou and Ben Winchester continue their discussion about the changes taking place in rural communities and the misperceptions afoot. You will enjoy the second part of this Podcast. While Lou claims, “The Middle of Nowhere is No More,” Ben adds, “And we live in the middle of Everywhere!”


    Ben has been working both in and for small towns across the Midwest for over 25 years. He lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota with his wife and two children. Ben is trained as a Rural Sociologist and works for the University of Minnesota Extension. His conducts applied research on economic, social, and demographic topics surrounding a theme of “rewriting the rural narrative”. He recently received the international Rural Renewal Research Prize in 2021 for this work.

    Winchester received his B.A. in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Minnesota, Morris (1995) and M.S. in Rural Sociology from the University of Missouri, Columbia (2001). He was a founding employee at the Center for Small Towns, an outreach program at the University of Minnesota, Morris and specializes in community development, demographic analysis, data visualization, and moving communities away from anecdata.

  • “The seeds of success for rural economies have been planted!” So says the controversial champion of the rural narrative, University of Minnesota educator and researcher Dr. Ben Winchester, a demographer at the University of Minnesota’s. Extension Center for Community Vitality.

    “If the small town is dying why is there a housing shortage in most parts of rural America!?”

    Winchester explodes with enthusiasm and knocks down categorically old notions and stereotypes about rural places including the one about WHY people are moving to rural communities.

    “A job is NOT among the top things people look for when choosing a rural lifestyle. Employment opportunities do not bring people in and seeking investment the way it has been done by economic development officials is not an effective way to create brain gain.” Dr. Winchester suggests another way and it is as simple as any common-sense approach can be.

    Professor Winchester is a dedicated community-centric advocate, a fresh and original thinker and a great interview.

    Says long-time ICF jurist Bill Coleman, “Ben is one of my favorites!”

  • Now that COVID is no longer a global pandemic, what is it? And what is the lesson communities learned over the past 3 years? In this rebroadcast of the interview with Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, who was just featured in TIMES100 Health, ICF co-founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dr. Jetelina, Director of Population Health Analytics, to learn these answers and more.

    Dr. Katelyn Jetelina is one of America’s most trusted epidemiologists. She publishes Your Local Epidemiologist, a widely read website and newsletter covering a range of public health issues that translates evolving science into readable language for the general public. In this episode of The Intelligent Community, she discusses information integrity and the politics of COVID in places as diverse as New York and Florida. This episode is the second part of ICF co-founder Lou Zacharilla’s interview with Dr. Jetelina.

    Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD is an epidemiologist, data scientist and internationally renowned scientific communicator. She is the Director of Population Health Analytics, a nonprofit, non-partisan health policy think tank. She is also a Senior Scientific Advisor to a number of government and non-profit agencies, including the White House, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Resolve to Save Lives and Make-A-Wish Foundation. On the side, Dr. Jetelina is the publisher of Your Local Epidemiologist – a public health newsletter that “translates” ever-evolving science to the general public, which has reached over 300 million views. Dr. Jetelina has received 3 national awards for her work, including National Academies of Science and a medal of honor from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Emergency Management and Medical Operations, Field Operations, and Response. Katelyn resides in San Diego, California with her husband and two toddlers.

  • Lou continues The INTELLIGENT Community Podcast with Adrianne Furniss and touches on the subject of HOW small communities develop brain gain and capacity over the long term. They also discuss how broadband can reinforce cultural restoration and its role in enabling democracy to persist in the Digital Age.

    Adrianne Benton Furniss is Executive Director and Board Member of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, a 40-year-old nonprofit focused on broadband policy, working to make sure everyone can use and benefit from high quality, affordable broadband. They strengthen local, state, and national leadership by providing the timely information, rigorous evidence, practical guidance, and advocacy needed to articulate and implement a broadband for all agenda. They inform and give policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates information they need to advance a broadband for all agenda. They research and build knowledge by providing a body of research and best practices to guide our field’s work. They partner and engage with communities to develop strategies for ubiquitous, high-speed, reliable, and affordable broadband to meet larger community goals. And they advocate and advance a broadband for all agenda at all levels of government through policymaker education, legal and regulatory filings, and coalition participation.

  • Our goal is to bring open, affordable, high-performance broadband to all people in the U.S. to ensure a thriving democracy,” says Adrianne Furniss. In a rare interview and her first podcast, the Executive Director of the Benton Institute discusses the current state of rural broadband in the United States and her view of how to build capacity within very small communities that have suffered brain drain and the loss of their economic vibrancy. The work being done by Benton and the research this famed institute relies on continue to launch what many call the “rural renaissance.” https://www.benton.org/.

    Adrianne Benton Furniss is Executive Director and Board Member of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, a 40-year-old nonprofit focused on broadband policy, working to make sure everyone can use and benefit from high quality, affordable broadband. They strengthen local, state, and national leadership by providing the timely information, rigorous evidence, practical guidance, and advocacy needed to articulate and implement a broadband for all agenda. They inform and give policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates information they need to advance a broadband for all agenda. They research and build knowledge by providing a body of research and best practices to guide our field’s work. They partner and engage with communities to develop strategies for ubiquitous, high-speed, reliable, and affordable broadband to meet larger community goals. And they advocate and advance a broadband for all agenda at all levels of government through policymaker education, legal and regulatory filings, and coalition participation.

  • What makes Canadian cities such as Waterloo, Ottawa, and Toronto hubs of high-tech entrepreneurship and successful Intelligent Communities? Since moving to Canada, Professor Darius Ornston, author of When Small States Make Big Leaps, which chronicled how the Nordic countries developed the ability to enter new, tech-based markets, has similarly studied two Intelligent Communities of the Year in Canada and tells us how these Canadian communities represent a collaborative approach which has resulted in Canada having more designated Intelligent Communities than any other nation. Darius Ornston is an Associate Professor at the prestigious Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto where he specializes in innovation policy and the relationship between cooperation and economic change.

  • What makes Canadian cities such as Waterloo, Ottawa and Toronto hubs of high-tech entrepreneurship and successful Intelligent Communities? Since moving to Canada, Professor Darius Ornston, author of When Small States Make Big Leaps, which chronicled how the Nordic countries developed the ability to enter new, tech-based markets, has similarly studied two Intelligent Communities of the Year in Canada and tells us how these Canadian communities represent a collaborative approach which has resulted in Canada having more designated Intelligent Communities than any other nation.

    Darius Ornston is an associate professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto where he specializes in innovation policy, specifically the relationship between cooperation and economic change. His first book, When Small States Make Big Leaps, illustrates how the Nordic countries use cooperation to enter new, high-technology markets. In Good Governance Gone Bad, he demonstrates how the same, tight-knit networks which accelerate reform and restructuring can lead to policy overshooting, overinvestment, and economic crisis. Professor Ornston’s work with Dan Breznitz on the politics of innovation and the design of innovation agencies has been published with multiple outlets, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the OECD. Since moving to Canada, Professor Ornston has focused on high-technology entrepreneurship in Ottawa, Waterloo, and Toronto.

  • This week marks the start of another global awards campaign at ICF. We begin the search for the successor to the current Intelligent Community of the Year, Binh Duong, Vietnam. Who will it be? We begin by naming theSmart21(see the video) on March 20th. This year’s S21 Awards and Conference will be held in Taipei, Taiwan. Taipei was the 2006 Intelligent Community of the Year and this year hosts the Smart City Expo andThe Smart Cities and Intelligent Communities Forum, produced by the Taiwan government and ICF. What will that event be like? What is Taiwan like and why does it have 15 Intelligent Communities!? We hear directly from Tiffany Lin of ICF Taiwan, who is the Acting Deputy Manager for the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan. In a delightful conversation with Lou, she talks about life in Taiwan, freedom and why the country has embraced the ICF program.

  • A NY tech exec and mother decides to serve her community by running for office in one of the most high-profile districts in Manhattan. Elizabeth Golluscio looked at her city’s $106 billion budget and found that there was limited transparency on how decisions were being made. She looked at challenges like unlicensed E-bikes (part of the 56,000 deliveries of food in NYC each day!) and met with Police and found a basement in the precinct full of them. She got a sense of what was happening with local crime and safety. Then she did what people who want answers from their local government and know they can do better often do: she ran for office. She used social media against an incumbent whose party dominates the city. (Oh, and in between she attended ICF’s Top7 Reception to find out what Intelligent Communities can teach.) Listen to her talk frankly about the experience.

    Elizabeth Golluscio has lived in Carnegie Hill for nearly 15 years, and served on the board of her Coop for a few years after first moving into the neighborhood - on 90th Street between Lex and 3rd Aves. - from the west side. Her two sons attended the La Scuola Italian school on East 96th St, for their early school years. They are now in public high schools (ages 15 and 16).

    Ms. Golluscio is not a politician and this would be her first campaign; shes spent her career in the high tech (software) industry. Most recently, she was a Managing Vice President at Gartner, leading the team of research analysts who advise clients on their software design & development strategies. She started at Gartner as a Research Analyst in 2015, covering application architecture and integration topics.

    Prior to that, she held a variety of roles in product management, marketing and sales in early-stage software start-ups, experiencing a wide variety of opportunities and challenges, e.g. helping raise VC funding, launching new products, working abroad to integrate newly acquired businesses, an IPO, etc. Shes lived and worked in Australia, Ireland, and Italy.

    Ms. Golluscios completed dozens of marathons, half marathons and triathlons, and is now a Crossfit enthusiast, so youre likely to find her in Central Park or at the gym. She earned her engineering degree from Cornell, and her MBA from MIT Sloan.

  • ICF announced early this year that it issued a license for its third Institute. The new ICF Institute will be based in Atlantic Canada, in the city of Fredericton, New Brunswick at New Brunswick Community College. The new Canadian institute joins those established in Dublin, Ohio (USA) and Hsinchu, Taiwan to further promote the Intelligent Community Forum’s method for accelerating the growth of regions and states by transforming clusters of cities and towns into economically robust and socially stable “Intelligent Communities.” Dr. Simon Potter, the Director for the College Office of Research Enterprise at New Brunswick Community College discusses the importance of the new Institute, how he hopes it will increase innovation and collaboration throughout the region and why New Brunswick was chosen as the site of Canada’s first ICF Institute.

    Dr. Simon Potter joined NBCC’s research office with extensive experience in biomaterials, composites, forestry, precision health and genetics applied research. He is responsible for NBCC’s overarching research program which, based on its exceptional strength and depth in ICT, is now expanding into new areas such as agriculture, precision health, and educational and accessibility research. Simon holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh, a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Bath and has built a global reputation in the implementation of large-scale research initiatives in Canada and Australia.

  • A NY tech exec and mother decides to serve her community by running for office in one of the most high-profile districts in Manhattan. Elizabeth Golluscio looked at her city’s $106 billion budget and found that there was limited transparency on how decisions were being made. She looked at challenges like unlicensed E-bikes (part of the 56,000 deliveries of food in NYC each day!) and met with Police and found a basement in the precinct full of them. She got a sense of what was happening with local crime and safety. Then she did what people who want answers from their local government and know they can do better often do: she ran for office. She used social media against an incumbent whose party dominates the city. (Oh, and in between she attended ICF’s Top7 Reception to find out what Intelligent Communities can teach.) Listen to her talk frankly about the experience.

    Elizabeth Golluscio has lived in Carnegie Hill for nearly 15 years, and served on the board of her Coop for a few years after first moving into the neighborhood - on 90th Street between Lex and 3rd Aves. - from the west side. Her two sons attended the La Scuola Italian school on East 96th St, for their early school years. They are now in public high schools (ages 15 and 16).

    Ms. Golluscio is not a politician and this would be her first campaign; shes spent her career in the high tech (software) industry. Most recently, she was a Managing Vice President at Gartner, leading the team of research analysts who advise clients on their software design & development strategies. She started at Gartner as a Research Analyst in 2015, covering application architecture and integration topics.

    Prior to that, she held a variety of roles in product management, marketing and sales in early-stage software start-ups, experiencing a wide variety of opportunities and challenges, e.g. helping raise VC funding, launching new products, working abroad to integrate newly acquired businesses, an IPO, etc. Shes lived and worked in Australia, Ireland, and Italy.

    Ms. Golluscios completed dozens of marathons, half marathons and triathlons, and is now a Crossfit enthusiast, so youre likely to find her in Central Park or at the gym. She earned her engineering degree from Cornell, and her MBA from MIT Sloan.

  • How does a university become a key driver for starting, building and maintaining industry-academic partnerships for the benefit of the local economy? Durham College’s Chris Gillis shares how he develops successful partnerships and overcomes many of the obstacles that keep other communities from moving ahead on this vital piece of the economic puzzle.

    In his current role, Chris is the college lead for applied research project development in the areas of electric, connected & autonomous vehicles, advance technologies and craft beer/beverage development.

    Chris’ career of 35 years plus started after graduating from Dalhousie University and The Technical University of Nova Scotia with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering. Chris worked in several manufacturing organizations with every increasing responsibility until leaving to start his own consulting company focusing on operational performance improvement, innovation and customer satisfaction.

    For over 35 years he has worked with both private and public sector organizations, covering a wide variety of industries and sectors in Canada, the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom, developing and implementingcustom solutions.

  • In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Amy Rowland, Award-Winning Novelist and Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Amy Rowland’s second novel, Inside the Wolf, was published by Algonquin in July 2023. She is also the author of The Transcriptionist (Algonquin 2014), which received the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Amy is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Norman Mailer Center, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The New York Times, The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Lit Hub, New Letters and elsewhere. Amy is a former editor at The New York Times Book Review and she teaches at UC Berkeley.

  • In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Amy Rowland, Award-Winning Novelist and Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.

    Amy Rowland’s second novel, Inside the Wolf, was published by Algonquin in July 2023. She is also the author of The Transcriptionist (Algonquin 2014), which received the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Amy is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Norman Mailer Center, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The New York Times, The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Lit Hub, New Letters and elsewhere. Amy is a former editor at The New York Times Book Review and she teaches at UC Berkeley.