Taiwan City Named 2013 Intelligent Community of the Year

NEW YORK, NY – Taichung City, Taiwan has been named the Intelligent Community of the Year by The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), an independent think tank that sponsors the Intelligent Community movement. Taichung City, which has appeared among the Top 7 Intelligent Communities for two years in a row, was represented by a delegation led by Deputy Secretary-General Ching-Chih Liao. The co-founders of ICF – Louis A. Zacharilla, John G. Jung and Robert A. Bell – presented the award to Taichung City, which succeeds Riverside, California, the 2012 recipient.

Taichung was selected through a year-long evaluation that included quantitative analysis of extensive data on the community, site inspections by ICF’s co-founders, and the votes of an expert international jury. An unemployment rate of 4.4 percent and annual economic output of $30 billion are part of the story of this city’s success.

“This city understands that a great place to live is not only one that dominates world export markets in areas such as precision manufacturing machinery and silicon wafer production, but goes to the next level and becomes a great cultural center,” said ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla. “With its dozens of technology parks, incubators and universities all working together, and with urban and rural populations attempting to function as one, this city is a model of what can be done when a community decides to think of itself as a canvas, and creates an inspiring work in progress."

Fiber Broadband Reaches 90 Percent of the Population
The city and telecom companies partnered to create thousands of WiFi hotspots, fiber-based broadband and 4G WiMAX now reaching more than 90 percent of the population. Through imaginative applications developed by public-private partnership, ICT has become a driver of greater global competitiveness. The backbone of Taichung’s manufacturing economy is a network of 1,500 precision machinery makers and tens of thousands of SME suppliers. Its annual output is $30 billion and its export of machine tools is ranked third in the world.

Smaller companies now benefit from a shared, cloud-based ERP system that reduces their purchasing costs and time-to-market. An RFID system at the port automates the clearing of shipping containers for exit, slashing the time trucks spend idling at the gate. Taichung is also helping farmers apply ICT to improve yields and profitability while expanding their international markets.