Robert Bell of the Intelligent Community Forum speaking at Beyond 2010:  Robert’s key points below

It is not about:

An intelligent community is not about size or wealth or the super speed of your internet connection. Not about hi tech companies or research institutes, twitterati.

It is about what they do, how they do it and why.:

1 Starts with broadband. – You have to have it, it’s like oxygen. Without it you can’t drive your own future.

2 Focus on building a skilled and knowledgeable workforce.

3 Requires innovation, especially in small business – “everyone can play in the innovation game so long as we are connected”

4 Digital inclusion is important.  An intelligent community makes sure that the people who’s lives are difficult don’t have harder loves.  They do it because it is the morally right thing to do and because leaving people out costs money.  It’s moral and practical.

5 They tell the story of themselves and what is going on.

Needs

• Focussed work on making things happen
• Stopping doing things that dont work
• Brave intelligent politicians who are good at collaborating
• Doing for a reason:  Why?  Do it for you children

The angels hide in the details:

Story of Dundee in Scotland.

The formed the Dundee Partnership and started with frontline staff together who worked together, meetings projects, discucssions.  They built trust.

They discovered something unusual, that they were creating jobs in new areas in new sectors – software, animation, computer games.  They fanned that flame.  New degree programmes, research centres, IP policies etc… Promoted.

Dare to be Digital Competition to encourage games innovation.