The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) recently announced its top seven intelligent communities of the year, with two Canadian cities making the list.

The ICF gave the nod to two Ontario cities, Toronto and Stratford, due to their “information and communications technology,” which is the driving force of their economic growth.

Stratford, Ont., is known for its production of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. The city expanded its telecommunications technology by constructing a 70-kilometre open access fibre network with a Wi-Fi overlay. The move has allowed Stratford to sign sales agreements with commercial carriers to provide mobile services and triple play. The move has also opened up new marketing avenues for the Festival.

Stratford gained 700 information and communications technology-based jobs during the crash of the Canadian auto industry.

Toronto made the list for its renewal project with Waterfront Toronto, which is aiming to transform the current state of the waterfront by adding 40,000 residential units, a million square metres of commercial space and 300 hectares of park space. The design and operations of the project will be powered by a 1Gbps fibre-to-the-premise network and green technologies and practices.

The city is also home to five post-secondary institutions that have specialized programs in computer science and digital media.

Other international cities that made the list were: Columbus, Ohio; Oulu, Finland; Taichung, Taiwan; Tallinn, Estonia; and Taoyuan County, Taiwan.

Canada dominated the list with the only country to have more than one entry on it.