Hello Cleveland, the world's most "intelligent community"

As Wayne and Garth said in "Wayne's World," "Hello, Cleveland!!"

No, not my idea of a joke. I'm serious. Credit a diligent community broadband effort for the assertion.

Serious as the Intelligent Community Forum, (ICF) an international think tank that concentrates on economic and job development in the broadband economy.

The ICF has named their top seven "intelligent communities." Not only was Cleveland listed as the "most intelligent," but it was the only U.S. metro on the list.

Credit broadband for the accolade. As the ICF explains:

Among the metropolitan area's assets, however, were strong government and nonprofit institutions, including Case Western Reserve University,Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Community College and Nortech. These organizations teamed with the city, the regional transit authority and other partners to form a nonprofit called OneCleveland.

Its mission: to deploy a community-based ultrabroadband network in the metropolitan area and to build a new knowledge economy on its foundation. The project was the brainchild of Lev Gonick,CIO at Case Western. The network was switched on in 2003 and today has a dozen institutional subscribers ranging from the city and the regional
MetroHealth System to the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Applications running on the network include high-definition
videoconferencing connecting Cleveland Clinic doctors to city schools for the delivery of healthcare, best-in-class programs from the Cleveland Museum of Art delivered to branch libraries, and a pilot wireless project with Intel to enable city and county inspectors to file and exchange data on building permits in the field. In 2005, Intel named the greater Cleveland area as one
of three Worldwide Digital Communities deploying wireless broadband applications to improve government and other services.

Sounds pretty "intelligent" to me- and broadband is making it happen.