Finding Your Community’s Hidden Economic Strengths
Every EcDev professional knows the traditional success factors for a local economy: location, supply chain access, labor and talent, infrastructure, ease of doing business, incentives and taxes. Those will never go out of style. But the explosive growth of digital infrastructure and the digital economy have changed their relative value and added completely new possibilities. Places that were once unstoppable economic engines are having to reinvent themselves. Places once considered the middle of nowhere are becoming dynamic attractors of talent and industry. Join a co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum on a ride through 40 years of digital innovation and learn a new way to understand the local economic opportunities it has created.
About the Speaker
Robert Bell
Robert Bell
Robert Bell heads research, analysis and content development activities and directs the analytics that ICF uses to assess the potential and progress of communities, which also selects honorees for the annual Intelligent Community Awards program. Robert developed and leads the Intelligent Community Accelerator and Certification programs. Serving as the content lead for ICF's Global Summit, he is also the author or editor of ICF's research reports, and lead co-author of Brain Gain, Seizing Our Destiny and Broadband Economies.
Robert has contributed articles to IEDC Journal, Mayors & Cities, Global Urbanist, and Daily Yonder; and has appeared in segments of ABC World News and The Discovery Channel. A frequent keynote speaker and moderator at municipal and telecom industry events, he has also led economic development missions and study tours to cities in Asia and the US.
