It's official: Montreal is one of the world's 7 smartest cities
Photo by Jazmin Million (Flickr Creative Commons)
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change,” Einstein once said.
Over the decades, Montreal has certainly proven its capacity for reinvention — which according to Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), a global research think tank, makes it one of the world's top 7 intelligent communities of 2016.
ICF cites Montreal’s transition from an economy focused on heavy industry in the 1980s to a hub for the digital age, with more than 6,000 companies active in “information and communications technologies (ICT), aerospace, life sciences, health technologies and clean tech.”
The ranking also gives prominence to Montreal's high number of graduates from post-secondary education.
According to the organization’s research, more than 415,000 students earned an undergraduate or graduate degree in the city between 1998 and 2008.
“This educational foundation feeds into the region’s fast-growing knowledge economy, which is a major focus of policy,” ICF states in its assessment.
The theme for this year’s edition of the Intelligent Community rankings, "From Revolution to Renaissance," focused on how well cities and towns adapt to dramatic economic, environmental and demographic change.
Find out why Montreal's is also one of the world's top 10 student cities.