First-of-its-Kind Institute to be Announced at Upcoming Business Club Luncheon

What's New, 2012-02-13

The Walsh University DeVille School of Business will host the 46th Annual Business and Communications Club Scholarship Luncheon on Wednesday, February 29, from 11:30 am to 1 pm, in the Barrette Business and Community Center. The luncheon will feature Keynote Speaker Dan Mathieson, Mayor of Stratford, Ontario, which was named a Top Seven Intelligent Community by the Intelligent Community Forum. The luncheon will also serve as a platform for a major announcement between Walsh University and the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF). Cost is $25 per person. Please call Carmela Bendetta at 330-490-7111 or cbendetta@walsh.edu for reservations by February 22. Follow the event on Twitter: @WalshUniversity and #WalshICF.

You may be familiar with Stratford, Ontario because of its Shakespeare Festival, or because it is the hometown of teen pop icon Justin Bieber, but did you also know that Stratford, Ontario is an epicenter for digital technology and is poised to have one of the world's first digital media economies? With the Intelligent Community Forum's (ICF) recent announcement that it will establish ICF Institutes at both Stratford, Ontario and Walsh University, attendees can hear firsthand how Stratford reinvented itself in a way that may be duplicated right here in Stark County.

Dan Mathieson has been the Mayor of Stratford, Ontario, since 2003. Mr. Mathieson is on the Advisory Board of the University of Waterloo-Stratford Campus, a Canadian Centre of Excellence for Digital Media; a founding Director of the Stratford Institute for Digital Media; Chair of the City of Stratford ICF Smart City Committee; a board member of the Festival Hydro and Rhyzome Networks, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Kings University College at the University of Western Ontario.

Mr. Mathieson is an entrepreneur in various sectors, including software development and strategic planning, and is a noted speaker on Smart City growth and economy for digital development. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (University of Guelph) and a Master's of Public Administration degree (University of Western Ontario). For more information about Stratford, please visit: www.city.stratford.on.ca.

The Business and Communication Club, whose membership is comprised of students interested in pursuing career opportunities in the ever-changing business world, is the largest club on the Walsh campus. The Business and Communication Club Annual Scholarship Luncheon is an opportunity to bring the business community to the Walsh campus to share experiences and insights into today's business world and to raise needed scholarship dollars for deserving business and communication students.

About ICF: The Intelligent Community Forum is a think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st Century community. Whether in industrialized or developing nations, communities are challenged to create prosperity, stability and cultural meaning in a world where jobs, investment and knowledge increasingly depend on advances in communications. For the 21st Century community, connectivity is a double-edged sword: threatening established ways of life on the one hand, and offering powerful new tools to build prosperous, inclusive and environmentally sustainable economies on the other. ICF seeks to share the best practices of the world's Intelligent Communities in adapting to the demands of the Broadband Economy, in order to help communities everywhere find sustainable renewal and growth.