The Most Innovative Cities in Asia Pacific

Singapore, Sydney & Melbourne emerge as the top 3 of the Most Innovative Cities in Asia Pacific based on a ranking complemented with a short documentary movie by Solidiance. They represent optimal ecosystems for innovation, enhancing business growth.

Singapore (I-Newswire) March 11, 2013 - Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne, along with other 13 cities in Asia Pacific are ranked as the Most Innovative Cities in the region by Solidiance. These cities score generally high on six main categories used to measure level of innovativeness:

1. Human Talent
2. Knowledge Creation
3. Technology
4. Cultural Openness
5. Government & Regulatory Framework
6. Global Integration and Orientation towards Future

A thorough assessment across the region using the above categories brings about the following order of the Most Innovative Cities in Asia Pacific:

1. Singapore
2. Sydney
3. Melbourne
4. Hong Kong
5. Auckland
6. Tokyo
7. Seoul
8. Osaka
9. Pusan
10. Taipei
11. Kuala Lumpur
12. Bangkok
13. Beijing
14. Shanghai
15. Mumbai
16. New Delhi

Singapore tops the list by scoring accumulatively high on the most categories of measurement. It outperforms others in the ranking by its global integration, government and regulatory system. The Lion City is recognized for its sustainable infrastructure, proper business amenity, and business-friendly ecosystem.

Sydney follows with technology advancement, human talent, global integration, and society as its prominent factors. The city offers good quality of life with enrollment in tertiary education reaching up to 82%, and sustainable environment with high connectivity.

Melbourne has the highest city livability level among others, nearing the level of perfection, but the city's strength mostly lies on human talent and technology advancement - indicated by factors such as e-readiness. Its population has 22% of migrants with a proper acceptance to diversity, and is tolerant towards failure.

The study was initially done by Solidiance to help industry players identify the best places to plant and grow their businesses. Damien Duhamel, the Managing Partner Asia Pacific of the company remarks,

"We decided to rank innovative cities in Asia Pacific as we are clearly a lot more emotional about our cities than about the innovative companies we work for; or even our countries. Comparing cities makes more sense than comparing countries of different weight class. The competition is now about cities, not countries. So we took more than two years to first define "what makes a city innovative?", and then subsequently answer the question. We tried to remove the emotional part by gathering facts and basing our ranking on very few qualitative and possibly subjective criteria. It was a fascinating process. The topic was so engaging that Solidiance even decided to produce a short movie documentary as well. Our Fortune 500 clients and government institutions have been asking for such ranking to leverage and maximize their innovation investments."

The short documentary movie features innovative urban ecosystems in Asia Pacific and interviews with C-level executives of major firms from various industry sectors as well as other cities' stakeholders (government, academics, artists). It complements the study to provide different perspectives about innovation in the city. The movie can be watched and the complete report of the ranking can be downloaded on www.asiainnovativecities.com.

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Solidiance in Brief
Solidiance is a dedicated B2B strategy and innovation marketing consultancy firm with a focus on Asia Pacific. It has been helping Fortune 500 and multinational clients understand the Asian market landscape and providing them with Marketplace evidence-based strategy advice. Solidiance's expertise is focused on industrial applications, technology, healthcare and the green tech sectors. Solidiance has offices in eight Asian countries: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.


Marketing Contact Information:
Sitaresti Astarini
Regional Executive Marketing Communication of Solidiance
pr@solidiance.com
DID: +(62) 21 5795 7463
Company website: www.solidiance.com