State of Florida — Florida's Chief Information Officer, Jamie Grant, and Florida High Tech Corridor Council CEO, Paul Sohl, discussed how Florida plans to remain at the leading edge of innovation by leveraging solutions created by public/private partnerships. This session dove into the state's goals to modernize and transform how government interacts with the startup business community, including by giving wider visibility to resources to help commercialize and support economic development. Highlights:
Miami’s Magic City — speaking about entrepreneurship and investing in Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez, Melissa Krinzman the City of Miami's first Venture Capitalist in Residence, and Saif Ishoof VP of Engagement at Florida International University and recently appointed Miami Senior Advisor for Innovation & Technology, among others, discussed how city leaders have been building the foundations that are now being recognized by entrepreneurs and investors as Miami as an innovation hub and re-earning its nickname of the Magic City.
Tampa General Hospital (TGH) — Jason Swoboda, Associate Director of Emerging Technology at TGH, explained how to navigate the Healthcare Innovation Life Cycle whether you are a start-up founder, early-stage investor, or part of a business looking to work more closely with emerging tech companies. Rachel Feinman, the first Vice President of Innovation at Tampa General Hospital then talked about launching TGH InnoVentures later this year which will include an innovation lab, an accelerator program, and will directly invest in promising healthcare-focused startups.
Pillar #5 — CleanTech
The growing trend of companies and governments committing to reduce their carbon emissions or be carbon neutral is globally accelerating. In response, there were eight sessions on CleanTech sponsored by Florida Power & Light focusing on the need and advancements in developing clean technology for sustainable and renewal energy. Highlights:
City of Orlando — Chris Castro, Director, Office of Sustainability & Resilience of Orlando, outlined how they are working as a future ready city to meet their goal of relying solely on clean renewable energy by 2050 to support their growing population.
ecoSPHERES — a startup which uses NASA-based technology to remove dangerous pollutants from sediment, soil, and groundwater.
Florida Power & Light — discussed how they are building solar plants cost-effectively saving Florida customers money over time and announcing their groundbreaking ’30-by-30’ plan to install 30 million solar panels by 2030, making Florida a world leader in solar energy.
35 Mules — an innovation hub supported by Florida Power for entrepreneurs in energy, water, and other energy adjacent industries with access to subject matter experts in solar, renewables, smart grid, and other evolving areas.
Virtual Engagement Results
There were initial concerns that Brian Kornfeld, CEO and CoFounder of Synapse Florida, had in converting their annual event from the Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa to a virtual event. The serendipitous chance meetings at past events at lunch or in the hallways between sessions were no longer in the cards but employing top virtual event resources like the Brella networking and exhibitor communication platform, actual proactive engagement and tracking of meetings could now be quantified.
The Brella system actually made it very easy to reach out to entrepreneurs and support organizations, suggested meetings for you to make, and positioned others to meet with you based on your activity and posted interests. The platform even added a gamification element of awarding you with an engagement score based on the more people and virtual booths you visited. The end result, feels Kornfeld, is that now they can quantify the engagement levels between participants, which is a key goal for the event. He can now proudly state the number and nature of the meetings and communications that actually happened at the Summit — a benefit from previous years’ physical meetings.
Conclusion
The Synapse Summit provided an excellent overview with leaders in emerging technology to get their take on what we should be paying close attention to by way of trending business innovation and, most importantly, keeping us engaged and connected with our local entrepreneurial ecosystems in social and collaborative ways. Synapse Florida lived up to its hashtag of #InnovationLivesHere in Tampa Bay and greater Florida.
The cumulative effect of listening and engaging with so many innovators with their fingers on the pulse of the latest technologies and their creative applications was awe-inspiring and a little dizzying. It led me to many revelations but none greater than this: Witnessing and participating in the behind-the-scenes mechanics of modern-day business innovation was invigorating and made me truly hopeful of our collective abilities to solve major challenges we face and create meaningful solutions that can drive us all forward as a united country that can achieve anything.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation, and unique client/community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors—NASDAQ, Ultimus Fund Solutions, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial, and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor magazine).