For me, as an immigrant in 2002, South Florida was the natural connection point, or gateway, between North and South America. The Research Park at Florida Atlantic is at the center of South Florida’s 6.5 million people. For longer than I have called South Florida home, this has been a region of growth—in people, wealth generation, and importantly, ideas and opportunity.
The history of innovators embracing South Florida’s potential—from Henry Flagler building the railroad to open Palm Beach up as a winter vacation haven in the 1890s, and the US Army Air Corps testing secret airborne radar at what became the Research Park during World War II, to Pratt & Whitney building and testing space shuttle engines in Jupiter during the Cold War, to IBM inventing and building the first Personal Computer in Boca Raton in the 1980s and to Motorola later building the first cell phones here—has always inspired me. These leaders fuel me as I lead my team to support and empower the inventions that will shape tomorrow for my children’s futures, and yours.
I was equally amazed when, in 2012, I met Dan Cane, a co-founder of edtech pioneer Blackboard. He had co-founded ModMed and integrated it into the Research Park, and with the links we helped it develop, it has become a health tech leader, valued at over $1 billion, and has appeared nine consecutive years on Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.
I have found that much attention and financial resources are rightly paid to early-stage startups and first-time entrepreneurs, who need guidance, introductions, and networks. However, to realize a return on that investment, different support is needed as the venture matures into a revenue-generating, job-creating, growing company, disrupting existing players. These second-stage ventures need specialized support in the form of strategic introductions to potential clients, university researchers to expand on or improve their technology, follow-on investors, government procurement opportunities, and more before they become multi-million-dollar sustainable enterprises. They are not big enough to attract headlines, creating ‘only’ two or six jobs at a time. While dedicating all their waking hours to sustainability and growth, they may not be aware of, or be able to afford, market insight resources or established networking groups.
To address the gap, the Research Park created Global Ventures, a physical incubator to serve technology ventures in sectors of strength at Florida Atlantic—health tech and advanced engineering, including sensors and IoT—that have proven their concept, achieved sales revenues approaching $1 million, and employed approximately six or more people.
As if all of this were not enough, Boca Raton and Miami are the major eastern seaboard landing points for submarine Internet traffic, minimizing latency and increasing connectivity for complex, and sensitive Internet traffic. This region is home to some of the most respected research institutions in the world—Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and the Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology—hosted on the Jupiter campus of Florida Atlantic University. It has also become a globally significant hub for fintech and capital, becoming the HQ for Citadel and a hub for Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, and earned the nickname Wall Street South.
With a deep talent pool, deep pool of capital, unparalleled accessibility, a leading research university, and a comprehensive tech ecosystem, South Florida is a richly diverse, innovative region, brimming with smart people with great ideas and energy. I’ve always felt welcomed into this community and know that you will as well. Your energy and ideas are very welcome: together with our networks and resources at Florida Atlantic, we can scale your venture to fulfill its full potential.
