Texture, Vol 3 Issue 2

VOL 3 ISSUE 2

TEXTURE 2006

O R L A N D O ’ S

T E C H N O L O G Y

L A N D S C A P E

CORNERING THE

CREATIVE ECONOMY

Orlando rides the next big wave in high tech development

BANKING

ON IT

Central Florida grows financial services cluster

UNITING

FORCES An Orlando company makes it easier for military to share info

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A TERRITORY IDEAL FOR GROWTH. AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TEAM READY TO NURTURE IT.

Our service area in the Carolinas and Florida is

one of the most vibrant areas of the country. One of thriving communities, diverse industries and a skilled, motivated workforce. It’s no surprise that so many companies locate here. And why ©2006 Progress Energy Carolinas, Inc. and Progress Energy Florida, Inc.

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they increasingly turn to Progress Energy’s award-winning economic development team to assist them. We offer full-service support, from site selection to government contacts to energy expertise. The relentless pursuit of excellence.

It’s what we’re all about.

To grow your business in the Carolinas and Florida, call our Economic Development Team at 1.800.622.7562 or visit us at progress-energy.com/economic.

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contents

TEXTURE

ORLANDO’S TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE

Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission President & CEO Texture Executive Publisher Raymond Gilley Vice President, Marketing Texture Associate Publisher Maureen Brockman Vice President, Tech Industry Development Texture Editor John Fremstad

T E X T U R E S U M M E R / FA L L 2 0 0 6 V O L U M E 3 , I S S U E 2

Departments

Director, CFTP Texture Project Support Amy Edge Director, Public Relations Texture Project Support Jennifer Wakefield

FROM THE EDITOR 5 TECH TRENDS 6

Director, Publications & Web Design Texture Project Support Lisa Addy

INTERFACE 10 NEW COs 12

Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.

SPECIAL FX 14

President Texture Publisher William C. Peeper

PEAK PERFORMER 22 INNOVATION ALLEY 28

Vice President of Publications Texture Associate Publisher Deborah Kicklighter Henrichs

INTELLIGENT FORMS OF LIFESTYLE 32

Managing Editor Connie Sue White

Features

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CORNERING THE CREATIVE ECONOMY 16

Contributing Writers Steve Blount, Nancy Christianson Curry, Rafaela Ellis, Denise Enos, Jennifer Fickley, Jackie Kelvington, Scott Leon, G.K. Sharman and C.S. White

TRANSFORMATION APPARENT 30

Downtown Orlando's renaissance is among the largest of such revitalizations in the nation.

Contributing Photographers Phelan Ebenhack and Charles Hodges

UNITING FORCES 24

Joint ADL Co-Lab makes it easier for U.S. armed services to share information.

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Production Coordinators Shelley Hampton and Dennis Lessard Senior Director of Advertising Sales Sheryl Taylor 407.354.5568

Orlando has a leg up on the next big wave of high tech development.

On the Cover: Illustration by Frank J. Quinones

Publication Artists Laura Bluhm and Frank J. Quinones

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This publication is sponsored in part by the Orange County Government’s Economic Stimulus Package 2.0 and the University of Central Florida. Texture magazine is produced by everything ink, a division of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.® (Orlando CVB), for the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission.

Orlando CVB: 6700 Forum Drive, Suite 100, Orlando, FL 32821, Phone 407.363.5841, Fax 407.370.5021. Texture magazine assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, negatives or transparencies. Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission 301 East Pine Street, Suite 900 Orlando, Fla 32801. Phone: 407.422.7159 or 888.TOP.CITY. Fax: 407.425.6428. E-mail: info@orlandoedc.com. Advertising information: 407.354.5512. Copyright 2004 Metro Orlando EDC. All rights reserved. Any reproduction in whole or in part without the express written consent of Orlando CVB, on behalf of the EDC, is prohibited. Printed in the U.S.A.

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from the editor

Creating

ORLANDO

>>

“I work real hard just trying to get by … sometimes so hard I thought we’d die. No matter what we try to do … it always works!” —"Keep Tryin," DoubleDuty

We hear a lot about the Creative Economy from economists and columnists. It’s a great buzzword that works well for optimists and doom seekers alike. But what exactly is it and what does it mean for the Metro Orlando Region?

Well, the Creative Economy is a term used to describe the aspect of our economic engine that hinges upon creativity and cultural uniqueness. It’s the aspect of our economy that thrives upon inventiveness, innovation, imagination, inspiration and ingenuity.

In other words, creative is a perfect adjective for Metro Orlando’s economy

— not only for today, but for yesterday and tomorrow. We’ve used our imagination and inventiveness to grow from a citrus-based to a hospitality-based to an innovation-based economy. In less than 50 years, we’ve moved from a sleepy town without a university to a top-20 metro with America’s seventh largest university and a top-10 research park. And, yes, you read that correctly ... 50 years ... not 500.

So how did we, and how will we continue to, build a “global talent magnet?”

The secret: Metro Orlando offers exciting, challenging work with a

secure future in a city with abundant natural beauty, affordable housing and an outstanding quality of life for people of nearly every income bracket.

We will also continue to attract talent. The United States creative Orlando have excelled in attracting such talent, from inventor-entrepreneurs David Sarnoff and Andy Grove to scientists Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, who played major roles in America’s science and technology edge throughout the 20th century. Today, this global talent pool continues to help drive U.S. growth, with cutting-edge companies from Google and Yahoo to E-bay and Sun Microsystems; all founded or cofounded by foreign-born Americans.

Orlando has recently been recognized as the #1 place for Hispanic entrepreneurs, a top 10 location for AfricanAmerican led businesses, a top five region for foreign-born Americans, and a newly named top-10 U.S. destination for technology companies.

Did I mention we’re only 50 years new?

We still have our work cut out for us, but we have a good start. This issue of Texture looks at some of our creative industries and hopefully starts a conversation about how to continue our competitive advantage.

There is nowhere else on the planet with the same kind of strength in entertainment, technology, life science, film production and interactive media.

John S. Fremstad Metro Orlando EDC vice president, Tech Industry Development & Texture editor

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tech trends

By Steve Blount

BANK On It

CENTRAL FLORIDA IS BECOMING A GLOBAL FINANCIAL CENTER AS CLUSTERS OF FINANCIAL SOFTWARE AND ACCOUNTING OPERATIONS FIRMS HAVE SWARMED IN.

>>

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Whether or not you believe that money makes the world go around, it’s a fact that financial services companies — banks, insurance companies, credit card issuers and the technology firms that support them — do make the money go around for all of us.

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As Orlando has moved up in national rankings for entrepreneurship and gained notice for its simulation, laser and digital media business clusters, it’s also attracted financial services firms. Aside from being a good place to look for customers, they’re finding it’s a good place to locate their own operations and they’re creating a robust cluster of their own.

The “holy trinity” of financial services is banking, software and back office support, all of which have a considerable and growing presence in Central Florida.

That’s not an accident.

Prior to the September 11 attacks in New York, the financial services industry had already begun decentralizing, moving operations out of high-wage markets in New York and New Jersey.

A 2002 white paper — issued jointly by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department — recommended further decentralization and gave specific guidelines for choosing alternative locations. The criteria they laid out favored Florida, where many major U.S. institutions already had operations.

Then, in 2003, the Florida Financial Services Cluster Initiative was formed to build on the base of financial services businesses already in the state.

The seeds of a world-class financial center now exist in the state and they’re growing rapidly.

BANKS & FI-TECH The two largest banks in the Central

Florida region are products (and survivors) of the mega-mergers that have swept the industry: SunTrust and Bank of America, who enjoy 20.6% and 20.2% shares of the local market, respectively.

But as the total number of banks has shrunk, the health of the survivors has increased, creating opportunities for smaller banks with a local or cultural focus to come in “underneath” the big boys. They may not be household names, but homegrown institutions like R-G Crown Bank, Orlando National Bank and Florida Choice are opening new branches and acquiring locations from other banks to help service the area’s growing appetite for financial services. Robert Johnson, whose sale of Black Entertainment Television made him a billionaire, acquired tiny Metro Bank in Orlando and renamed it Urban Trust. Johnson plans to make it the first branch of a banking network that will serve African-American communities nationwide.

The flurry of local bank openings has been a boon to another sector of the financial services market: the technology companies that make the software and systems banks rely on. Although they do sell locally, the area is an incubator and hub for global financial software development.

Kirchman Corporation of Altamonte Springs is the granddaddy, founded in 1968 as Florida Software Services and a longtime leader in providing technology solutions for banking. In 2004, Kirchman was acquired by financial

services giant Metavante Corporation of Milwaukee.

Buyouts have been something of a theme here. Phoenix International launched in Lake Mary in 1992 and was acquired by London Bridge Software Holdings Plc, in 2001. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, London Bridge is a major global player in fi-tech and has maintained its presence in Central Florida as a link to the Florida and U.S. markets.

And, the concentration of banksavvy programmers and software engineers in Orlando has made it very attractive to other firms.

FinCentric, one of the largest international fi-tech companies, is headquartered in Richmond, BC. When they were looking for a site for their sales, marketing and support operations in 1998 they picked Maitland.

Industry giant FiServ is here, too, and for a lot of the same reasons as its peers.

“There’s a community of vendors in Central Florida and a large pool of people who are experts in financial services and that’s a benefit,” says Bette Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing for FiServ Imagesoft in Lake Mary. “There are a half-dozen financial services units here — FiServ, Harland, Metavante to name a few — all the major players, the core vendors in the industry.”

Fitzgerald says lifestyle has played a role in their growth: “It’s not hard to get people to move here: we have low taxes, a great quality of life and the weather is great. We’re located in Lake

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Mary and if you live near the office, as I do, it’s terrific. You don’t have to deal with traffic. Our headquarters are in Brookfield, Wis., so it hasn’t been very hard to get people to work down here.”

BACK TO THE FUTURE Some of the earliest financial service operations in Central Florida were customer care telephone centers and transaction processing facilities, the “back office” operations. They still play a significant role in the area, says John Krug, vice president/business development for the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission: “Oracle is a good example of that. These kinds of ‘call center’ jobs were once thought of as low-end and susceptible to being moved overseas, but companies that need high-quality customer care are finding it in Central Florida. Charles Schwab has 400-plus people in the area and there are many others, including Liberty Mutual and AIG. From our perspective, the jobs offer good wages and benefits.”

These operations also offer big financial services corporations a way to test the local waters.

One that did was The Bank of New York, and they’ve never looked back according to Joe Brady, vice president of the bank’s mutual fund accounting group and site manager for BNY’s Lake Mary operations.

“The original plan was to have 330 people here,” Brady says. “We opened our first office in Lake Mary with two business units three months before the 9/11 tragedy. Two more business units moved here as a direct result of 9/11.

Additional units commenced operations here after seeing the success of the others. Now we have a total of eight business units here with about 600 employees.”

BNY’s units illustrate the diversity that has developed in Central Florida’s financial services industry. The groups handle back office services for mutual funds and various other types of collective funds, reconcile cash and securities for investment managers, provide statements and audits for large master trusts, perform offshore trading, transfer funds and securities and provide

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accounting to hedge fund managers.

“Those additional units came here as a result of the good experiences The Bank of New York had in Central Florida,” says Brady.

Other area businesses have even broader financial services operations.

“Every major hospitality company — Marriott, Hyatt, Cendant, Hilton — has their interval ownership headquarters in Central Florida,” says Krug.

And there are other significant operations like Siemens shared services, which provides back-office support to Siemens units worldwide.

the course, they were handling their own mutual funds. UCF gave them a very good foundation.”

Evans also hires graduates from Rollins, Stetson, Bethune-Cookman, the University of Florida and Florida State.

“UCF has more than 40,000 students, and they’re coming here from all over the country,” she notes. “A lot of kids who come down from the northeast live here for four years, get their degree and then they don’t want to go back home. They like it here and they want to stay.”

EDUCATION FIRST

The presence of so many major financial players in Central Florida and a pipeline of skilled workers is a powerful attraction, Ronne says, but the area has many other advantages. For companies looking to move jobs out of high-cost money center areas, Florida ranks high on the list of options.

There are significant data privacy and security issues involved in sending sensitive financial data overseas. As a “near shore” location for financial services giants in the northeast, Florida is highly compatible with their needs — inside the United States, in the same time zone and close to strong markets in Latin America. And, Ronne points out, the area has native Spanish speakers who cover the whole spectrum of national dialects: Colombian, Venezuelan, Costa Rican, even Brazilian Portuguese.

The future for Florida’s financial services sector looks bright.

“What we have here that’s different is a significant concentration of financial technology operations,” Ronne says. “Financial service is all about technology, about the ability to move data — and money — around the globe quickly and securely. Trillions of dollars are moving through Central Florida every day.”

Ronne and others expect the growth to continue. According to BNY’s Brady, the bank is close to announcing a significant addition to its Central Florida operations that would bring an additional 300-400 employees here over the next two years.

That’s the kind of growth you can x bank on

As the number and variety of financial services operations has grown, so has the demand for skilled financial workers. That need has been met head on by the area’s schools working hand-inhand with corporate partners.

Robin Ronne is an economic development consultant who spent decades in the financial services industry as a marketing director. He says that the University of Central Florida (UCF) and other local institutions are doing a stellar job.

“UCF now has the seventh-largest business school in the nation,” Ronne points out.

The school is graduating 800 accounting majors a year — and many are finding employment locally.

“When we go to the northeast to talk to corporations about relocating to Central Florida and we describe the cooperation between UCF and local businesses — the kinds of programs that are offered and the feedback between the companies and the school — their jaws drop,” explains Ronne. “They tell us they can’t even get the schools in their area to talk to them.”

The Bank of New York says they’ve benefited from that cooperation.

“When we planned the move to Central Florida, we knew we were going to have to train our staff,” explains Pam Evans, vice president of Human Resources. “We hired 20 graduating seniors from UCF, then put them through a three-week training program to teach them about accounting for the securities industry and how to use our software system. Within a week after

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GAMES FOR GOOD

By C.S.White

ECS’ WAYMON ARMSTRONG

>>

Talk about putting one’s training to good use. Waymon Armstrong took his real-life experience as a consultant for catastrophe recovery efforts — in the Virgin Islands after Hurricane Hugo, Kuwait after Operation Desert Storm, south Florida after Hurricane Andrew and southern California after the Northridge earthquake — and applied it to the simulation industry. Thanks to life’s experience and an entrepreneurial spirit that first sparked when he was 11 (buying fireworks, no less, and reselling them for a profit), the University of Central Florida engineering grad formed Engineering and Computing Simulations, Inc. (ECS) in 1997. The company provides, among other things, first responder and disaster management training programs using gaming technology. As games for learning became recognized as a vital training asset — and ECS’ reputation for producing reliable products grew — ECS business and revenues continued to grow. In fact, revenues doubled last year and the company projects at least 50 percent more growth in 2006.

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T You’re the face of the company.

What about the staff behind the scenes? wa Well, I have to say that Brent Smith, vice president and chief technology officer, and I worked together to build ECS to its current level. Other great team members are Greg Shumaker, our chief architect, and Howard Mall, our director of medical products. Additionally, our operations chief, Larry Kayne, and about 20 talented programmers and artists are vital players to our company’s success.

It’s a real team effort.

PHOTOS BY PHELAN EBENHACK

While the company’s first projects were non-training related — building concepts for convention centers (the MGM Grand in Las Vegas) and airports (including parts of Orlando International Airport’s south terminal complex) — they helped open the right doors. Today, ECS counts NASA, the U.S. military and the Department of Defense as clients and takes pride in developing what Armstrong dubs “games for good.”

T Texture: Who are ECS’ end users? wa Waymon Armstrong: ECS offers

great solutions for training, virtually, for all kinds of emergencies and skill sets.

We do have a number of different types of end-users including first responders.

Other users are U.S. military medics, weapons of mass destruction teams, security professionals, traffic and military planners, military and civilian users of unmanned aerial systems (or drones) and many more.

T Did you find staff locally? wa I feel that our success at ECS is

totally about the opportunities and support structure we receive in Central Florida, and the talent pool that is available to us. Our current partnerships with UCF, Embry Riddle and Full Sail provide us with some of the best talent in the world. In fact, fifty percent of our workforce is made up of graduates from UCF and twenty-five percent from Full Sail.

T What sets ECS apart from similarly related companies? wa We believe that we are the largest firm in the country that is solely focused on serious games — or “games for good.” And, besides applications, we also have a strong research arm in areas such as artificial intelligence and intelligent tutoring systems.

T What are your current projects? wa We are adding features to an open

source game engine called Delta 3D for NAVAIR Orlando, the Naval Education & Training Command in Pensacola and the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif. We also have two UAV projects, one of which uses simulation to model Homeland Security scenarios, such as evacuation procedures during hurricanes. Additionally, we are working with the Department of Homeland Security on developing a program that trains professionals for vehicle inspection checkpoints.

T What was ECS’ first DoD Project? wa Our first project was with STRICOM

(now PEO STRI) to lead a study that

researched the applicability of commercial gaming technology to traditional military modeling and sim environments. That project evolved to one of our current ones: the Civil Support Team Trainer (CSTT). All 50 states and territories use CSTT to train responders how to deal with post-event response in the aftermath of terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

T What project(s) are you currently most excited about? wa We are all very excited about our Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TC3) simulation that will be fielded later this summer to the U.S. Army’s Home of Army Medicine, Fort Sam Houston in Texas. It provides tactical instruction for combat medics to help teach proper procedures for battlefield medical treatment from the time the casualty occurs until help arrives and the casualty is evacuated. The TC3 is really about EMT training and we hope to leverage the military applications for commercial use.

T What are your roles on the Metro Orlando Military Affairs Advisory Committee and the Digital Media Alliance board? wa In my MAAC role, I try to keep the simulation industry in Central Florida visible because we know that what we have here is something very special. We do this by identifying and highlighting the benefits of modeling and simulation to our military and within the commercial sector.

On the board of DMA, I hope to be a catalyst in leveraging the technologies between the two communities by sharing my serious game and sim experience and learning what other game developers are doing that might benefit the military.

T What is the state of Orlando’s high tech industry? wa Our high tech industry is alive and well! During a time when the Department of Defense is experiencing budget constraints, it is important to note the advantages and efficiencies of modeling and simulation, and digital media. We have yet to fully realize the opportunities that exist between these industries. x

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A New

By G.K. Sharman

SOUND

RAINTREE RECORDING STUDIOS IS LAYING DOWN TRACKS IN A HIGH-PROFILE ENTERTAINMENT WORLD.

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If you were a top rock band or a hot jazz virtuoso and needed to do some studio work, would you go to a place called LHV Audio Services?

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Probably not, because — Raintree’s Vexler (center) is shown here with clients Tito Puente, Jr. (left) and Bunny Rugs (right). admit it — the name lacks pizzazz.

“I’d tell musicians that the studio name was LHV Audio Services and they’d just give me this look,” says company owner Laurence Vexler.

Which is why he named his new musician-friendly enterprise Raintree Recording Studios.

Raintree caters to musicians and independent record labels band The Ataris, Slave To The Square looking for professional recording facilWave from Toronto and local singerities. The two-year-old enterprise is in songwriter Gabriela. Raintree also the same location as LHV — on Lake hosted multi-Grammy-nominated Breeze Road, near John Young Parkway reggae icon Bunny Rugs for a tracking just north of Orlando — and shares the session. Rugs was joined by Tito Puente space that LHV uses to provide sound Jr., son of Mambo King Tito Puente and design and audio post-production for a rising Latin jazz star in his own right, television, film, video, radio and multito lay down some percussion and Spanmedia. ish vocal tracks for a forthcoming album.

Besides the creative new name, the Vexler is used to jobs and highmain difference is the upgraded equipprofile clients. The studio’s client list ment. Vexler has the studio stocked reads like a Who’s Who of the film, telewith the latest (and some vintage) topvision and the corporate worlds. of-the-line, professional audio gear, LHV has posted numerous Floridaincluding a Genelec surround sound produced independent films such as monitoring system; a ProTools HD Cat’s Bad Hair Day, Alligator Alley, system with 192I/O interfaces and Caribbean Kill and Last Perfect Wave. a variety of plug-ins; over 30 microTV, radio, multi-media and corporate post-production work includes The phones made by Neumann, AKG, Sony, Haunted Desert for the Discovery ChanShure, Oktava, and Sennheiser; nel, Fox Sports’ Best Damn Sports Show microphone pre-amps by Millenia, API, featuring TNA Wrestling, a documenNeve and TL Audio; outboard processtary on the Mamas and The Papas, planing by Lexicon, Eventide, Drawmer and etarium shows for the Orlando Science Urei; and an ISDN line with a Telos CineDome Theater, and projects for Zephyr interface for long-distance Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, sessions anywhere in the world.

Florida Hospital, Convergys CorporaMusicians, producers and audio enthution, Lockheed Martin and Tupperware. siasts recognize the quality of the studio TV networks and producers also gear and they’re impressed. But equipcome to Vexler for mixing live ment alone doesn’t get the job done. entertainment and sports programs.

All of this equipment is backed by He’s worked on shows as diverse as the technical knowledge and musicianNoki Presents ... Live From The Hard ship of Raintree Recording Studios’ Rock on MTV, Beat The Clock on PAX engineers. and currently TNA Wrestling on Spike.

“Recording engineers need to be For Vexler, a jazz saxophonist and both creative and technically savvy,” percussionist who started playing music says Vexler. “Great recordings are at age 7, LHV Audio Services was a way made from great performances by both to make a living doing what he enjoyed. the musicians and the engineers.”

As a jazz major at Wayne State The studio has already attracted University in Detroit, he said he learned attention from local, national and interquickly that “the ability to make a living national musicians, including the rock

solely as a professional musician was a hard way to go.”

His professors — good musicians all — worked other 9-to-5 jobs to pay bills and support their families.

But music remained their career, their passion.

Vexler made a different choice, leaving Wayne after one year and transferring to the Music Engineering program at the University of Miami. The curriculum — a bachelor of music degree with an emphasis on physics and engineering — may seem daunting to many artistic types, but Vexler was fascinated.

“I was always pretty good in math and science,” he says, “and the courses didn’t scare me.”

He graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in music with minors in electrical engineering and telecommunications.

Two years later he moved to Orlando and started his own company and by 1995 had his own studio space.

The mix of music and technology may be “an odd combination,” he acknowledges. “But you need a good background in both to succeed.”

LHV is corporate-oriented. Most of its clients want to get their projects done during normal business hours, though there are always a few exceptions. On the other hand, Raintree is more musician-friendly with more flexible hours — a lot more flexible. Nights. Weekends. Whatever it takes to help them create their music.

“Most musicians like to work after normal hours,” he says.

Like his professors, most musicians have a “real” job and need to book studio time that doesn’t interfere with the regular paycheck.

Once a producer called on Saturday afternoon and desperately needed some time that night. Vexler changed his personal plans and opened the studio for him and his group. After all, he understands how it is for musicians — he still plays sax and percussion after hours, too.

“The doors may be closed, but the business is always open,” says Vexler. x

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Going

By Scott Leon

NEXT GEN

NEXT GALAXY MEDIA IS CREATING THE FUTURE IN DIGITAL MEDIA.

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A cursory glance at Next Galaxy Media’s (NGM) Web site won’t reveal much to the average person about just what this rapidly growing entertainment marketing company does. But, for those of us who are into entertainment technology and love gadgets like our iPods, once you find out what they’re about, the future of entertainment media will seem that much brighter. If you’ve ever downloaded music or video from the Internet, you’re familiar with the type of technology this company creates and the services they offer, but what the talented folks at Orlando-based NGM are working on is light years beyond that, at the cutting edge of entertainment technology.

PHOTOS BY STEVE WALLACE

Creating and producing DVDs for stars such as Will Smith (shown here) is just the tip of the digital media iceberg for Next Galaxy Media.

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“Basically, we handle everything from production to marketing, but have four main areas of operation: entertainment technology consulting, production, distribution and marketing,” says Mary Spio, CEO and founder. “Specifically, we design programs that allow both video and audio media to be transmitted via the Web or satellite.

We also produce, distribute and market any and all types of digital media, whether it’s movies, games or promotional material.”

NGM’s projects range from creating and producing DVDs for celebrities including André Agassi

and W ill Smith to using its video automation system to create digital concert backdrops for the likes of Britney Spears and Mary J. Blige.

Arguably, the most cutting-edge of this company’s services is the creation of systems that allow distribution of digital media by satellite or Internet. One specific example is the work Spio did to help the Boeing Company create Boeing Digital Cinema. She designed, built and, along with Boeing, patented a system that gives a film studio the ability to deliver a release directly to the theater by satellite. So far, Lucas Arts has used this technology to distribute Star Wars,

than buy a complete CD. In the very near future, even movie rental companies will provide downloadable films over the Internet or via cable. In fact, Brokeback Mountain went directly to the Internet for its home video release before it went to movie rental stores. NGM makes this possible for both the studio releasing the film and for any store that wants to go digital.”

Oddly enough, most of the technology that NGM uses and develops is based on systems originally built for the military. In fact, Spio’s first work on digital transmissions came in the form of projects that focused on the way the military

result of the city’s commitment to becoming a digital technology hub.

“When we saw the city’s strategy for advancing digital technology, it was as if they took a page right out of our business plan. Compared to Los Angeles, where Media Evolutions began, it became clear that the technology bases between these cities were vastly different. While L.A. appeared to have no strategy for developing one, Orlando was already on the move,” explains Spio. “Plus, when combined with Orlando’s commitment to growth and entrepreneurship and the cost of what’s available to the entertainment

NGM handled the video content creation for Live 8.

Episode II; it has also been used for Planet of the Apes, Ocean’s 11 and Monsters, Inc., among others. Not only is dissemination of media in this manner more efficient, it’s also much less expensive.

According to Spio, circulation via satellite costs roughly one percent of traditional methods. But, this is only the beginning.

Spio holds three other patents for ways to digitally target and display cinema content based on psychographics and demographics. With her help, NGM is revolutionizing the film industry.

“We are at the forefront of a paradigm shift within the entertainment world that is fundamentally changing the way people access movies and music. It used to be that people went to a record store and bought albums, tapes and CDs, but now everyone downloads music over the Internet,” says Spio.

“Traditional ways of selling music and movies are becoming archaic. More people download individual songs now

“WHEN WE SAW THE CITY’S STRATEGY FOR ADVANCING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, IT WAS AS IF THEY TOOK A PAGE RIGHT OUT OF OUR BUSINESS PLAN. COMPARED TO LOS ANGELES, WHERE MEDIA EVOLUTIONS BEGAN, IT BECAME CLEAR THAT THE TECHNOLOGY BASES BETWEEN THESE CITIES WERE VASTLY DIFFERENT. WHILE L.A. APPEARED TO HAVE NO STRATEGY FOR DEVELOPING ONE, ORLANDO WAS ALREADY ON THE MOVE.” — MARY SPIO transmits encoded signals via satellite that she conducted while in the Air Force.

“We still use a very similar technology and some of our encryption is every bit as sophisticated as what the military currently uses,” says Spio.

For a company at the forefront of entertainment technology you might wonder why Next Galaxy is based at Universal Studios Orlando rather than in Los Angeles. The answer might surprise you. The company was born in early 2005 out of a merger between two companies: Media Evolutions and Spio’s original company, TSG Consulting. They chose Orlando as their home base as a

industry here versus every other place we looked, we knew that no other city would provide us with what we needed as completely.

“In fact, the infrastructure, costs and resources have made it very easy to attract clients and other segments of the entertainment industry to Orlando to do business. No other city would have allowed us to be this successful this fast. With Orlando’s continued commitment to becoming a worldwide leader in digital technology, we expect to be able to continue achieving our goals of creating the next x generation of digital media.”

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CORNERING THE

CREATIVE

ECONOMY ORLANDO ROLLS OUT THE RED CARPET FOR DIGITAL MEDIA FIRMS TO GET A LEG UP ON THE NEXT BIG

By Steve Blount WAVE OF HIGH TECH DEVELOPMENT.

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At first glance, Central Florida with its teeming theme parks and legions of uniformed service workers might seem an unlikely place to find a clue to the next economy. But it’s here ... or, more accurately, it’s “virtually” here. This revolution is the “creative economy,” and it’s been hiding behind the scenes at Orlando’s theme parks and developing in “black hat” defense labs all along. The news is that it’s now out in the open. Area leaders — including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer — are busy harnessing its economic power to revitalize downtown Orlando by significantly enlarging the digital media industry cluster in Central Florida. If you’re a member of the area’s digital media industry or supplier to it, prepare for blast off. If you’re not here, you’ll be interested in how the city is rolling out the red carpet to get you here.

Social theorist Richard Florida gets credit for naming the “creative economy” in his book The Rise of the Creative Class. In his research, Florida noticed that the high tech jobs coveted by so many communities were going to places like Austin, San Francisco and Seattle; places that had some specific things in common. Most of those boiled down to the fact they are tolerant of people who were different and they offer a variety of lifestyle amenities including cultural events, art museums, nightlife and a music scene. Those amenities attract the workers needed by the companies that make up what he calls the “creative economy.”

What is this creative economy?

Florida points to workers who use substantial formal education and experience to create forms that can be reused over and over (like a movie, music recording or video game) or who apply that general knowledge and experience to specific problems (like doctors and lawyers). A simpler definition comes from researcher Lou Musante of the research firm Catalytix, who defines this group as “everyone who thinks for a living.”

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM VALUABLE In separate recent analyses of the Central Florida economy, Catalytix and University of Central Florida economist

Dr. Warren McHone both reported that the area already has a thriving high tech community.

According to McHone, Orlando’s high tech sector has held its own over the past six years, weathering the bursting of the tech bubble and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks with aplomb.

In 2004, the average wage for a high tech worker in Orlando was $70,000 —

a little more than double the average pay of all workers in the area. Also on the plus side, McHone noted that Central Florida’s tech sector is diversifying, a key indicator of future stability and competitiveness.

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Musante is quick to point out one area of that diversification. His analysis for Catalytix concluded that there’s a significant opportunity for Central Florida to enlarge its digital media industry cluster. In a study due for release this summer, Catalytix reports that the area has 317 digital media businesses that together employ more than 8,000 workers, bring in $1.4 billion in annual sales and pay out $280 million in wages. There are another 822 “arts” businesses in the area that employ an additional 6,000 workers.

This is a big business for Central Florida.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES So where did all these creative economy companies come from? The seeds have been here all along. Remember Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and The Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World®? The people who make Disney’s attractions work are called “imagineers.” They dream up experiences and then use

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engineering — including sophisticated computer techniques — to create realistic simulations.

Universal Studios Florida and others do the same thing.

On the other side of town, at the topranked Central Florida Research Park, the co-located commands of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines’ simulation and training divisions add another cadre of tech workers skilled at simulating “real life” combat and peacekeeping situations. The presence of these commands has attracted a bevy of contractors to the area — Science Applications Inter national (SAIC), Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin among them. Recognizing the potential of the region’s growing research university, these military and corporate entities partnered with the University of Central Florida, which has become the lead institution for DoD simulation research (see “The Population of Nerdistan,” page 20).

Soon the thriving simulation hub began

to also reach out to the region’s entertainment and theme park industry, exploring ways to work together to most effectively train a generation of young recruits raised on video games and digital immersion.

If past is prologue, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has a metaphor for what’s ahead: “The best way to predict the future is to create it, or at least shape it.”

And the city is doing just that.

Dyer was elected mayor in 2003 on his promise to revitalize downtown Orlando.

“I asked people what we needed to do to revitalize downtown and I heard three things: We needed more residents, we needed a grocery store and we needed a movie theater,” Dyer says.

Those sound like pretty humble aspirations for the central city in a region that has a population of two million, attracts 40-plus million visitors a year and has figured prominently in the last two national elections. But, like other metropolitan areas, Central Florida had grown in rings around Orlando, leaving the core with a low population and few services. Where others saw disuse and despair, Dyer says he saw a blank canvas and one key advantage: “One of the things that’s unique about Orlando is that downtown is still the business hub. That’s not true for Tampa; their business hub is Westshore. Atlanta’s business hub has moved north of downtown. Orlando still has a lot of workers, especially in legal and finance, downtown.”

But few people lived in downtown Orlando. Dyer saw that as an opportunity. A task force of two dozen community leaders produced a comprehensive strategic plan to reinvigorate downtown, and the Mayor’s team went to work.

In the course of its study, the task force noticed what the Pentagon had seen, that Orlando had a lot of professionals engaged in digital media, whether that was doing advanced computer and simulation research at

University of Central Florida (UCF), creating defense industry simulations or making video games. One of the area’s major employers is Electronic Arts’ Tiburon Studios, which has more than 500 workers at its Maitland location and produces the blockbuster Madden NFL® series for EA Sports. It also had a digital media research hub at UCF and a nationally ranked digital media college, Full Sail.

These businesses, the academic back-up and the defense network made a strong argument to focus development resources on digital media and the high-wage workers it could bring.

“I’m a true believer in Richard Florida’s work,” Dyer says. “We have a great hospitality industry that provides a huge boost to our economy, but we need to balance those service industry jobs with high-value, high-wage jobs in other industries as we grow.”

Those high-wage jobs will come from members of the “creative class,” Dyer believes, and as Florida’s research showed, they demand a certain kind of environment, one that offers culture, nightlife and a vibrant urban core.

Accordingly, the city has embarked on an ambitious program that includes repopulating downtown, building three major civic facilities and attracting new businesses — especially digital media businesses — downtown. To do that, they’re building on what’s already in the region and throwing some serious cash into the game.

ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW The city put everything on the table to get the ball rolling. Demolishing a rundown building — a former dime store — made way for the new Premier Trade Tower and there are currently $2.5 billion worth of construction projects underway downtown. That includes 8,000 residential units, several million square feet of office space and more

than a million feet of retail.

“Creative workers are the kind of people who may work until 10 o’clock at night, but when they get off they want to be able to walk to restaurants, entertainment or to their homes,” Dyer notes. “We’re creating an environment where people can live, learn, work and play without having to resort to their cars.”

In addition to the residential, office and retail space, the city and county are taking on the redevelopment of two major public venues — the TD Waterhouse Center where the Orlando Magic play and the Citrus Bowl stadium complex — as well as building a new performing arts center. While some questioned the wisdom of tackling all three projects concurrently, Dyer says that all three are essential to make Orlando com-

petitive with other cities in the region.

“We were competing with Palm Beach County for the Scripps [research institution] project a couple of years ago and I’m convinced that one reason Scripps went to Palm Beach was their cultural amenities, especially the Kravis Center,” Dyer says.

While taking on three major projects is expensive, the goal is achievable.

One of the cards in Orlando’s deck is an ace: like all regions in Florida, Central Florida’s governments collect a Tourism Development Tax (TDT), which is added to the hotel bills of visitors.

Mayor Dyer — in partnership with his counterpart in Orange County, Mayor Richard Crotty — has persuaded the area’s leaders to use a small portion of the region’s TDT collections to back bonds that will be used to help fund the redevelopment effort.

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The Population of Nerdistan Who are these folks on whom the mayors are pinning their hopes for a revitalized downtown Orlando?

Military contractors have long been part of the Central Florida high tech scene, starting with what is now Lockheed Martin. Heavily involved in both the space program and U.S. defense missile programs, Martin-Marietta (as it was then known) attracted hundreds of engineers to the area in the 1960s and equipped them with the latest research and tools.

Training tools were part of that mix, and applying evolving computer technologies to training were a natural outgrowth. Other mega-contractors including, Harris Corp., got into the act and the Pentagon formally recognized the developing cluster by establishing a military command on the grounds of the Navy’s training center in Orlando in 1966. The military commands now lead a group of 140 commercial firms in the development of modeling and simulation technologies for the armed forces.

The University of Central Florida has worked diligently with the military to build the nation’s defense simulation capability, and with private companies on commercial uses for simulation technology. Although homegrown and less than 40 years old, UCF became a powerhouse in the simulation world after being designated the lead institution for defense simulation

IT TAKES A CREATIVE VILLAGE Another key component of the plan is the creation of a “creative village” in downtown Orlando. By attracting these businesses — who hire the kind of workers who like to live and play in urban areas — you get a “three-fer”: new businesses and their payrolls; residents for the revitalized downtown; and customers for retailers, restaurants and the events to be held at the civic facilities.

To kick-start the village, the city leveraged an asset it already had: the Orlando Expo Center. An aging convention facility, the Expo Center was long ago eclipsed by the mammoth Orange County Convention Center, located a few miles away. The city partnered with UCF to create the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA), which opened in fall 2005. FIEA

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studies by the Pentagon. Its Institute for Simulation and Training has more than 60 faculty researchers and an equal number of students focused on simulation hardware and software.

UCF has reached beyond the defense world, as well. With support from videogame giant EA Games and the city of Orlando, UCF established the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) in 2005.

Full Sail is a well-known entertainment technology college with campuses in Los Angeles and Winter Park. Its high intensity programs prepare students for careers in traditional film and music recording settings and for newer jobs in the simulation and video game industries.

Multimedia studios are blossoming in Central Florida, many from seeds planted by the theme park industry. One of the most prominent is i.d.e.a.s, which is physically located on the back lot at Disney/MGM Studios.

Video game publishers are just the latest addition to Central Florida’s entertainment technology mix.

The biggest is EA Tiburon Studio, which employs about 600 workers in Maitland. EA Tiburon has a number of major launches on its plate for 2006, including releasing Madden NFL for X-Box 360 and what is shaping up to be a very complex Superman title.

offers a master’s degree in video game development, the first of its kind in the nation. Coupled with the existing computer science department at UCF and Full Sail’s noted digital media courses, FIEA will be a pipeline to commercialize the cutting-edge simulation work being done at UCF and supply the highly skilled workers that the businesses in Orlando’s “creative village” will need.

“The Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy will be the catalyst for a lot of what we envision downtown,” Dyer says. “[Digital media firms] will want to locate close to FIEA, and the workers who are attracted to that kind of employer want to be in a vibrant downtown environment, not on a suburban campus.”

While another EA Tiburon-style business with 500 employees would be a boon, Dyer says they’re actively

recruiting everything from two-person boutiques to employers that have 1,000+ workers.

To get employers to buy into their redevelopment plan, the city is offering targeted incentives to companies in industries such as digital media.

The mayor says the program will be similar to the Qualified Targeted Industry (QTI) program run by the state of Florida. Like QTI, which offers up to $4,000 per employee for qualified companies, the city program will provide considerable rebates on taxes and fees to employers who create jobs with an average wage that is 200 percent of the city average, or about $68,000.

Coupled with the state’s incentives — which are many and varied, and run the gamut from paying to upgrade tech workers’ skills to outright grants — digital media firms willing to play stand to

reap substantial subsidies from the city and state.

REALITY — OR VIRTUAL REALITY? Lots of cities have redevelopment plans, many of them very good. The trick is in executing the plans: mustering and maintaining the financial ability, civic commitment and private sector participation needed to make them work. On that score, Orlando seems to be hitting on all cylinders. The region has a funding source in the TDT and the area’s powerful hospitality industry has signed off on using the tax to help fund redevelopment. Even the preservationists who initially opposed key provisions of the plan are on board, and the business community has rallied around as well. FIEA enrolled its first class of 16 master’s degree candidates in September of 2005 with a projected graduation date of January 2007. The residential projects, which debuted to widespread skepticism, are selling out before they’re completed.

The mayor has kept two other campaign promises as well: a Publix

grocery store is being built downtown and a multi-screen theater will open later this year.

The lights are on again in downtown

Orlando, the “creative village” is taking shape and its creative economy is gathering steam. And that’s reality — not just x one of Orlando’s famous illusions.

Beyond the “Creative Village” In addition to the evolution of a “creative village” in Downtown Orlando, development of the region’s high tech infrastructure is occurring throughout the region. A prime example is Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty’s proposed Innovation Way, a strategic land use and economic development initiative designed to attract and support technology companies. The 90,000acre district links the University of Central Florida, one of the nation’s 10 largest research universities, with the Orlando International Airport, a facility rated among the busiest and best for customer service.

Also anchoring the district are the Central Florida Research Park and a new campus of Valencia Community College, which has been recognized as the top community college in the nation. The northern half of this area already contains high-quality residential communities, academic institutions and commercial developments. However, the southern portion of Innovation Way

is largely undeveloped.

“We envision Innovation Way not only as a center for high value employment but of new urbanism,” says Crotty. “Good jobs, schools, hospitals, shopping and recreational amenities will all be closer to home as a result of the advance planning we’ve done for the region.”

Since Mayor Crotty’s announcement of the initiative in 2005, an Innovation Way Study — the result of Vision Workshops and a Community Planning Collaborative that formed the basis for Comprehensive Policy Plan Amendments — has been conducted. The Comprehensive Plan Amendments includes proposed policies to guide the future development of Innovation Way based on Study findings. The Orange County Board of County Commissioners adopted the amendments June 13, 2006. For the latest information on the project, visit www.orangecountyfl.net.

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A Moving

STAR

TRANSIT TV’S MARC PLOGSTEDT BRINGS DIGITAL MEDIA TO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION.

By Jennifer Fickley

PHOTO BY PHELAN EBENHACK

>>

Marc Plogstedt speaks about his company’s product as if it’s as exciting and revolutionary as the invention of Cable TV. He has a right to.

Plogstedt is the executive vice president and CEO of Transit TV, the world’s largest out-of-home digital network that provides news, entertainment and advertising to public transportation

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passengers in some of the largest cities in the United States.

“The purpose of Transit TV is to create a nationwide digital media channel for public transportation use,

meaning anybody who rides on a train or bus — or a ferry boat, for that matter — would have the opportunity to watch our channel,” says Plogstedt.

Transit TV creates and broadcasts its own programming — which is updated several times a day — seven days a week, 365 days a year, but the company’s offerings don’t end there. It also designs and produces the

flat-screen television monitors that are installed on the buses, as well as creates the software technology that is used to send programming to the transportation vehicles.

So far, the response to Transit TV has been huge. In seven years of operation, the company has grown from having one market in Orlando, to numbering 8,000 screens on 4,000 vehicles in cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Milwaukee and Norfolk.

“For me personally, the part that continues to be the most exciting is that we’re basically creating something new,” says Plogstedt. “There’s some new technology, but we’re creating an entirely new network to communicate, to inform [and] to entertain people on a daily basis.”

AN UNTAPPED MARKET Transit TV stemmed from an idea Plogstedt had while working for ITEC Entertainment Corporation, an Orlando-based entertainment production company that he co-founded in 1985. In the late 1990s, Plogstedt was in the midst of developing digital media technology for the company when he stumbled across what he considered to be an untapped broadcast advertising market.

“We quickly discovered that the environment within public transportation was a broadcaster’s dream. [There were] billions of annual passengers, only one station, no remotes, no channel changing and a receptive audience eager for something to take their mind off their commute,” he recalls.

ITEC then formed Transit TV as a branch company to explore this market, but getting it off the ground wasn’t without its challenges. It took the station’s original team of nine employees more than a year to develop software technology that would enable moving vehicles to receive broadcast signals. They also designed the hardware needed for the system, including glare-free, flatscreen LCD monitors that can be seen at angles up to 170 degrees for optimal viewing, as well as an elaborate sound system that self-adjusts its volume according to the noise level on the vehicle.

They also had to convince transportation executives and advertisers of this unique media outlet’s worth.

Luckily, this wasn’t too difficult as 51 percent of public transportation users in Transit TV’s markets fall in the 18-34 age range, one of the most valuable target age groups for advertisers.

In 1999, Orlando’s own LYNX bus system became its first customer and allowed the Transit TV system to be installed on 10 LYMMO buses running in downtown Orlando.

Poised for expansion, Transit TV separated from ITEC in 2001 and Plogstedt followed, hoping to focus full time on growing this new company.

HOMEGROWN TALENT Seven years, six cities and 8,000 screens later, Transit TV dominates the market and is enjoying the success of attracting major advertisers such as

McDonald’s, TNT and General Mills.

Transit TV still doesn’t have much competition. Several small companies in Europe and Asia produce television screens for buses and subways, but few compare to the size of Transit TV. In fact, the field is so untapped that the company has yet to win any major industry awards, simply because none exist.

The company’s continued success and market domination, Plogstedt explains, is due to tenacity.

“I think our success is really tied to the fact that we work very hard to provide a good quality product for our audiences, which in turn makes new agencies interested in putting us on board,” he says.

Of course, having a qualified Orlando workforce to draw from doesn’t hurt either.

“The key thing for us is that there are a lot of skilled people in Orlando,” he says. “A lot of people who work here today came from the entertainment industry and carry the work ethic that comes from that — attention to detail and deadlines. They are just as important here as in a science center or a theme park.”

In the future, Plogstedt hopes to see Transit TV continue to expand across the United States and debut in more of the nation’s top advertising markets, such as New York City.

“We recently won a contract to go into San Diego,” he says. “Our intention is to get more of the top ten.

We’ve got nice geography now, but we need more cities to make it a real x national footprint.”

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UNITING FORCES ORLANDO’S JOINT ADL CO-LAB IS MAKING IT EASIER FOR BRANCHES OF THE U.S. ARMED SERVICES TO SHARE INFORMATION.

By Rafaela Ellis

>>

Interoperability: For those in the computer business, it’s become the watchword of the moment. Put simply, it means creating content that can be run at anytime on any type of hardware. And if Orlando’s Joint Advanced Distributed Learning Collaboration Laboratory has anything to say about it, interoperability enabled by the World Wide Web is just the beginning.

Located in Central Florida Research Park near the University of Central Florida, the Joint ADL Co-Lab, as it is known, is part of a Department of Defense initiative undertaken in 1997.

Its mission: to integrate military instruction and technology across the various service branches to improve training, increase efficiency, and thus save the taxpayer money.

“The premise was, the military was underutilizing technology for individual training,” explains Dr. Robert Wisher, the Pentagon-based director of the nationwide initiative. “The bottom line was a

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lack of interoperability. Content developed for one computer system would not work on another system — so, if the Air Force had a system, they could not share it with the Navy.”

As a result, each branch was spending tax dollars to independently create similar materials for its troops.

“For example, in the area of medical care, they were developing basically identical content for common tasks, such as [employing] a tourniquet,” Wisher says. “But there was no reason why you just couldn’t share content around the services and reduce cost by

developing the content once and using it many times.”

When it came to finding a location for the military co-lab, Orlando led the list, says Jean Burmester, its director.

“Central Florida is the hub of modeling, simulation and training systems for the military,” she says. “There are also numerous defense-related industry partners [here] that support the Department of Defense in a variety of functions.”

Add to that the presence of “Team Orlando” — the military’s term for the confluence of ar med services commands located here — and

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Orlando was the natural choice.

Today, the lab has 15 employees — a mix of Army, Navy and Air Force civilians and support contractors — and is funded in whole by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The location in Central Florida Research Park includes not only offices but a game and simulation research laboratory, a plug-and-play lab where government contractors can test their content on numerous Learning Management Systems, and a National Guard classroom where local Guard units and military can connect with 300-plus training sites nationwide. The National

“We have to make this easy for the military. If you use these standards, then your content, your training, should be interoperable across platforms and with other people’s training content... . There are so many versions [of the Apache helicopter] out there in the field.

If someone in Kuwait needs to repair a particular aircraft, they can go online anytime, anywhere and find the right version of the repair manual.” — Jean Burmester

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Guard classroom is also available to government contractors to reach subject matter experts nationwide.

Future plans call for using the Joint ADL Co-Lab to conduct language and cultural distributed training research.

The lab is also under review to support language proficiency testing of military, government civilians and reserve individuals in the Central Florida area. Language and cultural training is critical in all Military Services to ensure the troops deployed to war zones are as effective in the combat theater as possible.

“We’re finalizing an agreement with the Defense Language Office to do more work with the Defense Language Institute,” Burmester says. “So we’re hoping to see some growth there.”

For now, however, the Orlando co-lab concentrates mostly on helping Defense Services understand common standards for training, so that instructors in each armed services branch operate on the same wavelength.

a particular aircraft, they can go online anytime, anywhere and find the right version of the repair manual.”

W ith programmers back home constantly updating information, troops won’t have to be trained on a particular piece of equipment in order to repair it quickly and safely.

The ADL Co-Lab is also responsible for developing tools that evaluate how well the military is educating its troops.

“Training is not training unless there’s some level of assessment to show that the student did what the student was supposed to do,” says Game and simulation research lab.

“This is a great idea for a military schoolhouse, even if they don’t look at the possibility of others using it. There is a lot of commonality between training, whether it’s offered to captains, lieutenants or in non-commissioned officer schools, so they can reuse [content] within their own schoolhouses.” — Bill Pike National Guard classroom.

“We have to make this easy for the military,” Burmester says. “If you use these standards, then your content, your training, should be interoperable across platforms and with other people’s training content.”

While the concept of interoperability can sound heady, Burmester points out that the result is anything but complicated. In fact, the initiative’s mission is to make life simpler — and safer — for the nation’s war fighters on the battlefield.

Burmester gives the example of an Apache helicopter breaking down in a war zone.

“There are so many versions [of that aircraft] out there in the field,” she says.

“If someone in Kuwait needs to repair

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Bill Pike, senior research engineer at the co-lab. “We say it’s not training unless you capture that assessment data for use down the road.”

Assessments will analyze not just immediate results but how long trainees retain information, as well as how easily they can access updated content to keep their skills current.

“The whole key is, [trainers] need to be able to know who’s trained, who’s ready, and what gaps there are,” Burmester notes.

While the ADL initiative’s original mandate was focused on the military, business and academia are also benefiting from the program. Two other ADL labs — the Workforce Co-Lab in Memphis, Tenn., and the Academic Co-Lab in Madison, Wis. — are working to help industry and higher education develop methods for integrating information across hardware platforms.

“The Academic Co-Lab has partnerships with more than seventy universities,” Director Wisher says, noting that the co-lab also has for med alliances with regional educational organizations to create standards for sharing content.

And while businesses have been reluctant to share content for fear of undercutting their own bottom lines, Wisher says industry is beginning to identify non-compete areas, such as regulatory training, where working together can save everyone time and money.

Meanwhile, the Orlando Joint ADL Co-Lab continues to focus on military applications, creating methods for streamlining training both between services and within individual branches.

“This is a great idea for a military schoolhouse, even if they don’t look at the possibility of others using it,” says Pike. “There is a lot of commonality between training, whether it’s offered to captains, lieutenants or in noncommissioned officer schools, so they can reuse [content] within their own schoolhouses.”

With a budget of only $14 million per year — $5 million of which is allocated for the Orlando facility — the ADL Initiative has the potential to save Americans millions more than it costs them. And that, says Wisher, is the real bottom line.

“It’s not a matter of how [the services] should train,” he says. “It’s that if they decide to use online instruction, they should allow another service to use x what the taxpayer has paid for.”

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FANTASTIC

Tripping the Light

OPTIGRATE MAKES HOLOGRAPHIC TECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGH.

By Nancy Christianson Curry

>>

Like a marathon runner entering his 25th mile, Leon Glebov can almost see the finish line. The Russian-born physicist and University of Central Florida (UCF) professor has been nurturing a scientific discovery for nearly 20 years, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about to pay off with far-reaching commercial applications.

PHOTOS BY CHARLES HODGES

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Glebov is the co-founder and chief technology officer of OptiGrate, a University of Central Florida (UCF) Technology Incubator company that designs and manufactures a variety of optical gratings and devices for specialized commercial and defense applications.

Glebov’s breakthrough has been to develop a method of embedding microscopic holograms into optic glass that can direct light to perform a vast number of functions. He holds two patents for the technique, which has revolutionary promise for the military, semi-conductor, spectrometry and automotive and shipping industries, as well as for consumer applications ranging from medical imaging to mindblowing high-resolution big-screen TVs. “I believe we’ll see widespread commercial applications within eighteen months,” says Glebov.

That path to commercialization has been helped by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council’s (FHTCC) innovative Matching Grants Research Program, which provided OptiGrate $225,000 in matching funds for research.

“The FHTCC program is extremely helpful for both small companies and the university because it provides additional funding for research,” says Glebov. “The money is flexible, so when we see something unexpected in the lab, we can capitalize on it. Both sides — the company and the university — have a very good benefit.”

Glebov’s highly specialized glass provides a vehicle for directing light that is far more durable and precise than the photosensitive materials commonly used in today’s optics marketplace. Currently, photosensitive glass is created with an organic surface coating.

Creating the glass by embedding a hologram creates a thicker platform, one that can withstand high temperatures, immersion in water and numerous other environmental challenges.

OptiGrate’s finished product will facilitate the use of semiconductor lasers as a high-quality light source because it can stand up to the extreme heat they generate, something that previous photosensitive platforms cannot do.

Lasers offer quantum gains in

efficiency and quality for all sorts of light-related technology applications.

For example, a traditional projection TV screen that emits 3 watts of light requires roughly 300 watts of energy.

Using a laser with holographic control to project images drops the power requirements to just 10 watts.

This achievement is a major milestone in a long career: Glebov has been working with glass since 1970. Originally from the Soviet Union, he served as director of the prestigious Vavilov State Optical Institute of St. Petersburg until 1995, when UCF recruited him to conduct research at the College of Optics & Photonics and Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL).

He founded OptiGrate in 1999 with his wife, Larissa, an organic chemist, and Vadim Smirnov, a former student who serves as the company’s director of holography. OptiGrate supplies clients in the semiconductor and optics industries, but also performs pure research. The company has been awarded two Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grants from NASA, and is successfully completing two Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer Research grants.

The grants are worth $1.5 million issued by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency.

Like many scientific achievements, Glebov’s initial discovery came while looking for something else. In 1989, one of his Vavilov students was having difficulty drilling holes in optical glass.

Glebov realized the “faulty” process

was actually etching a hologram.

“We recorded the world’s first phasevolume hologram in glass the very next day,” recalls Glebov. “At the time, there was no useful application for it. After this, I moved to America, and three years later we made the first glass that did not produce scattering. It took us ten years to make a high-quality hologram.”

The roadblock he faced was that photosensitive glass needs to be extraordinarily pure and homogeneous.

Achieving that combination was nothing short of miraculous.

One year and a half later Glebov and his team acheived the “impossible,” producing the first high-purity and homogeneous glass.

UCF played an integral role in OptiGrate’s success. In addition to the business mentoring and guidance provided by the Technology Incubator, UCF and its CREOL lab have been a key source of employees and scientific resources. Five UCF students are participating in the research grant project and UCF grads hold three of the company’s four full-time technical positions.

“There’s only one university in the United States that can produce optical glass,” says Glebov, “and that’s UCF.” x

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TRANSFORMATION

APPARENT

DOWNTOWN ORLANDO’S THRILL-RIDING TRANSFORMATION IS AMONG THE LARGEST OF DOZENS OF SUCH REVITALIZATIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY.

By Jackie Kelvington

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If a theme park still costs an average of $1 billion to build, Orlando has what amounts to three parks going up — only it’s not thrill rides that are being erected here, it’s new office towers, shops, restaurants and residential units that are completely transforming downtown Orlando and its skyline. While hundreds of downtowns across the country are undergoing major developments, Orlando is among the largest and may just be the youngest of the bunch to experience such a colossal transformation.

A SKYLINE RESHAPING Cranes dot the city core as more than 30 development projects are planned, underway or have recently been completed. These include several new office (and combination office, condo and retail) towers totaling more than

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two million square feet that are proposed or being built, along with two university campuses; a federal courthouse; 7,000 residential units; 12 cinemas; a full-service grocery store; and one million square feet of new retailers and restaurants — all within short walking distances of one another.

In addition:

>> Several new corporate headquarters facilities could be completed next year. >> With the housing that will come on line, downtown Orlando will have a high-rise concentration next to office buildings that is unlike any other city centers. >> A blighted area is being restored with new affordable housing opportunities. >> The city is in the midst of planning to build a performing arts center downtown, along with a potential new arena where the NBA’s Orlando Magic plays, and a renovated sports stadium (Florida Citrus Bowl). >> A graduate program focusing on digital media (UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy) has opened and is already expanding classroom space with additional plans for the city’s first downtown student housing. The school, which has become the focal point of the city’s vision for a “Creative Village”, is one of only a few of its kind in the nation. >> Orlando’s two nationally ranked hospitals (Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Healthcare) are both undergoing major expansions. >> A growing number of the “creative

class” is clustering in the city core (see cover story “Cornering the Creative Economy” pages 16-21).

By 2010, more than 290,000 people are expected to live within a fivemile radius of the city core with the majority ranging between 25 and 34 years old. >> Programs and incentives have been launched to: stretch the success of Downtown Orlando to outer edges of the city; clean up abandoned strip malls; and offer grants for women and minorities to launch or retain their businesses.

Not bad for a city that was hardly on the map 30 years ago.

According to Dave Feehan, president of the International Downtown Association, “Downtown Orlando is a national downtown transformation success story. What’s happening there signifies the up-and-comingness of the city core, the demand from its citizens, and the huge vote of confidence from financial institutions and the development community. Few downtowns have this extensive array of new development underway.”

NOT ALONE The Brookings Institute, a private, nonprofit organization that conducts

independent research and provides policy solutions, says the renaissance of downtowns throughout the country has been happening for the past 15 years as demand grows for a walkable, vibrant place to live and work, a renewed urban lifestyle and people wanting to avoid daily commutes from the suburbs.

From major metros to smaller cities and from the western shoreline to the East Coast, downtown renewals are happening in places like Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; San Luis Obispo and Oceanside, Calif.; Grosse Pointe, Mich.; Colchester, Vt.; and Easton, Penn.

Brookings goes on to say that, from 1990 to 2000, the number of households living in a sample of 45 U.S. downtowns increased 13 percent. As well, there is a friendly lending climate now for developers, and lenders are bullish in markets like Orlando. What’s more, claims Brookings, successful downtown turnarounds have shown that, for every $1 of public investment, there will be $10 in private money.

KEY TO SUCCESS In a report put out by Brookings last year entitled, Turning Around Downtown: 12 Steps to Revitalization, author Chris Leinberger stresses the

importance of public/private partnerships, the critical support role necessary for city leaders and the great strategic vision and planning needed for revitalization.

These elements, in fact, are credited for bringing about downtown Orlando’s transformation, which was years in the making. When Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer took office three years ago, he immediately established a vision and strategy for re-building and revitalizing Downtown Orlando. The Mayor and City Economic Development staff met consistently with local business and community leaders, as well as developers, to begin charting the course for downtown; committees were formed to examine everything from street block restorations to transportation patterns; and economic development programs were implemented to offer strategic incentive programs and fast-track permitting.

“Downtown development is exploding across the country, and, using an Olympic Game analogy, Orlando is between a silver and gold medal,” says Leinberger. “Considering the dollar figure and wide array of development alone, it’s definitely among the top downtown revitalizations out there.”

For more on developments in Downtown Orlando, visit www.downx townorlando.com.

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intelligent forms of lifestyle

CONNECTIONS Making

CENTRAL FLORIDA COMMUNITIES ARE GOING WIRELESS.

By Denise Bates Enos

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Have laptop, will travel — with an increasing number of wireless hotspots cropping up in Orlando and its environs, remaining tethered to a stationary Internet connection is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

A variety of local government entities, retailers and restaurateurs, hotels and resorts, and other facilities are now offering wireless access — with more to come. From the Orange County Library System and popular eateries to entire neighborhoods and even towns, folks can log on and connect to the global community easily and instantly.

A WALK IN THE PARK A case in point is Colonial Town Park in

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Seminole County. Located north of Heathrow in Lake Mary, this mixed-use development has seamlessly combined natural beauty with total connectivity. Colonial Town Park includes office, retail and residential areas that are visually and physically linked by a pedestrian-friendly parkway. The centerpiece of the development is a verdant park with an alfresco amphitheater, meandering trails for strolling and jogging, and a

pond fringed along its borders by live oak trees.

Scattered throughout the community’s park are wireless benches that provide high-speed Internet access amid rolling lawns and shade-providing trees. Here, residents and employees can escape the confines of their homes, offices and shops to enjoy open-air Web surfing on their off-hours — a welcome respite from the workaday world. www.colonialprop.com.

SMALL TOWN, BIG TECHNOLOGY

RESORT TECH Business and leisure travelers to Central Florida aren’t left out of the technological loop, either. Many local hotels and resorts are tapping into the wireless trend, offering in-room Internet hot spots as well as other high-tech services. For example, the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center, located in Kissimmee near the Walt Disney World Resort attractions area, offers a variety of highly advanced technological services.

Among the cutting-edge amenities the resort offers are an in-room electronic “concierge” (a hotel industry first); in-room safes large enough to accommodate laptops that also include a built-in outlet to recharge computers while they’re safely locked away; self-service electronic kiosks with touch screens for check-in and checkout services throughout the hotel and adjacent convention center; a fiber optic network for high-speed Internet connections throughout the hotel’s common areas and guest rooms; and multifunction doorbells with LED display screens that replace traditional paper or plastic “do not disturb” and housekeeping doorknob hangers and signs. Additionally, the resort features pay phones that include data ports, work areas and wireless Internet access. www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylordpalms.

TOTAL COVERAGE FIRST Another Osceola County wireless haven is the city of St. Cloud, which was the first city in the United States to offer free, high-speed wireless access to its residents. The city’s Cyber Spot, estimated to save residents nearly $500 annually on Internet service (money which they can then use to invigorate the local economy), can also be used by local businesses and visitors. Cyber Spot covers the entire city limits of St. Cloud, an area of 15 square miles. Occasional workshops to familiarize residents with the service are held at City Hall, and the city also offers free round-the-clock technical support for users. www.stcloud.org.

South of Downtown Orlando’s urban core in Osceola County, the town of Celebration has made its high-tech infrastructure a cornerstone of the community.

Since its inception, this “Mayberry for the 21st century” has linked homeowners and their community through the Internet via its sophisticated fiber optic and wireless network. Residents of this Disney-created Utopia have instant access to information on local education, government, religious and community events. They can also post messages on online community bulletin boards, find out what’s on sale at local stores and discover what’s on the menu at nearby eateries. While the community has a quaint, old-fashioned exterior, it has a thoroughly modern heart, offering an instant connection to the town and the world at large through technology. www.celebrationfl.com.

Celebration residents can even connect to Florida Hospital Celebration Health. The hospital includes a variety of health and wellness centers, including a state-of-the-art cancer institute, fitness center, and sports medicine and rehabilitation services. And Celebration Health has added a new feature for the very youngest residentsto-be: expectant parents can now see their babies-to-come in real time via the latest imaging technology. Florida Hospital Celebration Health is first in Central Florida — and one of the first facilities in the nation — to provide 4D-imaging technology to its patients. www.celebrationhealth.com.

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