To create the knowledge economy, don’t reinvent wheel
Business and policy leaders have stressed the need to diversify Florida’s economy into knowledge intensive industries like information technology, biotechnology and advanced engineering.
While pursuing these directions, it’s important not to lose sight of the value of the mainstays of Florida’s economy: tourism, agriculture and real estate development. Without these industries, we would not have the Florida we enjoy today; we need to nurture these core industries while building others.
The good news is that we already have the attributes to propel ourselves into the knowledge economy without reinventing the wheel.
Florida’s university-affiliated research parks lead the way in innovation, providing places where research and development focused companies can experiment, work with professors to advance research, and benefit from curious and intelligent student interns. Nine research parks span the length and breadth of Florida and each is unique, for example the Treasure Coast Research Park focuses on agriculture-based research while the UM Life Science & Technology Park concentrates on biotechnology.
In Broward and Palm Beach counties, the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University takes a diversified approach and has been contributing to the knowledge economy for the past thirty years.
In 1985, the Research Park was created and in 2000, the Technology Business Incubator was born. The TBI provides technology entrepreneurs with the resources needed to scale businesses from a good idea with a customer or two to a sustainable multi-million dollar enterprise.
The 20 companies in the Research Park and the 17 companies in the TBI reported their remarkable 2014 results recently: These forward-thinking companies collectively employ 1,798 people with average salaries of $87,000, compared with the regional average of $46,000, and they expect to hire at least 330 more South Floridians in 2015.
These companies received almost 40 new U.S. patents last year, and filed 19 new applications, while currently holding 557. By comparison in 2013, 971 patents were filed in all of Broward and Palm Beach counties.
The concentration of innovation was recognized by the investment community which collectively invested $49 million in them. All this activity added up to an overall impact of $755 million on the regional economy, a 68 percent increase over 2013.