Blake Dowling
What is technology? As in the actual origin of the word.
Technology means “science of craft” from the Greek word “techne.”
That’s something I personally find cool because our company, Aegis, is also the Greek word for “shield.” Protecting your business from all things cyber-badness etc.
(I also recall walking around Santorini and someone telling me their crime rate is zero. ZERO. That, my friends, is hard to beat. “Greece is the word,” as they say.)
A quick recap of the history of tech: our earliest innovations were fire and the wheel. Those were kind of a big deal at the time, later followed by the printing press, telephone, and the internet.
Which brings us to the present day. (Told you it was quick.)
Right now, we are amid a tech revolution, where everything is faster, cheaper, better each year.
With that, I thought it would be interesting to look around Florida and see where the latest tech innovations are happening.
To start, in our state, Agritechnology is a fascinating field.
Agriculture is a $100 billion business in Florida with approximately 50,000 farms, which accounts for almost 70 percent of all U.S. citrus production.
Simply put, Agritechnology is using technology to improve yield, efficiency and profitability.
One leader in this area would be the University of Florida and its Institute of Food and Agriculture Science.
They are the best of the best in alternative pesticides, food safety, and developing biofuels.
Take a deep dive here into their efforts here.
We will look to these agritech leaders to speed up the recovery of peanut and cotton crops in North Florida as the region bounces back from the devastation of Hurricane Michael.
Estimates are close to 100 million crops were destroyed, and anything speeding recovery would be crucial to the long-term economic viability in these areas.
Did you ever watch the TV show “Stargate?” Toward the end of the series, they were running out of enemies, so the writers developed some terrible-looking nanotech creatures called Replicators.
Not very creative, and a sign of a dying (yet still interesting) saga.
Here in Florida, we don’t have Teal’c or Asgars, but there is plenty of innovation in Nanotechnology and Microelectronics.
This high-tech field employs almost 20,000 people employed in our state; over 200 companies work on this type of tech.
What is it?
Brenda Prenitzer, CEO of industry leader Nanospective, describes her business like this: “NanoSpective specializes in materials science with an emphasis on nanoscale materials characterization. The company provides analytical services and consultation to a worldwide market offering complete solutions for intellectual property issues, failure analysis, quality control and materials research.”
You will also see international powerhouses in this space — Apple, Siemens, and Mitsubishi.
Let me close with something that needs no introduction.
Last year, coming home from a football game, I pulled into a rest area on I-10; where there were once crops now had acres and acres of sustainable energy by way of solar panels.
And it’s not just power from the sun, either.
Right here in the Sunshine State, we produce energy with everything from solar to algae.
One leader in this field is the Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida. In fact, the Center holds over 40 patents in this field — bringing citizens cleaner and more sustainable energy, as well as a wide range of educational programs.
As far as states, there are three trendsetters to follow in both politics and college football: Texas, California, and Florida. The same goes for tech.
If it is not happening here, it probably isn’t happening anywhere.
In these industries are just the tip of the iceberg — self-driving cars, drones, AI — it’s all happening here.
Florida is where it’s at — I mean, for crying out loud, Lynyrd Skynyrd is from here. You may want to rediscover that band by watching the documentary “If I Leave Here Tomorrow.” You’ll like it. The music you know, the story you don’t.
Your Sunshine State’s favorite tech columnist, signing off for today.
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Blake Dowling is CEO of Aegis Business Technologies in Tallahassee.
