*Photo: Blooloop
Hi Friends,
Central Florida’s innovation economy didn’t just grow this week, it flexed.
ThreatLocker announced plans to hire more than 1,200 employees over 18 months as its valuation surpassed $2 billion. (If you’re keeping score at home, that’s roughly one new hire for every cyberthreat the company blocks daily.)
Red 6 announced a plan to integrate its augmented-reality training system onto Boeing‘s AH-64E Apache testbed, marking the Orlando company’s first rotorcraft platform and opening a potential pathway to U.S. Army operational deployment. Translation: Our pilots can now train against virtual enemies that won’t actually shoot back, which is generally considered a win for training budgets and pilot longevity.
Orange County Commissioners unanimously approved a five-year, $25 million film-incentive program offering rebates up to $1 million per project. As one of the region’s former film commissioners, this was a HUGE celebration for me this week.
The Orlando Business Journal recognized 80 companies in its 2025 Best Places to Work awards, proof that you can build rocket ships, cybersecurity empires, and treat people well. Who knew?
Beyond these headlines: UCF students are advancing AI-powered medical robotics, Full Sail is opening a 7,870-square-foot Drone Innovation Center, Orlando International Airport unveiled a $6 billion modernization plan, and IAAPA brought tens of thousands of global attractions leaders to our convention center. Add Exowatt‘s $50 million clean-energy raise and Waymo‘s plan to bring autonomous vehicles here in 2026, and the narrative becomes clear: Central Florida is now one of the Southeast’s most diversified tech ecosystems, where defense, healthcare AI, cybersecurity, film, space, and themed entertainment don’t just coexist, they actively reinforce each other.
Ready to see where innovation actually lives? Let’s dive into the defense sector first, because when Red 6 and Boeing integrate AR training into combat helicopters, the rest of the MS&T world pays attention. (SpaceX launching two rockets in four hours helps too.)
Defense & Aerospace: Orlando Takes Flight
Red 6’s integration of its Advanced Tactical Augmented Reality System (ATARS) onto Boeing’s AH-64E Apache Crewstation Advanced Technology Testbed marks a significant milestone, its first rotorcraft deployment and a steppingstone toward potential Army operational use. The AR system overlays virtual threats onto physical flight operations, enabling pilots to train in high-fidelity combat scenarios without burning jet fuel or, you know, actual missiles. It’s like a very expensive, very serious video game that could save lives and millions of dollars.
Unusual Machines is expanding its Orlando operations with a new facility as the company responds to growing demand for domestically manufactured drone components and a significant military contract. Orlando’s simulation and training sector approves.
The Space Coast continued its hot streak: L3Harris successfully tested its second RS-25 engine for NASA’s Artemis V mission, Kratos Defense announced its acquisition of Israel’s Orbit Communication Systems, and SpaceX conducted two launches within four hours. (Because one rocket launch per day is apparently for amateurs.) Blue Origin’s New Glenn-2 program continues advancing.
Suddenly Central Florida’s aerospace cluster looks less like a collection of companies and more like a self-reinforcing innovation engine. When simulation experts are down the street from rocket engineers who work alongside defense contractors, breakthroughs stop being coincidences.
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Enterprise Tech & Cybersecurity: Explosive Growth
Military training systems are impressive. But you know what’s also impressive? Hiring 1,200 people without causing organizational chaos. That’s what ThreatLocker just committed to and at a $2B valuation. Translation: Central Florida isn’t just hosting defense innovation anymore. We’re actually scaling software companies with local founders. If you need proof that we’re not a one-sector economy, this is it.
ThreatLocker’s announcement that it plans to add approximately 1,200 employees over 18 months, while its valuation crosses $2 billion confirms what many suspected: cybersecurity has become one of Orlando’s fastest-scaling sectors. CEO Danny Jenkins told the Orlando Business Journal the company is hiring across engineering, development, sales, and support at a rate of 40-50 employees monthly.
Given the current state of global cyberthreats (spoiler: not great), ThreatLocker’s zero-trust security approach is resonating with enterprises who’ve decided that “trust but verify” is quaint but insufficient. Orlando is benefiting accordingly.
Meanwhile, Kore.ai became a launch partner for Microsoft Agent 365, Tanium recognized its global partners at Converge 2025, and Finexio partnered with Visa to accelerate B2B payments digitization. Turns out, Orlando isn’t just good at simulating helicopter combat; we’re also pretty solid at building the enterprise software that keeps actual businesses running.
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Universities, Research & Talent Pipeline
So you’ve read about companies hiring 1,200 people and integrating AR into helicopters. Natural question: Where do they get these people? Answer: Our universities, fortunately for us, decided to build a talent pipeline that serves multiple sectors. Full Sail is opening a Drone Innovation Center. UCF students are building seizure-prediction AI. Embry-Riddle hosted an AI Summit. This isn’t educational news, it’s supply-chain development disguised as university announcements.
Last week Full Sail University announced it will open its Drone Innovation Center in December, a 7,870-square-foot facility with indoor flight zones, engineering labs, and AI-simulation capabilities. The center will support cross-disciplinary programs spanning drone tech, live-event production, cybersecurity, and software development, because modern drones apparently need expertise from all of the above.
Embry-Riddle hosted an AI Summit exploring the technology’s impact across academia and industry, while multiple Florida school districts announced they’ll test drone systems for active-shooter response. It’s a sobering reminder that university research translates into both breakthrough innovations and practical community solutions—sometimes addressing problems we wish didn’t exist.
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Healthcare & Life Sciences: AI Meets Patient Care
Universities produce talent. That talent either builds meaningful things or wastes everyone’s time. This week proved UCF, Full Sail, and Embry-Riddle are choosing the former: Students building seizure-prediction AI, drone innovation centers opening, industry leaders gathering for AI summits. The real proof? That innovation immediately translates into healthcare wins: Orlando Health revolutionizing ACL recovery with biomechanics analysis, Aviv Clinics launching hyperbaric innovation centers. Theory meets practice. Students become innovators. Innovation becomes patient outcomes.
UCF students are doing what students do best making the rest of us feel unaccomplished. They’re building AI-powered medical robotics that identify anatomical structures in imaging, developing handheld ultrasound devices for carpal-tunnel diagnosis, and applying machine learning to seizure prediction. One undergraduate with epilepsy is literally programming AI to help prevent her own medical episodes. Talk about personal motivation meeting cutting-edge research.
Orlando Health’s Jewett Orthopedic Institute deployed real-time 3D motion-analysis technology to monitor biomechanics during ACL rehab, giving athletes and doctors objective data on when it’s actually safe to return to sport. No more guessing, no more “it feels okay, Coach,” no more catastrophic re-injuries three weeks into the season.
UCF Lake Nona Hospital received national recognition for safety, quality, and patient experience, while Aviv Clinics launched its Israeli-developed hyperbaric innovation center in Florida. Between university research labs, nationally ranked hospitals, and international med-tech expansions, Central Florida is quietly becoming a healthcare technology proving ground.
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Clean Energy, Mobility & Infrastructure: Building Tomorrow’s Foundation
Here’s a secret: Innovation needs electricity. Lots of it. And modern transportation. And functioning airports. This week, Central Florida started solving that infrastructure problem: OUC announced 40 new EV chargers (because range anxiety is so 2023), and Orlando’s airport revealed a $6 billion makeover plan. These stories are unsexy. They’re also absolutely necessary if you want to scale anything real.
Miami-based Exowatt raised $50 million to scale dispatchable-solar technology purpose-built for AI data centers because apparently AI’s appetite for electricity makes cryptocurrency mining look quaint. With backing from Sam Altman and The Florida Opportunity Fund (here’s the Orlando connection) managed by Orlando’s Deepwork Capital, Exowatt’s modular P3 system stores solar energy as heat and converts it to power during peak demand, solving solar’s “what happens when the sun goes down” problem.
Locally, OUC announced 40 new fast EV-charging stations (because range anxiety is so 2023), while Waymo confirmed it’s bringing autonomous vehicles to Orlando in 2026. Florida Power & Light earned a National ReliabilityOne Award, which is utility-speak for “our lights actually stay on during storms.”
Orlando International Airport unveiled a $6 billion modernization roadmap and began a major tram-system replacement, the kind of unsexy infrastructure investment that makes everything else possible. You can’t build a tech hub without reliable power, modern transportation, and an airport that doesn’t make visitors immediately regret their travel decisions.
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Founders, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development
The National Entrepreneur Center is relocating to downtown Orlando, leasing 16,000 square feet in a UCF-owned Creative Village building. Having served more than 330,000 entrepreneurs and facilitated over $363 million in loans, the NEC’s move to a transit-accessible downtown location signals Creative Village’s continued evolution from “ambitious concept” to “actual innovation district.”
NeoCity’s expansion into NeoCity South cleared regulatory hurdles, reinforcing the multi-nodal nature of our regional ecosystem. (Innovation doesn’t require a downtown address, turns out.) FINFROCK (a past winner of the Orlando Economic Partnership’s Schwartz Innovation Award) marked 80 years in Central Florida construction, proof that regional innovation is built on both scrappy startups and century-old companies that refused to leave.
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Film, Digital Media & Interactive Entertainment: Hollywood East Returns
Plot twist: Film production is coming back to Central Florida, even though the production community has been surviving on national commercial campaign production for decades. Orange County just approved a $25 million incentive program that actually thinks about sustainable jobs, not just one-off productions. Pair that with EA Sports’ F1 gaming expansion and local audiovisual companies, and the creative economy isn’t just surviving. It’s evolving into something we didn’t have before. Which, if you ask me, is better than nostalgia.
As a former Orlando Film Commissioner, I’m thrilled and frankly relieved to report that Orange County Commissioners unanimously approved a five-year, $25 million film-incentive program this week. Funded through Tourist Development Tax dollars, the program offers rebates up to $1 million for qualifying film and TV projects, with applications opening in Q1 2026 and first approvals expected by Q2.
Here’s why this matters: After Florida eliminated state film incentives in 2016, production crews started treating I-4 like a highway to Georgia rather than a destination. Orlando, known in the production world as Anywhere USA due to the extraordinary access of diverse locations, experienced crew and actors and resources like the Universal backlot and Chapman Leonard, watched its production industry quietly wither while Atlanta’s boomed.
The new program requires productions to spend at least $400,000 locally, feature Orange County locations, hire at least five recent graduates from local film programs, and prioritize regional crew members. It’s economic development that directly addresses talent drain: more than half of our 3,000 annual film graduates currently leave the region because there aren’t enough local jobs.
Six other Florida counties already offer similar programs (Broward at $12 million annually, Miami-Dade at $10 million), so we’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re finally getting back in the race. And having witnessed firsthand how production crews impact everything from hotel bookings to equipment rentals to catering businesses, I can tell you this investment will pay dividends far beyond the incentive checks.
Beyond film, EA Sports announced expanded F1 gaming content for 2026 and a new title for 2027, while Orlando-based AV Matters joined the AVFX family, strengthening the region’s audiovisual production ecosystem. Turns out people still want to make things here, we just needed to give them a reason to stay.
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Tourism, Attractions & Experience Economy
IAAPA, the global attractions conference, returned to Orlando with tens of thousands of industry leaders. Easy mistake: thinking this is separate from everything above. It’s not. The AI-powered retail tech? UCF and Full Sail talent. The interactive innovations? Defense-simulation spillover. The expansion plans? Infrastructure investment. Tourism isn’t our legacy economy, it’s our laboratory for testing innovations that scale worldwide.
Orlando-based companies stood out: accesso showcased AI-powered retail technology, RES Rides marked a decade of innovation, and Falcon’s Beyond reported continued global attractions growth. Meanwhile, Icon Park and Pointe Orlando are planning major I-Drive expansions, because apparently Orlando’s tourism corridor wasn’t ambitious enough already.
Best moment of the week: Orlando’s SimGraphics deployed interactive-character technology at Chicago’s Field Museum, reminding everyone that local innovation doesn’t stay local. We build it here, the world uses it there.
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Manufacturing & Advanced Materials
Success stories get headlines. Failures get buried. But mature ecosystems learn from both. M-tron posted solid numbers. Luminar faces challenges. Both matter. Luminar’s journey proves that innovation is risky. Central Florida’s resilience proves that risk-taking is necessary. That’s not a weakness. That’s maturity.
M-tron Industries released Q3 2025 earnings, reflecting continued strength in the region’s defense-adjacent manufacturing base. Meanwhile, Luminar Technologies faces disputes with its largest customer amid bankruptcy concerns, a sobering reminder that innovation ecosystems grow through both breakthroughs and hard-earned lessons. Not every bet pays off, but you can’t build transformative companies without taking big swings.
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Closing: The Power of Connection
This week’s news tells a story bigger than any single company, sector, or press release. It’s about how Red 6’s augmented-reality work connects to I/ITSEC, which connects to UCF’s simulation programs, which connects to the defense contractors choosing Orlando as home. How IAAPA brings global innovation leaders to our region in the same season I/ITSEC gathers defense-tech leadership because we have a density in technologies that impact both industries. How film productions returning to Orlando will showcase our region’s stories using crews trained at UCF and Full Sail, talent that might otherwise leave for Atlanta or Los Angeles.
Our competitive advantage isn’t just that we have aerospace, healthcare AI, cybersecurity, themed entertainment, film production, and simulation expertise.
It’s that these sectors benefit from tech talent jumping between industry.
They create unexpected innovations from the intersections of past experiences. An AR training system built for fighter pilots gets adapted for entertainment. A theme park’s queue-management AI finds applications in hospital patient flow. A simulation engineer transitions into autonomous-vehicle testing. This is how ecosystems actually work, messy, interconnected, and far more valuable than the sum of their parts.
As we close out IAPPA and head into I/ITSEC and close out 2025, remember: Strong ecosystems are built on relationships, not transactions.
Reach out to someone working in a different sector this week. Grab coffee with a founder exploring a problem you’ve never considered. Show up for the entrepreneur who’s one connection away from their breakthrough. Because the next major innovation in Central Florida won’t come from a single brilliant mind working in isolation, it’ll come from two people from completely different industries who happened to meet at a networking event and realized their challenges had overlapping solutions.
And if you want a first step to meeting someone new, register for the Orlando Tech Community Holiday Celebration taking place Tuesday, December 9th at Eola View. Register Here
We’re stronger together than we could ever be alone.
Always,
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