Hi friends,
A blind basketball fan feels the game through vibrations synchronized to live NBA action. A PhD researcher makes AI accessible to small businesses instead of hoarding it for tech giants. A logistics entrepreneur builds a company solving a problem he experienced trying to get his refrigerator delivered. This is what innovation looks like when it’s designed to solve real human problems, not just chase billion-dollar valuations. Central Florida’s $7 billion simulation and training ecosystem exists because for 60 years we’ve been building technology that works in the real world: training pilots safely, creating accessible experiences, and defending national security. While other regions optimize for fundraising announcements, we optimize for building things that matter.
Here’s what happened this week.
FEATURE STORY
THE MADDEN DYNASTY: WHY ORLANDO OWNS INTERACTIVE SPORTS
EA SPORTS just secured exclusive NFL rights through 2030, and the story of how Orlando became home to this franchise reveals everything about our competitive advantage. When three engineers left Silicon Valley in 1994 to start Tiburon Entertainment in a state “known for little more than its theme parks and orange groves,” they were choosing the only place in America where simulation expertise, creative storytelling, and engineering talent had been converging for decades. EA acquired them in 1998, and today their Orlando studio draws new graduate hires from UCF’s FIEA, the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, consistently ranked among the world’s top game development programs.
But here’s what makes this ecosystem irreplaceable: the engineer who builds cockpit displays for F-35 simulators can build HUD systems for Madden. The artist creating photorealistic theme park pre-visualization migrates to game studios creating photorealistic stadiums. The producer managing complex attraction installations understands shipping AAA titles on deadline. This isn’t talent poaching, it’s talent circulation through multiple industries that all need the same fundamental capability: creating believable simulated environments where humans interact with digital worlds. With more than 2 billion games of Madden NFL played annually, this partnership validates what we’ve known for 30 years: themed entertainment, defense simulation, and interactive sports are the same technology stack serving different human needs. Congratulations to Innovate Orlando’s Chairman of the Board, Daryl Holt and the entire Orlando based team on this milestone.
EA SPORTS and The NFL Expand Partnership to Power the Future of Interactive Football
THE $7B SECRET HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
DiSTI Corporation achieved ISO 26262 ASIL D recertification for safety-critical automotive software and secured a five-year Navy Complex Media IDIQ contract in the same month, and that’s not a coincidence. Central Florida is the only place in America where defense simulation, automotive HMI, and entertainment technology share the same talent pool, supply chain, and research infrastructure. The technology that makes theme park rides safe enough for toddlers becomes the foundation for automotive safety systems. The visual fidelity required for billion-dollar blockbuster attractions informs military training that keeps soldiers alive.
The Golden Dome missile defense initiative is bringing $151 billion in contracting opportunities, and Central Florida companies are positioning aggressively because we already secure $7 billion annually in modeling, simulation, and training systems. When the Department of Defense runs Virtual Hangar Workshops advancing XR training capabilities, they’re building on six decades of work that started with flight simulators and evolved through military-academic partnerships at UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training. This depth, this decades-long compound interest of expertise, can’t be replicated by opening an engineering office and hoping talent appears.
BUILT HERE, SCALED HERE
Bill Catania couldn’t get his refrigerator delivered from a big box store to his home, so he founded OneRail in 2018 with his wife Lisa to solve last-mile logistics at enterprise scale. Seven years later, OneRail operates a network of 12 million drivers, has raised $109 million including a $42 million Series C in 2024, and was named to the FreightTech 100 list for five consecutive years. The company has grown substantially because Bill understood something most logistics startups don’t: the operations research that moves tens of thousands of people through Magic Kingdom daily while ensuring packages end up in the right place is the same expertise that revolutionizes retail delivery.
Ernest Rolfson founded Finexio in 2015 after working in fintech and recognizing that most businesses still manage accounts payable with physical checks. He moved the company from Silicon Valley to Orlando in 2021, and today Finexio provides embedded B2B payments infrastructure that large enterprises and software platforms integrate into their systems. This is the embedded finance wave and Orlando is riding it not by chasing trends, but by building infrastructure that works.
Krupa Koestline earned her Master’s in Biology and Biotechnology, worked in R&D for major beauty brands, then founded KKT Labs in 2020, one week before COVID was declared a national emergency. What looked like catastrophic timing became an opportunity as consumers stayed home researching clean beauty products. She built a successful biotech formulation business serving clients including Tower28, and is now opening a 16,000-square-foot innovation hub to scale into full biotechnology manufacturing. Life sciences companies are discovering what simulation firms learned decades ago: Florida offers talent, facilities, and operating costs that make growth sustainable.
Here’s the pattern: Florida CEOs are more optimistic than national peers because population growth, tax policy, and infrastructure investments compound rather than extract. That Gartner survey showing 50% of non-U.S. tech executives changing vendor relationships based on regional factors? Geopolitics now determines supply chains, and Florida’s position as a gateway to Latin America transforms from geography into strategic advantage.
PRACTICAL AI
UCF’s Jun Wang just secured $600K from NSF to democratize AI foundation models, and this is exactly the kind of research that defines our competitive advantage. Silicon Valley builds AI for tech giants. Central Florida builds AI for the rest of the economy. We’ve got Embry-Riddle preparing aviation leaders for the AI era because we’re not interested in theoretical computer science, we’re interested in putting AI into cockpits, onto assembly lines, and inside training simulators where it actually changes outcomes. This is applied research that comes from being surrounded by defense contractors, aerospace companies, and manufacturers who need AI to solve real problems today, not hypothetical ones in five years. When you’re training pilots for commercial aviation and Air Force missions in the same region, you develop a very practical approach to how machine learning should work under pressure.
With a $600,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, Professor Jun Wang aims to make AI foundation models more accessible to individuals and small businesses.
INNOVATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Mayor Demings is hosting the Economic Summit at Full Sail because he understands what many regions don’t: innovation infrastructure isn’t just R&D labs, it’s also production studios, esports arenas, and places where creative industries collide with engineering. The Orlando Magic partnering with OneCourt to offer tactile broadcasts is exactly this collision, taking real-time data visualization technology (the same stuff defense contractors use) and making it accessible for visually impaired fans. Seminole State earning National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense designation strengthens a pipeline that feeds Lockheed, Northrop, L3Harris, and dozens of contractors who need security clearances and technical chops. Florida becoming the nation’s first sky taxi test bed isn’t random, we’ve got restricted airspace, cooperative regulators, and an aviation ecosystem that spans commercial, military, and emerging eVTOL.
THE RETENTION ECONOMY
Knight Hacks is running their annual hackathon Friday, and these students are the reason our tech ecosystem compounds. They’re getting hands-on experience while still in school, then staying in Orlando because we’ve finally built enough companies worth joining. Governor DeSantis appointing Disney World Resort’s president to UCF’s Board of Trustees is strategic alignment at work, the state’s largest university and largest employer are now formally coordinating on curriculum, research priorities, and talent development. This is how you build a pipeline that actually produces engineers who can ship products, not just write academic papers.
BIOTECH’S FLORIDA ADVANTAGE
KKT Labs is opening a 16,000-square-foot biotech innovation hub in Florida, and Olympia Pharmaceuticals is scaling aggressively. Here’s the pattern: life sciences companies are discovering what simulation firms learned decades ago, Florida offers talent, facilities, and operating costs that make growth sustainable. UCF researchers advancing low-cost multiplex RNA testing for HIV, HBV, and HCV with NIH funding represents our increasing sophistication beyond entertainment and defense. We’re building a biotech cluster that leverages the same things that made us a simulation capital: university research partnerships, available real estate, and a willingness to try new approaches while older hubs stagnate under their own regulations and costs.
FROM PLAYING SAFE TO PLAYING TO WIN
WHAT CENTRAL FLORIDA NEEDS NOW
We need three $100 million+ venture funds headquartered here, not Silicon Valley partners making quarterly site visits. We need founders willing to build here instead of raising Series A to afford Palo Alto rent. We need limited partners who feel the urgency of missing Orlando exposure in their portfolios. We need policy makers who recognize that the next trillion dollars in wealth creation won’t come from another social media app—it will come from regions combining defense spending, university research, and industrial application to solve problems that matter.
The infrastructure is built. The talent pipeline produces graduates from FIEA and feeds into an ecosystem where engineers circulate between game studios, simulation companies, and defense contractors. UCF continues as Florida’s most innovative university. Central Florida secures $7 billion annually in contracts. Companies like OneRail, Finexio, and KKT Labs are scaling here not despite being in Orlando, but because being here provides competitive advantages that compound over decades.
If you’re an engineer questioning why you’re paying Bay Area rent for purchasing power that’s significantly lower than Orlando, a founder burning cash on overhead that could fund product development, or an investor looking for the next Austin before everyone else figures it out, Central Florida isn’t emerging. We emerged decades ago while you weren’t paying attention. The only question is whether you’ll notice before all the value has already been captured.
Pay attention.
This newsletter exists because you asked for it. Every week, I’m connecting the dots across our ecosystem, celebrating our wins, and holding space for the hard work that rarely makes headlines. If you’re building something here, I want to know about it. If you’re considering relocating here, let’s talk. This is my city, and I’m betting my career on its future.
