Two major influential publications have named Florida a top state for business. In the current issue of Chief Executive Magazine, Florida is named the #2 best state in the country for business (a ranking the state held last year as well). In addition, Entrepreneur Magazine named Florida one of the top 10 best states for starting a business in the U.S. In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranked Florida among the top 10 states for starting a business as measured by the number of high-tech businesses in the state, programs that support entrepreneurs and STEM job concentration.

Other recent rankings include CreditDonkey naming Orlando the #1 City for Job Growth, Fast Company naming Florida as the best state in the country for innovation and fDi Magazine (Foreign Direct Investment) including Orlando in its top 10 "American Cities of the Future" for the large cities category including ranking 6th in in human resources, 8th in infrastructure and 9th overall. Read More >>

With one of the most rapidly evolving life sciences clusters in the United States, Metro Orlando has caught the attention of medical innovators and entrepreneurs around the globe.

Orlando is home to several state-of-the-art clinical, education and research institutions that have focused on developing scientific excellence in a collaborative and entrepreneurial environment. Just in the last seven years, the region has developed an entirely new Medical City anchored by the University of Central Florida's College of Medicine and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute - a premier, non-profit medical research facility focused on advances in combating diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Orlando's Lake Nona Medical City is also home to:

• University of Central Florida's Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences;


• Cancer Research Institute (CRI) of MD Anderson - Orlando;


• Nemours Children's Hospital;


• University of Florida Research & Academic Center; and


• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital and Medical Simulation Center for Excellence (2014).

Within the Orlando region today, there are more than 200 life sciences companies employing nearly 7,000 workers. When including the clinical/healthcare delivery side, the numbers increase to more than 4,300 companies employing more than 87,000 workers.

The region's emerging life sciences sector grew into a renowned regional healthcare system, comprised of some of the top hospital systems in the country, including Florida Hospital and Orlando Health. Metro Orlando is home to one of the nation's largest specialty pharmacy clusters and a growing medical device industry. The sector also spun off from a prominent agricultural base and the collaborative efforts of the region's established photonics and modeling & simulation sectors.

"What we've created is a high-functioning cluster with a growth that has been very collaborative and mutually beneficial," says Robert Deininger, Administrative Director of the Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes (TRI). TRI, a partnership of Florida Hospital and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, is a revolutionary approach to research and development that is vastly reducing the time it takes for promising discoveries to reach patients from bench to bedside.

The result is that research endeavors and innovative advancements no longer need staffing partners from other areas. "In the past, we might have to go out-of-state for staffing, research and technology," says Deininger. "But thanks to the growth here, everything we need for this process can occur in Central Florida. This saves time and money and moves the science forward more quickly. We're getting to the point now where we can encompass the entire innovation process without leaving our own backyard."

That has translated into a magnetic attraction of world-class researchers and international pharmaceutical and technology partnerships, all of which are now planting long-term roots in Metro Orlando.

"Having a big science base in close proximity to academic and hospital partners is not lost on anyone," says Deininger, who also sees the life science community's active participation in groups like bioOrlando as another way for the collaborative climate to flourish in Central Florida. "These events have been very important for helping us keep current on how this cluster is developing and lets us see ways we can work together to advance our missions more effectively."

Today, there is no limit to what is possible. Wellness and personalized medicine are areas in which Metro Orlando is working to not only excel, but to differentiate this region as a leader.

As Orlando's tech and startup community awaits Creative Village, a spirit of collaboration and innovation takes hold.

Call it what you will--incubator, accelerator, ecosystem--but whichever way you slice it, the fact remains that Orlando's tech and startup community isn't growing in silos. Far from it. As the city of Orlando continues with its plans for the much-anticipated Creative Village, local innovators, entrepreneurs and techies aren't sitting around; they are full steam ahead.

"We're not stopping or waiting until Creative Village comes. We're on business as usual," says Ryan Price, a local open source consultant and trainer. Price is also the cofounder of Urban ReThink, one of downtown Orlando's original coworking spaces designed to allow creatives to work and collaborate.

Coworking is just one of the ways that downtown Orlando has started to cultivate a climate of collaboration and partnership. But as Ashif Dhanani will tell you, it's much more than a bricks and mortar facility; it's a spirit and a way of doing business.

Dhanani is the Vice President of Marketing for Voxeo, a 13-year-old communications technology company with roots in Silicon Valley. Voxeo has transformed its 60,000 square-foot office space on Orange Avenue into a hotbed of creativity and innovation not just for Voxeo's purposes but also for the 10 other companies that "co-work" in the space. No walls or partisans separate the 160ish people that come to work there everyday, and the open office design peppered with living room spaces and 4,000 square feet of white board helps to organically bring people together from all different industries--web design, engineering, marketing--to dialogue.

"Like a university campus, our environment is cross-disciplined," Dhanani says. "As a result, we have enough talent on this floor for everyone to grow with each other."

The result is a lot of informal discussion and sharing that happens on couches or at the café, where a full-time barista is serving up lattes and iced tea all day long. "One of our values is that you help your customers first and then you help your coworkers," says Dhanani, who also uses Voxeo's large meeting space to host events and meetups. "People come here to be part of the community. Startups need a lot more than a business suite. They need tangible things like access to technology and human capital, but they also need the intangibles, like being able to work in a creative and inspiring place where they can get a boost from each other. When they get big enough, they move out."

Such is the case with Envy Labs, a web application design firm that started in CoLab, another coworking space downtown Orlando and is now moving a few blocks away into its own open concept space. Besides running Envy Labs, founder Gregg Pollack created Code School, a platform that teaches web technologies via online video lessons. Envy Labs' bigger space not only gives Pollack the chance to grow, but it has also allowed him to launch Starter Studio, a free startup accelerator program that will provide work space, mentorship, educational curriculum, and networking opportunities to a handful of businesses that will move into the 2,000 square foot space for three months. "This started as a coworking space idea, but we want to do so much more than that," Pollack says.

"The first set of companies will be in the educational technology space. We'll be working with them, helping them to reach milestones, getting them unstuck, connecting them with mentors and providing educational curriculum on things like selling and creating culture. We'll also have successful entrepreneurs from Orlando come in to speak to them."

"We have some of the smartest and most creative people in Orlando," says Pollack, who also hosts BarCamp Orlando, an annual "unconference" with no fees or set schedule but with an aim to cultivate learning and collaboration during sessions centered on everything from law to social media to programming languages. BarCamp is one of many tech and startup focused events occurring in the area. In fact, Pollack sends out a monthly email via his Orlando Tech Events (TechEvents.us) mailing list that highlights more than 20 such gatherings every month.

"Orlando's tech community has realized that in order to grow, we have to collaborate," says David Glass, publisher of the Florida Technology Journal and the creator of the conferences and events iSummit, Orlando Interactive, Venture Lounge and FTJ Live, a monthly meeting for Orlando's digital industry, typically attended by about 500 people.

When it comes to the success of Orlando's tech community, Glass points to a few factors, including the presence of University of Central Florida and Full Sail University. "There has been more activity here in the last two years than in the previous 20 years combined in terms of startup, technology, and meetups," Glass says. "I thought it would take several years to build this up, but the people here are very interested in gathering, connecting and showing what they are working toward."

Currently working on Orlando Rising, a documentary about the rise of Orlando's digital media industry, Glass points to the fact that Orlando is a major digital media hub in the country as part of the reason that other tech startups have been able to grow in what he calls an ecosystem of funding, talent and education in the technology community.

"Orlando has close to 60,000 people working in both the technology and creative industries. They were once all disconnected, but that's not the case anymore. They now have places to gather and connect, and events where they can meet and become educated about current trends and strategies."

Glass sees Creative Village, on track to begin construction late 2013, as a critical component of Orlando's continued positioning as a city poised to compete on the same level as Austin, Texas. "We're really not that far off. We're at a tipping point where we have $4 billion in infrastructure planned over the next 10-15 years, aiming to have a thriving downtown with everyone together in one dense space. So, we are seeing all this activity really pick up, much of it technology based, and all happening in Orlando. A lot of these people are competitors with each other, but they put that aside to make things happen because it helps put Orlando on the map."

Carlos Carbonell echoes Glass's sentiment in terms of the level of collaboration he has seen take place in Orlando over the past few years. The founder of Echo Interaction Group, a mobile app development firm, has started several networking groups including the Central Florida Android Developers Group and the Central Florida Women & Minorities in Tech meetup groups and has been a judge for Startup Weekend, a national non-profit event that gives entrepreneurs a platform to pitch their startup ideas and receive feedback from their peers.

"Orlando is on track to be on par with cities like Chicago and Miami," says Carbonell, who also subleases space to other companies to create a coworking environment inside Echo's Orange Avenue office suite. He loves the idea of Creative Village but also sees all of downtown as a Creative Village, not just the physical space planned for development. The Creative Village project has created this incredible conversation and helped us realize that having a physical critical mass of companies and collaboration is important. I give officials and staff at the City of Orlando a lot of credit for facilitating and initiating this conversation, but it feels like it's already happened. We are already, in a way, what we are hoping to become when Creative Village is built."

The entire Metro Orlando region is full of this collaborative and technology-rich environment. The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program fosters entrepreneurship and collaboration with their clients who are spread through nine sites across Orange, Seminole and Osceola Counties. To the north, in Lake County, there is a strong concentration of agritechnology companies. A prominent leader in this area of tech is Valensa International whose Eustis facility is the only supercritical fluid extraction facility in North America devoted exclusively to production of high-value nutraceutical ingredients. No matter where in the Orlando region you are, there are strong technology-minded companies, workforce, infrastructure and collaborative environments.

If you have to go to work, shouldn't the place you spend 40+ hours a week at be pleasant, productive and creative? Coworking space offers an open, innovative workplace environment that creates a sense of community coupled with the notion that collaboration sparks creativity. The concept began in California in the mid-2000s and has made its way to Orlando, where you can find coworking spaces, such as Urban ReThink, CoLab Orlando and VOXEO.

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Metro Orlando's prominent role in the defense industry can be traced to the 1940s, when Army personnel who had been stationed at the Orlando Army Air Base and nearby Pinecastle Army Air Field during World War II, remained in the area to raise families. It didn't take long for the leaders of Glenn L. Martin Company, one of the predecessors of Lockheed Martin, to look to the area to diversify its operations and establish a missile plant. Although the region may have never grown to its level of notoriety without Walt Disney World, Orlando was destined to be a successful mecca for the defense industry.

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Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin.

Metro Orlando is poised to benefit from having its eye on the ball in emerging industries including serious gaming, specialty pharmacy and cyber security.

Serious gaming used for non-entertainment purposes to train soldiers and medical professionals, is a very big business. Revenues generated for the U.S. simulation- and game-based learning market are expected to exceed $2.49 billion by 2015.

The Metro Orlando area also serves as the nation's hub for distribution of specialty and other pharmaceuticals, with industry players estimating that as much as 70 percent of the nation's supply is distributed through Orlando.

Cyber security, which draws heavily from the IT and defense industries, both of which are well established in Central Florida, has experienced a meteoric rise in market demand as the threat of hacking and cyber crimes has grown with the use of smart phones and other handheld devices.

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iStorage (Storage Management and Leasing Co.), a company who owns and operates storage facilities nationwide, is establishing its corporate headquarters in the City of Winter Garden. They will retain 12 employees and plan to create up to 36 new positions over the next four years and make a $3.02 million capital investment.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said, "Everything we do in Florida is geared toward job creation, and it's working. The news that iStorage is establishing its corporate headquarters in Florida is more proof that we are implementing policies to create more jobs for Florida families. Over the last two years, Florida has created more than 320,000 private sector jobs and our unemployment rate continues to drop."

Christopher Miller, CEO of iStorage, said, "We are excited to continue growing our business and developing our headquarters in the City of Winter Garden. Winter Garden is family oriented, has a terrific quality of life and the various activities surrounding the West Orange Trail promote active and healthy lifestyles. iStorage commends all of the individuals that have put so much effort into creating a truly great environment and city."

"Downtown Winter Garden is very desirable to entrepreneurs and start-ups that are looking for a quality urban environment to do business. We are very pleased to have iStorage join our business community." Mike Bollhoefer, Winter Garden City Manager.

iStorage has received approval from the State of Florida and the City of Winter Garden for an incentive package worth a total of $270,000 from the Qualified Target Industry (QTI) Tax Refund program and Brownfield Development Bonus. Both are performance-based incentives that a company receives after its job goals and other contractual requirements are met.

The State of Florida, City of Winter Garden, Enterprise Florida and the Metro Orlando EDC collaborated on this project.

Gray Swoope, President and CEO of Enterprise Florida, Inc. said, "This project is another great example of how Florida provides resources and talent that help companies grow. We have the perfect climate for business."

"iStorage's choice to expand and establish their headquarters in the Metro Orlando region shows our viability as a business location thanks to our strong workforce," said Rick Weddle, President and CEO of the Metro Orlando EDC.

Florida and aviation is a marriage with a long history. In fact, it stretches back 99 years when the first trip of a regularly scheduled airline was made from St. Petersburg to Tampa, a 21-mile, 23-minute flight that forever solidified Florida's place in the aviation industry.

Decades later, Central Florida has emerged as a robust microcosm where aviation simulation, training, education, innovation, and supporting industries have clustered together amidst one of the pre-eminent air transportation infrastructures in the country.

With non-stop and one-stop routes to virtually anywhere in the world, Orlando International Airport (MCO) has become the third largest airport in the nation for domestic origin and destination, and the 11th fastest growing airport in the world. Between MCO and nearby Orlando Sanford International Airport, more than 170 non-stop routes are served.

That strong footing in the aviation industry has allowed Orlando to nurture development and grow in other areas of flight, such as simulation. Now recognized as the largest simulation industry cluster in the nation, the Orlando area is home to more than 100 companies and 12,500 employees dedicated to advancing modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) technology. Adacel Technologies, a leading developer of advanced simulation and control systems for aviation and defense, calls Orlando its North American business headquarters.

Numerous aircraft and ground support firms, renowned flight training schools, adjacent land to airports and great year-round weather, round out some of the region's other major assets for the industry.

In fact, these advantages topped the list for JetBlue, which selected Orlando as the site for JetBlue University, its first flight-training center, aircraft maintenance and Live TV installation hangar. Open since in 2005, JetBlue University facilities include four Airbus A320 full-flight simulators, two Embraer E190 simulators, and two cabin simulators.

"Metro Orlando offers many strengths to the aviation and aerospace industry--an abundance of land available adjacent to runways for hangars, maintenance, air cargo, and other aviation related facilities; ample supply of power and recycled water capabilities for manufacturing facilities; and a world-class simulation and training cluster. This industry will only continue to grow here," said Jim Laria, an aviation consultant.

A cooperative business climate as well as a clustering of related industries under the aviation umbrella has made the Orlando region appealing to several companies, many of which have recently established a presence in the area. That list includes National Air Cargo, a military-oriented transport contractor, which recently moved its corporate headquarters to Orlando. Also new to the region is Italico Aviation, an Italy-based airplane manufacturer. The company projects to create up to 55 new jobs over the next four years.

Orlando also has significant defense contract powerhouses with Lockheed Martin, SAIC and Northrop Grumman which continue to secure government and commercial contracts for a host of projects such as missile and rocket systems. Smaller companies in the region often capture lucrative government subcontracts, along with other major contractors that have a Florida presence such as The Boeing Company and Harris Corporation.

A lesser-known fact is that Orlando boasts America's seaplane city in the region. About forty minutes from downtown Orlando, the city of Tavares in Lake County established a seaplane base in 2010 and has since logged more than 3,400 landings. Progressive Aerodyne, the Tavares-based manufacturer of the SeaRey amphibious aircraft, made headlines recently as the first company in the country to win federal approval for their
light sport aircraft.

Orlando's appeal to the commercial aviation sector also stems from a significant cluster of the industry's support and maintenance services. This impressive list includes Orlando headquartered Signature Flight Support, a BBA Aviation plc company and the largest fixed-base operation (FBO) and distribution network for business aviation
services in the world.

The aviation industry and related support sectors pull from a pool of skilled workers thanks to several institutions in the area, including the University of Central Florida's Institute for Simulation and Training, an internationally recognized research institute that focuses on advancing modeling and simulation technology.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, widely considered to be the world's leader in aviation higher education, offers more than 35 degree programs and a curriculum that covers the operation, engineering, research, manufacturing, marketing, and management of modern aircraft and the systems that support them. The Florida Institute of Technology also provides a noted aviation and flight training program with highly regarded instructors and a fleet of more than 35 aircraft.

These three area universities play a significant role in nurturing the pilot profession and creating a simulation training ground in Central Florida. Other education options in this field start as early as the high school magnet program level and extend through specialized community college and technical school programs.

With a perfect blend of cost of living and quality of life, as well as unlimited potential on par with the nation's top aviation centers, Orlando is poised to become an unrivaled business destination for the aviation industry. With a track record for tenacious innovation and a climate of collaboration and creativity, there is no limit to how high this sector can soar.

The face of Metro Orlando is evolving as its business, government and academic leaders help plan its future success and sustainment of the region. Prior to its success in tourism, Orlando had blossomed from a citrus and cattle town into a major defense-industry player. As such, the area is now recognized as the nation's largest cluster of modeling, simulation and training companies. In order to support the ever-growing defense industry, the University of Central Florida (UCF) was established and is now home to over $100 million in annual research funding. UCF is also recognized by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching designated as a university with "very high research activity." The digital media industry has also grown right alongside the defense sector and now Orlando serves as the headquarters for many of the top players within this industry as well.

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Central Florida is a hotbed for tech industries and its public schools are at the forefront of prepping the next generation of their workers. Public schools throughout Orlando offer magnet schools, programs with emphasis in STEM courses and dual enrollment with local colleges for everything from biotech and photonics to engineering and pre-med. Some of the region's most dynamic companies have partnered with Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola County Public Schools to support these initiatives. Lockheed Martin funds an all girls robotics team at Oviedo High School, Northrop Grumman offers dual enrollment with Valencia College for students in a specialized laser photonics magnet program in Orange County and Florida Hospital has developed an accelerated academic program, with a concentration in healthcare that allows students to receive college credit while in high school.

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