Commissioner for Patents Margaret A. (Peggy) Focarino of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office inducted six inventors into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame on Sept. 10, during the organization’s inaugural induction ceremony. Among the six were present-day innovators Shin-Tson Wu, next-generation liquid crystal display inventor; and nanotechnology scientist Shyam Mohapatra. The esteemed group also included Thomas Edison, Gatorade inventor Robert Cade, air conditioning pioneer John Gorrie and William Glenn, inventor of the high definition camera for NASA.
The Florida Inventors Hall of Fame was founded in 2013 and is housed at the University of South Florida. In the first six months of 2014, Florida created nearly as many tech jobs (4,100) as the state did in all of last year (4,500), according to a report by online tech career site Dice.com. Florida now has the second largest workforce of technology professionals behind California, according to Dice.com’s data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for computer systems design and related services.
Florida’s high tech industry includes 10 targeted sectors for growth: agritechnology; aviation and aerospace; digital media/interactive entertainment; financial services; information technology; life sciences/medical technologies; microelectronics/nanotechnology; modeling, simulation and training; optics and photonics; and sustainable energy.Big data. Space technology. Gaming. Laser and photonics. STEM education. Medical technology. Simulation. Tech business development. Those topics and more are on tap Sept 27-Oct. 3 during Orlando Tech Week, hosted by the nonprofit Orlando Tech Association.
Events range from the iSummit 2014, encompassing interactive media and Internet business models, to the 2014 Schwartz Tech Awards, hosted by the Orlando Economic Development Commission to honor innovation. Virtual worlds joined the military, corporate America, heath care, entertainment and education sectors in September for GameTech14 in Orlando. Over the years, GameTech has expanded to include many private organizations using serious games, avatars and virtual worlds.