Florida: News

The nation's top four undergraduate business programs on Bloomberg BusinessWeek's ROI ranking of public schools are all in the Sunshine State: University of Central Florida in Orlando; University of Florida in Gainesville; Florida International in Miami; and Florida State in Tallahassee. (Read more)

The Polk Public Schools are one of 33 school districts nationally to win a 2010 Magna Award from the American School Board Journal magazine. Polk won the award for its implementation of 31 career academies at 15 high schools. (Read more)

The University of Central Florida ranks third in the nation for the strength and impact of its patents. UCF moved up from seventh place last year in the rankings by IEEE, the world's leading association for the advancement of technology. (Read more)

U.S. Gas & Electric, Inc., a leading energy service provider headquartered in Miami-Dade County, is expanding with a new business service center in the City of Doral. (Read more)

GeNO, LLC, a biomedical pharmaceutical company previously located in Cape Canaveral, is expected to bring a total of 24 new jobs to Brevard County and generate a total economic impact of $3.06 million on Brevard County’s economy. GeNO has already hired 11 new employees due to the expansion and expects to hire 6-12 more employees with an average annual wage of $80,000 in the next 12-18 months. (Read more)

Saft, a French company that is described as a world leader in the design and manufacture of high-tech batteries, has broken ground at Cecil Commerce Center for a $200 million plant that will build advanced batteries for use in hybrid vehicles, aviation, renewable energy storage and other uses. (Read more)

The Orlando-based Florida Mezzanine Fund and CapitalSouth Partners will provide access to up to $450 million in capital to invest in Florida small to mid-sized businesses. Florida Mezz will invest from $500,000 to $30 million in debt and equity financing per investment, and will provide one of Florida's largest sources of private venture funding. (Read more)

Wireless communications tower company Tarpon Towers, has received a $15 million investment from Spire Capital Partners to further its acquisition and development strategy. With ABS Capital, Tarpon has secured over $50 million of equity and also has a $30 million bank facility with a prominent regional bank. (Read more)

Since its program began in 2007, South Miami Hospital executives say it has become one of the world's busiest centers for surgeries using robots, formally called da Vinci Surgical Systems. In Florida, 49 hospitals have 67 high-tech robots performing surgeries. (Read more)

The Innovation Monthly is your source for the latest news and insights on Florida's Innovation Economy.       

March 2010 Highlights:

• Okeechobee Attract's World's Largest Advanced Biodiesel Demonstration Plant
• Lake Nona Scores VA's National Simulation Center for Excellence
• Florida Home to 2 of the Top 10 U.S. High-Tech Manufacturing Hotspots
• Free Whitepaper:  Emerging Trends in the U.S. Solar Market

Read Full Newsletter

Largo's Beckwith Electric, a premier provider of innovative and high quality electronic products, systems, technical services and custom solutions, will be awarded a U.S. Department of Commerce Award for Export Achievement. (Read more)

Construction of the $5.1 million Gulf Power Co. landfill gas-to-energy facility is now under way at Perdido Landfill, where methane gas fumes from rotten garbage will be burned into enough renewable energy to power more than 900 homes. (Read more)

Visa Inc. will open a new customer service center in Miami-Dade, that will be co-located in the same building as Visa's Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) headquarters, and will create more than 350 new positions in Visa's Global Customer Care Services group. (Read more)

The testing and production of the U.S. Air Force's new drones will be built by Boeing at Cecil Field. The contract should add 40 jobs to Boeing's Cecil facility by Spring 2011. (Read more)

Seven Florida companies were named to Fortune Magazine's global list of "most admired" companies, earning top marks in their respective industry categories. (Read more)

Across 500 acres north of West Palm Beach in Martin County, the FPL Group utility is grafting the world's second-largest solar plant onto the back of the largest fossil-fuel power plant in the United States. (Read more)

The Stan Mayfield Biorefinery Pilot Plant, slated to be operational in spring 2011, will be operated as a UF/IFAS satellite laboratory facility concentrated on the use of cellulosic biomass to produce ethanol. (Read more)

Florida is home to two of the nation's top 20 Most Wired Cities, as ranked by Forbes. These cities have the greatest access to and usage of broadband and WiFi. (Read more)

Florida is once again the nation's most popular summer destination, accounting for 24.5 percent of all responses with cities such as Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa named to the ASTA's 2010 Hot Spots for Summer survey. Orlando was the No. 1 ranked city in 2010. (Read more)