Our guest blogger today is Vinnie Mirchandani, a respected analyst, consultant, author, blogger and entrepreneur - as well as a Florida resident! As you can see, Vinnie knows a thing or two about polymaths and we're proud that he considers our state a member of this distinguished group.
A polymath is Greek for a Renaissance person like Leonardo Da Vinci or Ben Franklin, good at many disciplines. In a book I recently authored, The New Polymath, I contend that the New Polymath is an enterprise (and the book profiles many like GE, BP, BASF, Cognizant, Plantronics, salesforce.com and other) which amalgamates 3, 5, 10 strands of infotech, biotech, nanotech, cleantech, healthtech to create innovative new solutions.
Having lived in Tampa for over 2 decades, I have been impressed with all the innovation in Florida with NASA, Disney, tech companies like Jabil and Citrix and so much more. For the book, I included a variety of lesser known technology enabled innovation across the state including:
- Vercipia Biofuels in rural Highlands County which uses exotic sounding plants such as jatropha and sorghum to produce cellulosic ethanol which could someday make Florida a net exporter of fuel.
- Jacksonville, one of the most advanced medical cities in the world with the Mayo Clinic (at a local branch of that famous institution), the Shands Center, Baptist Health, and Memorial Hospital, among several other local hospitals combined with a thriving biotechnology industry.
- The National Hurricane Center in Miami and the impressive wide range of data collection devices it uses - satellite, ocean buoy based sensors, dropsonde (parachute based) and of course, the planes piloted by the brave Hurricane Hunters. While most business analytics only erratically project economic results well, the accuracy track record of the NHC is impressive
For the book I took a global perspective and included innovation examples from over 40 countries. But honestly, I could have included many more examples from Florida including:
- The fabulous Lake Nona medical city near Orlando airport, a $ 2 billion campus
- U of Florida’s impressive range of research – which earned it almost $ 700 million in awards, one of the highest in the country
- The cutting edge development being done at SRI’s Marine Technology program in St. Petersburg… and many more
In the GE case study in the book, I wrote
“Their Global Research (Center) ethos is “Innovation occurs at the intersection of disciplines.” So, put chemists, mathematicians, engineers of all stripes, and biologists in close proximity and who knows where the conversations will lead. It is a great setting for what the Kate Beckinsale character in the movie Serendipity calls “fortunate accidents.”
Given the wide range of technologies and technologists in close proximity in our state, I would say we are poised for plenty of those “fortunate accidents”.
Vinnie Mirchandani consults with enterprises on disruptive technologies and presents frequently on technology enabled innovation. He is a former Gartner analyst and now writes an innovation blog, New Florence. New Renaissance which catalogs over 40 categories of technology and science from cloud computing to social networks. He can be emailed at vmirchan@att.net
