Burnham's scientific director honored for research

The Orlando Sentinel notes that Dr. Daniel P. Kelly, scientific director of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research at Lake Nona was awarded the American Heart Association's 2009 Basic Research Prize on Nov. 15. Check out the story here.

http://bit.ly/8VcTyG

UCF Incubator

Here's a pointer to the report on the UCF Business Incubator's incredible importance to Central Florida. Thanks to the Florida High Tech Corridor Council. To learn more about the program’s creation of more than 1,600 jobs and $200 million in total economic output annually, click below.

http://bit.ly/8nNvva

http://www.floridahightech.com/resources/ucfincubator.html

Construction on the UCF incubator at Stevens Plantation in St. Cloud continues.

Task Force on the Study of Biotech Competitiveness

   See what a state task force had to say earlier this year about biotech competitiveness here.

www.flgov.com/pdfs/otted_biotechfinalreport.pdf
    The Task Force’s final recommendations identified three key areas of focus: Entrepreneurship, Growing Florida’s Existing Biotech Industry and Recruiting Biotech Companies to Florida.

Clean Energy Webinar with Pew

The Southern Growth Policies Board is presenting a Webinar Dec. 3 related to the Clean Energy Economy.

In June 2009, the Pew Center on the States released a state-by-state analysis that estimates the number of jobs in the Clean Energy Economy from 1998 to 2007 and found that jobs in the clean energy economy grew at a faster rate than all jobs combined. The Webinar will feature Kil Huh, Director of Research at the Pew Center on the States. Huh will discuss the results of the report in terms of the findings, implications, and opportunities for the South.

Here's the link to register.

http://list-manage.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0f1ae3af4acc3549d021cd534&id=29c601edef&e=180340ff1d

Pediatric devices

From FDAnews: The device industry and FDA officials recently held a workshop on pediatric device trials, hoping it will spur development and lead to much-needed guidance.

Participants discussed unmet research needs and suggested ways to design clinical trials and measure the safety and effectiveness of devices in a pediatric population. Their comments will be included in an upcoming report and will help the center draft guidance on developing clinical trials for pediatric devices.

Florida Economic Gardening Institute

UCF is coordinating a pilot program to help second stage companies grow through what is being called the Florida Economic Gardening Institute. The purpose of the Florida Economic Gardening Technical Assistance Pilot Program is to stimulate investment in Florida's economy by providing technical assistance for expanding businesses in the state. Companies seeking to participate in the Pilot Program will be evaluated based on the eligibility requirements in Statute 288.1082 provided below.

http://www.growfl.com/

Fitch rates School District A

Fitch Ratings assigns an 'A' rating to Osceola County School Board, Florida's (the district) approximately $36.5 million certificates of participation (COPs), series 2009A. TConcurrently, Fitch affirms the district's $169 million of outstanding COPs, a portion of which will be refunded with this issuance. The Rating Outlook is Stable. The 'A' rating on the COPs reflects strong legal features of the master lease structure as well as the general credit characteristics of the district, including moderate debt levels, sound management, and healthy reserve levels.

Fitch rates Osceola A+

Fitch Ratings assigns an 'A+' rating to Osceola County, Florida's (the county) approximately $43.3 million in sales tax revenue refunding bonds, series 2009A. Proceeds will be used to refund the outstanding sales tax revenue bonds, series 1999.

The 'A+' rating reflects the strong coverage provided by pledged revenues, satisfactory legal provisions, and consistent financial results.

New supermarket coming

Sedano’s Supermarkets, the number one Hispanic retailer in the United States, announced that it will acquire three Albertsons supermarket locations in Central Florida. This acquisition marks Sedano’s Supermarkets’ first expansion beyond its South Florida headquarters and brings the total number of stores to 33 in Florida.

The Osceola area store will be at 1100 N. John Young Parkway, Kissimmee, FL 34741.

Pathologists meeting in Kissimmee

454 Life Sciences, a Roche Company (SWX:RO) (SWX:ROG) (Pink Sheets: RHHBY), announced today at the Association of Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting in Kissimmee, Florida a series of revolutionary developments which significantly expand the company’s high-throughput sequencing portfolio. Addressing the growing demand for next-generation sequencing data in everyday biological and clinical research, the company revealed the new GS Junior System, an affordable bench top sequencing platform slated for release in 2010.

Solar Webinar available online

The New Ideas in Solar Webinar featuring Harmony is now available in Greentechmedia's archive. (See link below.)

Thanks to Enterprise Florida for making this event happen. It was a great Webinar with more than 2,200 people from 21 countries registered.

"Florida has the science, research community and support infrastructure needed by dynamic cleantech energy companies. Moreover, Florida scientists are active across the spectrum of clean energy technologies."

 http://bit.ly/2rgqH7

http://bit.ly/12w9DS

The "Other" football

Can you feel the World Cup mania yet?
    There's a regional effort afoot to bringWorld Cup Soccer back to the U.S. and Central Florida. Orlando is  one of 27 cities trying for, at this point, 18 spots in the US bid.
    This is old hat for Osceola County, which participated in the last World Cup to arrive in Central Florida. Austin-Tindall Regional Park was the practice facility for the 1994 Moroccan World Cup Team and the 1996 Japanese Olympic Team. 
      Once again we are an important part of the big with a first-class training facility, hotels and other amenities.
    Want to help? Go to www.gousabid.com/orlando and “sign up!”  Be sure to go this specific site, and not just the home page, to sign the petition.
http://www.gousabid.com/city/local/ORLANDO-FL

Astros Spring Training

Sure the World Series just wrapped up but it's never too soon to start thinking about Spring Training.
     Kissimmee is a great place to locate to catch games all around the state with the Braves and Astros based here.
     Houston recently released its schedule and it is a good one.

     The club returns to Osceola County Stadium in Kissimmee, Florida for the 26th season, where they will play 14 of their 28 scheduled Spring Training games.

House, Senate May Be Close to Compromise on SBIR Act

   Wait and see what happens may be over soon
   The months-long wait for small device companies looking for revisions to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program may be nearing an end as a compromise version could be introduced later this month, a Senate staffer says. “We’re hopeful we will be able to reach compromise before the November recess,” Vicki Ekstrom, spokeswoman for the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, said.

http://fdanews.com/newsletter/article?issueId=13172&articleId=122026

Interesting info on SBIR program

     Will SBIR remain a seed-funding program designed to enable Small Business participation in a fair competition for developing innovative solutions to agency problems, or will it become another program that funnels agency money to companies already funded by special interests that really have nothing to do with enabling small business innovation?

http://sbircoach.blogspot.com/2009/11/fork-in-road-which-path-for-sbir.html

Lemieux in Central Florida

Sen. George Lemieux met with local leaders on Veteran's Day to discuss High Speed Rail and "little brother" Commuter Rail. Central Florida leaders noted that support for Commuter Rail spans from Osceola County, through Orlando/Orange County to the coast.

    Osceola Chairman John Quinones welcomed Sen. Lemieux, who said High Speed Rail will create a mega region between Central Florida and Tampa.

    Osceola of course would be close to the middle of that new region of the state's growing Innovation Economy.

    "Tampa and Orlando and all parts in between are connected into one vibrant cultural region,” LeMieux said. “You won’t have one airport servicing you. You'll have two airports. You'll be a region where people will fly in from all over the world. You are not competing with Tampa and Tampa is not competing with you."

Celebration Health groundbreaking

    Celebration Health broke ground a new wing this morning. It was a great program. Very inspiring. I hope to have a video put together soon with highlights and some info gleaned from the BioFlorida conference held in South Orlando last week.

    A big thank you to Tony Nicholson for his vision on the Nicholson Center for Sugical Advancement HQ'd at Celebration, where about 7,000 surgeons are trained every year. And where as many as 20,000 a year will be trained when the new center in completed.

    Florida Hospital Celebration Health is a destination hospital that specializes in minimally invasive surgical procedures. The cutting-edge health and wellness center provides inpatient and outpatient services, 24-hour emergency care, maternity, cardiac services, diagnostic, catheterization, wellness programs, women's and men's health programs, as well as primary care and specialty physicians on-site.

    The facility is bursting at the seams. Big numbers being served at this great facility.

Valencia Osceola campus honored

    Great work by Valencia Community College and Osceola campus provost Dr. Silvia Zapico and the entire VCC team.
    The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) presented Valencia Community College’s Osceola Campus with its Outstanding HACU-Member Institution Award, in recognition of the college’s extraordinary efforts and success in advancing the mission and goals of HACU.
    The award was presented during HACU’s 23rd annual conference held at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort earlier this month.
    Dr. Zapico accepted the award on behalf of the college.
    Did you know that Valencia is a federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution with Hispanic students making up more than 27 percent of enrollment collegewide and 46 percent of enrollment on the Osceola Campus alone. The college is third in the nation in the number of associate degrees earned by Hispanics.

Harmony featured in Thursday webinar

Harmony will be featured as trends and innovations in the solar market and future possibilities are the focus of a live, free webinar on Thursday, November 12 from 1 – 2 p.m. ET.

To be presented by Enterprise Florida and Greentech Media, a Cambridge, Mass.-based online media company focusing on green technology news and analysis, “New Ideas in Solar” also will highlight Florida’s innovations in clean energy including:

 Emerging solar technology research areas in academia
 Effects of university-developer partnerships on new utility-scale solar technologies
 Lessons learned by a first-mover in the solar feed-in tariff market.