David Adelson leads the Orlando Economic Partnership’s technology and innovation work, but when he was running his Orlando-based company Intelity, he didn’t plug into many community-wide initiatives.
Adelson was too busy growing the hospitality tech firm, where he was CEO until 2020. Now, as the executive director of technology and innovation of regional economic development group OEP, one of his jobs is to bring together executives from across the region and craft a five-year strategic plan for the local tech and innovation ecosystem.
As Adelson puts it, he’s now working on a new company: Orlando itself. To that end, Adelson and OEP staff have assembled a task force — dubbed Breakthrough Orlando — of startup founders, defense giant leaders and hospitality executives to develop a strategy to foster the growth of technology-focused companies in the region.
Here are the key elements of the plan, as described by the OEP in December:
- Aligning the current technology regional economy and its players, sectors and investment
- Evaluating competing markets and incorporating the elements that made them successful or recognized as a leader into the Orlando ecosystem
- Gathering local company and investor input and developing targeted partnerships
- Solidifying Orlando’s unique positioning against competitor cities
- Developing and launching a unique tech brand, narrative and communications plan for the region’s innovation ecosystem
In this process, Adelson is able to leverage the OEP’s data and relationships, as well as his own experiences as an entrepreneur, to contribute to the plan.
Such an initiative is important because significant growth in high-wage sectors could transform Orlando’s economy by generating new high-wage jobs. The lack of economic diversification in the region led to a slower economic recovery after the pandemic caused a dropoff in travel in 2020 and is a reason metro Orlando features some of the lowest average wages in the country.
Here, Adelson shares more with Orlando Inno about the strategic plan that’s under development:
What’s the latest on the five-year plan? We’d expect to have a plan in place in six to eight months. Part of the plan is doing due diligence for other markets to see what’s been successful. Part of the plan is celebrating successes.
What kind of people make up the task force? They range from local entrepreneurs to chief information officers of energy companies, county government, Disney, the chief information officer of Universal Parks and Stax co-founder Sal Rehmetullah. VMD Ventures CEO Harold Mills is acting as chair.
Why is this plan valuable for the region’s innovation ecosystem? Orlando has great ingredients. We need to identify a bowl for the ingredients to live inside of and create a narrative… If you’re building a house, you have to have a blueprint.
How do the variety of other tech and startup groups in the region factor into the plan? This needs to be very collaborative. There are about 40-50 great associations that sit inside of our marketplace… Through the task force, we want to give swimming lanes to the associations.
Are you and the OEP contributing to this plan or simply convening other stakeholders? It’s a hybrid of both. The OEP sits in unique positions. The role we’re playing is absolutely as a contributor. I bring a different lens and experience to the conversation. What we’re doing is acting as a convener for great minds that sit in our community.
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