#4: Is innovation an ingredient we need for a better Central Florida?

We hear this buzzword a lot: innovation. But what does it mean and is it a part of our community? Furthermore, is innovation a must-have in order to improve our region? Episode 4 digs into all of these questions with some of the best and the brightest in this space - and helps us to unpack this amorphous term and use it in a more meaningful way.

This episode covers:

• How do we define innovation?
• Is Central Florida an innovative community?
• How do philanthropy and risk interact?
• What is community innovation?
• What is social enterprise?

This episode's guests:

• Rob Panepinto, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Offer, Govo Venture Partners
• Grant Hayes, Dean, University of Central Florida's College of Community Innovation and Education

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As our region’s community foundation, Central Florida Foundation serves as a launchpad for high-impact philanthropy. Championing the collective power of head, heart and dollar, we coordinate the commitment and investment of philanthropists, nonprofits, and community partners to target today’s most critical challenges and those on the horizon to truly transform our community. The Foundation also offers expert giving advice, a personalized approach to managing charitable funds, and the capacity to convene collaboration across sectors. Learn more at cffound.org.

Transcript

First You Talk Podcast Episode 4:


00:00 --> 00:10
Welcome to Central Florida Foundation's First You Talk podcast.

00:10 --> 00:14
Here, you'll gain a better understanding of society's toughest issues.

00:14 --> 0:21
At the end of each episode, we'll summarize the main points and offer deeper dive options if something piqued your interest.

00:21--> 00:31
So, ready to demystify a complex issue and up your knowledge game?
Let's get started.

00:31 --> 00:33
Episode 4.

00:33 --> 00:38 
Is innovation an ingredient we need for a better Central Florida?


Mark Brewer: 00:38 --> 00:49
Some of them have been systematic.
Some of them have been more individually focused.
It's always been a challenge that we could never get to the end of.



Rob Panepinto: 00:49 --> 01:02
It's not a static thing, right?
Because the innovations of five years ago and the innovations of now, for example, we're
talking about artificial intelligence and what will that mean for the next two years,
five years, ten years?
That would even have been a conversation five years ago.



Mark Brewer: 01:02 --> 01:05
That's right.
Rob panepinto: Right.
Mark Brewer: That's right.



Rob Panepinto: 01:05 --> 01:06
So innovation tends to move very, very quickly.



Dean Hayes: 01:06 --> 01:33
A key aspect of community innovation is the active participation and involvement of the
community.
I think in community innovation, it really recognizes that the people who live and work
those insights, that knowledge, those lived experiences really can lead to the formation
or the transformation that you're looking for through innovation.



Laurie Crocker: 01:33 --> 01:58
So where do we begin on this topic?
As we've discussed previously, the words we use and how we use them is so important.
So it seems natural to begin with a definition.
Innovation is a bit of an amorphous word.
What exactly does it mean?
Does everyone view it the same way?
I mean, are we all speaking the same language on this topic?



Sandy Vidal: 01:58 --> 02:08
Innovation is about creating, whether it's a product or a service or an idea or improving
on something that already exists.



Mark Brewer: 02:08 --> 02:13
And it involves taking risks to try to get to something better.



Sandy Vidal: 02:13 --> 02:14
Not being afraid to fail.



Mark Brewer: 02:14--> 02:16
Right. Yeah, definitely.



Dean Hayes: 02:16 --> 02:58
I think I would define innovation as a process of introducing new ideas, methods, approaches
to create value or to solve a problem.
I think in many cases, innovation drives growth and progress in various fields, education,
technology, healthcare, business, and so on.
I think it promotes a positive transformation in our community and a more equitable and
sustainable society.
It really makes us in some ways reimagine the world and reshape it.




Rob Panepinto: 02:58 --> 03:06
It can be significantly enhanced or changed or creating new solutions around things that
currently exist.



Mark Brewer: 03:06 --> 03:19
I think that's great. I think you hit it.
And I think that level of defining innovation opens the door to try a lot of things that
a more defined definition might leave outside.



Rob Panepnito: 03:19 --> 03:23
That was a way of you complimenting my very amorphous answer.



Mark Brewer: 03:23 --> 03:27
Yeah, no, I like it.
I actually like it.




Laurie Crocker: 03:27 --> 04:41
You just heard from some of the top voices in this space from across central Florida.
And just for the record, the Oxford Dictionary defines innovation as the process of making
changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products,
which seems to track with what you just heard, such as creating improvement, a process of
introducing new ideas, approaches, solutions, but with some noticeable additions, risk failure
sounds scary, right?
I think we can all agree innovation can be associated with the ideas of newness, but
you might not have thought about things like failure and risk in your own definition.
So for the purposes of this conversation, let's go with an all encompassing definition,
one that brings new ideas, but also must be balanced with risk and the ever lingering
possibility of failure, which we'll talk about more in this episode.
And that's where we jump back into the conversation with Central Florida Foundation's president
and CEO, Mark Brewer, and VP of Community Strategies and Initiatives, Sandi Vidal.



Sandi Vidal: 04:43 --> 04:57
One of my least favorite sayings is we don't need to reinvent the wheel.
And I think about if we were trying to drive on carriage wheels and race with a Lamborghini,
that's not going to work out so well.



Mark Brewer: 04:57 --> 04:59 
We need to reinvent the wheel.



Sandi Vidal: 04:59 --> 05:15
We have to reinvent the wheel constantly in order to make it more efficient, more effective.
When I think about things like even iPhones, they're a combination of a phone and a calculator
and a computer and GPS and everything else.



Mark Brewer: 05:15 --> 05:20
So the other side of that is that people would say if it's not broken, don't fix it, right?
Well, not so much.



Sandi Vidal: 05:20 --> 05:58
Why not?
I think there is something to be said about things that work.
So when you look at things that are working within our community, you want to keep doing
those things.
But I think there's always room to think about improving.
And when you ask a question about innovation in Central Florida, I think we are really
a wonderful place to live.
Obviously, many people, like 1,500 people a week, move here.
And so there's an appeal to being here, probably above and beyond sunshine.



Mark Brewer: 05:58 --> 06:36
So I'm probably just being crusty here and not to offend all of the chambers of commerce
in the region.
But I'm not really sure we are a world-class innovation place.
I think we are the best environment to innovate, right?
If you can innovate only once in your life, this would be the place to come and do it.
Because we have resources and people and tools, and we're very embracing of innovation.
And we're not afraid of failure.
It's okay, all right?
If we run off the road while we're trying to do it, we'll get back on the road and
try again.



Sandi Vidal: 06:36 --> 06:40
Right.
We do a lot of building the airplane while it's flying in the air.



Mark Brewer: 6:40 --> 06:57
Yes, we do.
And I think that's not only acceptable here, but I think our kind of entrepreneurial spirit
here is that we want to do that, right?
We're kind of being fearful of building the airplane while we're flying it.
We go, let's just get it off the ground and see what happens.



Sandi Vidal: 06:57 --> 07:28
Right.
Yeah.
I think innovation is really necessary.
It's necessary here.
It's necessary everywhere.
But what it does, too, for Central Florida, and I think if we would continue to build
on that innovation, we have some different technology corridors and we have simulation
and all sorts of stuff that people don't really think about that we have.
But it's really important for us in order to stand out as a community and to stay relevant.



Mark Brewer: 07:28 --> 07:45
Yep.
And so I'm not sure, this is the argument always, I'm not sure that you would look at
us and go, oh my gosh, that is such an innovative place.
But I think you might look at us and go, I could go there and innovate, right?
Which is really part of our attraction.



Sandi Vidal: 07:45 --> 09:26
Right.
And I think having the university or several, we've got Rollins, we've got the University
of Central Florida, and we're not so far off from other surrounding universities.
You've got that for research.
We've also got, Lake Nona has really amazing facilities down there in Medical City.
Well, it's got a whole focus on innovation.
And so there are a lot of opportunities for innovation.
But I do agree, not everybody thinks about that, or we're not always coming up with innovative
solutions to complex problems.
A lot of times we think about problems from the bubble that we're in, rather than looking
Is there technology out there that could be used or could be created to solve that problem?
Are there ways that we can look at the problem different?
And are there people who maybe we haven't thought about bringing into the conversation
that we could bring into it?
An example of that would be, when I think about, we're in the background of Walt Disney
World, when I think about environment and sustainability, they're doing some really
amazing, cool things, even the idea of pulverizing all of their glass to create sand for their
islands, for their beaches, things like that.
Thinking about recycling in my backyard, in my neighborhood, I don't know where that goes,
I don't know what they do with it, I don't know if it's going in the dump or somewhere
else.
And so there are innovative and creative solutions we can come up with.



Mark Brewer: 09:26 --> 9:53
I actually think that's the environment we have, right?
I hear the discussion that you're starting among tech entrepreneurs all the time.
Their first step is to say, there's probably an answer to that, why don't we try X or Y?
And so I think that this is a place where if you're an entrepreneur and you have an
innovative spirit, this is a healthy place for you to be.



Sandi Vidal: 09:53 --> 09:59
Right, I think that there's a whole ecosystem of different types of...



Mark Brewer: 09:59 --> 10:16
There's an ecosystem for startup businesses here that is great.
I wish we could keep them all here.
That's the complex piece, is that sometimes they start here, but they have to go somewhere
else in order to grow, and that's what we need to be better at.



Sandi Vidal: 10:16 --> 10:30
I think we need to be better at capitalizing things.
We are not really the place that all the venture capitalists come and look for the innovation.
We, like you said, send them out somewhere else to go look for.



Mark Brewer: 10:30 --> 10:53
Yeah, in the tech world, that happens a lot.
Startups are successful, then venture capital comes along and moves them to Denver or Austin
because there's a better talent pool or there are more people in the space who know how
this works.
And it's an easier place to get capitalized.
Silicon Valley is an example of that.



Sandi Vidal: 10:53 --> 10:56
We're definitely a cheaper cost of living than Silicon Valley.



Mark Brewer: 10:56 --> 10:59
We are.
Yes, we are.



Laurie Crocker: 11:00 --> 11:23
Lamborghinis on carriage wheels, incomplete planes flying.
This might be one of Mark and Sandi's most interesting conversations yet.
However, some of this stuff might sound scary and at odds with what a community should be
doing.
Shouldn't we know something will work before we invest in it, whether it be a business
or a community project?


Mark Brewer: 11:25 --> 11:45
I'm sensitive about the fact that to you that might sound like we're driving down the street
throwing money out of the back of the truck, right?
Taking data-driven risks that you understand what the risk is, is different than just trying
anything that comes to mind and hoping it might work out.



Sandi Vidal: 11:45 --> 12:11
Right.
We're often spending lots of time researching, looking at data, reading academic articles,
reading articles in different publications, looking at census data, looking at reports
that are produced like our community health assessment and the ALICE report from the United
Way to help us to determine what the direction we should go is.



Mark Brewer: 12:11 --> 12:34
Looking for models from other places that we can bring here and scale, which is a nice
kind of business to be in, when you go, well, everyone in the country is trying to solve
this problem, but here are three places where they're actually doing it.
Could we bring that model here and put it in play?
That's a little easier than just continually starting from scratch and hope she'll figure
something out.



Sandi Vidal: 12:35 --> 13:08 
Yeah, I think the important part with that, though, is to remember that it's not a one-size-fits-all
so you can't take something from Pittsburgh necessarily and just transplant it to Orlando.
You've got to look at what are the factors around Central Florida that are unique.
The other thing is really understanding that people don't just innovate and it comes out
perfect the first time, and so understanding what are those mistakes that were made along
the way.



Mark Brewer: 13:08 --> 13:09
There might be multiple phases.



Sandi Vidal: 13:09 --> 13:32
Right.
That's really important.
I know as we were developing the framework for Thrive, we spent time talking to people
in Seattle and San Diego and Houston and Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. and other places and
even Canada and across Europe to listen to some of their lessons learned along the way.



Mark Brewer: 13:32 --> 14:04
There's a deeper analysis in that you might find a model somewhere that looks good, but
that place has different weather, different politics, different capital issues, different
partnerships, and so you can't always transplant a model here and then make it work the way
it did somewhere else.
Sometimes that's phase two of that innovation where you go, okay, this model works, but
it works there because of a set of circumstances that don't exist here.
Can we fix that?
Can we make that happen here?


Sany Vidal: 14:05 --> 14:37
We just recently took a trip down to Miami with the Peace and Justice Institute to look
at a mental health hub that they're creating down there, and it's really a phenomenal exercise
in 24 years of overnight success.
They did 24 years of work, and now it's an overnight success, but the reality is there's
a whole different infrastructure for how Miami is able to raise money through a tax that
we don't have and won't be able to have here.



Mark Brewer: 14:37 --> 14:54
Right, right.
Yeah, so there is that issue of discovery, the issue of testing, the issue of capitalizing,
and then the issue of getting consistent, reliable returns on the work you're doing
to make certain that it's going to turn out the way you think it will.


Sandy Vidal: 14:54 --> 14:57
And then being able to scale it if scale is necessary.



Mark Brewer: 14:57--> 14:58
Absolutely.


Laurie Crocker: 14:59 --> 15:24
As you heard here, the reality is that you often have to use philanthropy first to prove
the concept, and then that draws in more significant investments.
One example of this is the Housing First model, which we talk more about in episode one.
This is a good place now to turn back to someone who is steeped in the entrepreneurial landscape
of central Florida.



Rob Panepinto: 15:24 --> 15:57
So there's a role for innovation in an economic development sense in our community, right?
There's a need to have more innovation-driven jobs, which definitely is more the classic
where we were in terms of technology in the question.
There's a real need to drive those types of thought leadership, innovative technology
jobs in our community to help diversify our economy, to create higher wages here, and
there's a lot of tech and innovation in tourism as well.
So there's definitely that need for innovation in our community, economic development definition
of innovation and labs in Silicon Valley.



Rob Panepinto: 15:57 --> 16:01
Hi, I'm Rob Panepinto.



Laurie Crocker: 16:01 --> 16:26
He's a Managing Director for Govo Venture Partners, a Director for the University of
Central Florida's Incubator System, President of Rally, our region's social enterprise accelerator
more on that soon, and leads the Housing Action Team, a group looking for innovative solutions
to the attainable housing crisis.
He also believes deeply in an entrepreneurial mindset.


Rob Panepinto: 16:26 --> 18:26
Clearly there is a need for innovation because we have, partially because of the economic
conversation that point I brought up a minute ago, but this is a community that has some
very long-standing issues in the areas of housing and homelessness and poverty and hunger,
all of which definitely require more community innovation or a partnership innovation between
the nonprofit sector and the business sector if we're going to solve them.
And I think people should remember this is a community in many ways founded on innovation
in its more modern history, right?
The University of Central Florida was created to support the space program, right?
And a lot of our growth came out of the innovation that came when Disney came here and created
Disney World and all the things that have come out of that.
So to me, innovation is very much in the roots of who we are, but I think so needed in so
many different parts of what we need to do to take our community to the next level.
But on the community side, I think again, I've been fortunate enough, Mark, to be at
your side at the board and former chair of the foundation now for more than a decade.
And I think we've seen multiple examples of community-based innovation.
I mean, the work that was done on homelessness and the change there to a housing first strategy,
which was very successful.
Of course, we're still dealing with the challenges of homelessness, but we took a lot of people
off the streets during that period of time in a very positive way.
And the work the foundation did there along with leaders like Andre Bailey made a significant
change in our community.
I mentioned Andre, I think the work in Project Opioid and the work the foundation does there
to sort of tackle that, right?
Different ways really of solving or addressing problems that no one wants to address.
And it's what we're trying to do now with the Housing Impact Fund.
Lyft is certainly a great example of a community innovation where some business leaders in
our community said, we've just got to find a better way to build communities, right?
Purpose-based communities, but not just from a housing perspective, but from an employment
and education standpoint.
So I think, you know, fortunately in our community, there are huge pockets of innovation, but
it doesn't stand still, right?
So you just need to continue doing it again and again.



Mark Brewer: 18:26 --> 18:47
And I think the work that you've done along with the foundation to launch and bring Rally,
the social enterprise accelerator, which is really that was an innovative approach to
looking for ways to bring more innovation that people recognize were needed, but didn't
know how to do it.



Rob Panepinto: 18:47 --> 19:13
Yeah, I mean, at my core, I just am such a believer in the importance of entrepreneurial
thinking and entrepreneurial drive to solving problems, whether they're business problems
or they're community problems.
So Rally was really the perfect manifestation of that because we were taking these entrepreneurs
and helping them try to solve community problems, which, yes, has been very rewarding work for
certainly for me and I know for the foundation as well.




Mark Brewer: 19:13 --> 19:14
Absolutely.



Laurie Crocker: 19:14 --> 20:33
Rob just mentioned Rally, which is our region's social enterprise accelerator.
Social enterprise is simply a term for businesses that have a double bottom line.
They are a sustainable business venture and they are working towards solving a social
issue.
Here's a quick example of a recent Rally fellow alum, Sam Baker, who, as a UCF student
along with his friends, created a social enterprise called Wrigglebrew.
They developed a fertilizer using worm casings that could be used as an alternative to traditional
fertilizer.
Traditional fertilizer is also a direct cause of red tide, a harmful algae bloom that is
responsible for closing beaches, killing off sea life, and causing dangerous breathing
conditions on Florida beaches.
Through Rally, Wrigglebrew was able to participate in the Future Ready program with the City
of Orlando and was chosen for an organic fertilizer pilot program at Lew Gardens, a botanical
garden just minutes from downtown Orlando.
This is actually not only a great example of innovation, but the willingness of the
private, public, and independent sectors to work together, which might be considered
innovative in and of itself.



Rob Panepinto: 20:33 --> 21:29
The creation of Rally was just even structurally a very innovative way of thinking about it.
Most of the, A, it was pretty early, there were not a lot of social enterprise or impact
accelerators in existence at all.
And most of the ones that did exist were tended to be either geographically specific or more
likely were top-specific, so they would only focus on environmental issues or water issues.
I think what we did is we basically said, we believe that social entrepreneurs can solve
any problem, so bring your ideas to us, right?
We didn't care whether you were, we still don't care, whether you were developing a
solution for affordable housing, or you were going to increase literacy in underserved
populations through a unique business model, so it has made our work harder because we
have to actually have expertise in a whole bunch of things.



Mark Brewer: 21:29 --> 21:30
That's really true.



Rob Panepinto: 21:30 --> 22:13
But I think that's allowed us to reach more entrepreneurs, and as we've gotten more involved
with our local partners here, notably the City of Orlando and the county, it's allowed
us to better pair entrepreneurs to the problems that they're trying to solve in our community,
which again, was part of the reason that we really, you know, we wanted to start rallies.
So I think, certainly most of the innovation comes from the entrepreneurs, but I think
the approach we took to it, and also I think the financial model too, of having the entrepreneurs
who were the mentors in the program also be, in a sense, the philanthropists that drove
a portion of it was very interesting as well, because sometimes those two things, in most
cases those are not the same people.



Mark Brewer: 22:13 --> 22:35
Yeah, that's right, and social entrepreneurship at the time Rally launched had a foot in Europe,
which was a different kind of social entrepreneurship, and social enterprise was something that
didn't exist as a thought process in the way it's being done today.
That literally was birthed in many cases by Rally and its approach.



Rob panepinto: 22:35 --> 23:33
Yeah, I remember, because we work closely with Rollins College as well, somehow I was
tied to mentor some companies in ASHOKA program, and ASHOKA is a large international social
enterprise impact organization, but I was a little surprised by their approach, and
at some point they even said to me and a few of the other mentors, well, for us social
enterprise just means thinking, not creating a business solution to solve a problem.
Which was very different than how we thought of it, because for us it very much needs to
be that you are taking a business solution, you could be a non-profit or a for-profit,
but you're using a business, and the purpose of the business is to solve the problem, not
just lending entrepreneurial thought to solve the problem.
That's a great way to look at things, but it's very different, and you're right, I do
think in innovation and what we were trying to do, we did sort of change the definition
of social enterprise, you're right.



Laurie Crocker: 23:33 --> 24:30
Rob is a stalwart in the private sector here in Orlando, but works with independent sector
entities such as the Foundation, and public sector entities such as our public universities
with University of Central Florida, or UCF for you locals.
Now, did you know that UCF has a college that has innovation in its actual title?
Well, it does, and so you know we needed to get the leader of that institution on this
episode, but before you link this college in your mind to things like tech and business,
the students who come out of this program are actually hoping for careers in industries
such as teaching, government, criminal justice, and other community or public facing jobs.
This is when we turn a little bit deeper into what community innovation is, and how it manifests
in a very real way.



Dean Hayes: 24:30 --> 24:57
A key aspect of community innovation is the active participation and involvement of the
community.
I think in community innovation, it really recognizes that the people who live and work
in the communities, those insights, that knowledge, those lived experiences really can lead to
the formation or the transformation that you're looking for through innovation.



Laurie Crocker: 24:57 --> 25:32
This is Dean Grant Haynes of UCF's College of Community Innovation and Education, or
CCIE.
He's a real believer in community innovation, and shares with me how an experience in another
state was a great example of looking at an old thing like an educational system and reimagining
it and considering how it could be even better, or with Sandy's words in mind, taking the
carriage wheels off the Lamborghini to replace with something maybe a bit more appropriate.



Dean Hayes: 25:32 --> 26:20
When I was in North Carolina recently, I had an opportunity to lead an effort focused on
community schools.
And we actually established the first community school, that's what was the laboratory school.
And the school really not only focused on academics, it focused on nutrition and medical
needs and mental health.
And so we quickly realized that children need more than an academic curriculum in order
to be successful.
They needed the wraparound services.
And so over the years, we saw math scores increase and reading scores increase just
by meeting the needs of the total child.
And I thought that was a really great experience.



Laurie Crocker: 26:25 --> 26:38
As we near the end of this episode, let's go ahead and answer the title question.
Is innovation a necessary ingredient to a better Central Florida?



Dean Hayes: 26:38 --> 27:22
I think in one way, innovation promotes empowerment, you know, especially of individuals who are
underrepresented, who are marginalized, to give them a voice, a voice that often go unheard.
As far as looking at those voices and how they can contribute to the innovative process.
I think also looking at resilience and adaptability.
I think it's important to realize that, you know, especially in the face of a rapidly
changing landscape, that resilience is quite important.
And I think that's one way that innovation is a key ingredient.



Laurie Crocker: 27:26 --> 28:52
As usual, let's now wrap up this episode with three main takeaways that you can bring
with you into your day.
Number one, innovation is a word that's associated with things like creativity and
new approaches.
But it is also a concept that comes with other words that aren't so savory, such as risk
and even failure.
The key is to look at risk and potential failures as part of the journey, learning along the
way and balancing it out with data, research and community partners from across the public,
private and independent sectors who are in it together.
Number two, innovation isn't just for tech and business.
We use innovation to help solve social or community issues all the time.
At the Foundation, we work with other community leaders to identify new approaches to old
problems, sometimes even funding pilots.
Number three, innovation isn't stagnant and neither are our communities.
Constantly reevaluating where we are, what we're doing, and what else might work is
part of trying to make our region an even better place to call home.
And one bonus takeaway for you, sometimes it's okay to fly the plane while still building
it as long as your plane is backed up with a whole lot of research and data.



Mark Brewer: 28:52 --> 29:10
You know, we live in a community that is very entrepreneurial.
It thinks innovation is a good thing, can't always define it, but is always willing to
think of innovation as being a part of entrepreneurial activity, maybe not thinking at the higher
level than you were.


Sandy Vidal: 29:10 --> 29:30
Competitive advantage is always important.
And then I think within Central Florida, the access to resources is definitely, whether
it's social capital or having an incubator or an accelerator, there's a lot of different
opportunities.
We've got the entrepreneur centers.


Laurie Crocker: 29:35 --> 29:44
Not ready for the conversation to be over? 
Neither are we. 
Find us on instagram at FirstYouTalk and keep the conversation going.



Mark Brewer Outro: 29:46 --> 30:23
Thank you for listening to the podcast, First You Talk.
As an engaged listener of this show, we encourage you to check out our podcast website at cffound.org/podcast to learn more about the complex issue.
There you'll find more context to the voices that you've heard today, links to any supporting
materials mentioned during the episode, and resources to help you explore additional perspectives
to draw a fuller picture of the issue at hand.
Through curiosity and collaboration, we can all make our community an even better place
to call home.