It is no surprise that we are talking frequently in the Innovation District about future technologies and how they have the potential to solve the "unsolvable" problems and radically change lives. Two such discussions recently highlighted advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) - a field that has the potential to change almost every sector from transportation, medicine, and robotics to education and climate.
ARK Invest held its Big Ideas Summit at the newly opened ARK Innovation Center in the St. Pete Innovation District. This event highlighted several areas of technology innovation that have strong opportunities for growth including AI, bitcoin, precision therapies, electric vehicles and more. To read ARK Invest Big Ideas 2024 click here. Or more about the Summit click here.
A few weeks later, Cathie Wood, founder and CEO of ARK Invest spoke at the Tampa Bay Innovation Center's (TBIC) Innovation Showcase which highlighted eight early-stage startup founders who participated in TBIC's AI accelerator program. She highlighted how “Technology is permeating every industry in every sector....there’s a blurring of the lines, and the opportunities, therefore, are huge as AI scales across sectors.” To read more click here.
The graduation of the CodeBoxx AI Literacy and Applications Bootcamp was held on Saturday, August 9th at the ARK Innovation Center. The celebration included a tour of the ARK building, a sneak peek at the Vu Studio, and a hackathon. This bootcamp is designed to give participants a competitive edge in the job market by teaching practical ways to use AI. AI literacy and tech communication are more important than ever, and we're incredibly proud of this graduating class for taking that step forward.
A joint venture by Tampa Bay Wave and USF, the 2025 cohort of the nationally recognized FinTech|X Accelerator kicked off on August 4th, supporting high-growth fintech startups through an intensive 8-week program. This year’s class includes St. Petersburg-based innovators HappiNest.AI and Congruit Inc. The program leverages USF’s world-class faculty, research, and business networks to help founders scale impactful technologies.
Our neighbors at the ARK Innovation Center, MADTECH.AI, are doing some seriously impressive work. As a Marketing Decision Intelligence platform, they’ve built a system that takes the headache out of data wrangling and lets teams focus on strategy. Their tools unify, transform, and visualize data in one AI-powered hub—saving time and uncovering insights faster.