We've all heard the buzz about blockchain, but do you really know what blockchain is or how it will change industries in the future?
On this episode of Innovation in the 'Burg, Alison helps answer those questions. She is joined in the studio by blockchain expert and associate professor at Lehman College, Sean Stein Smith. Smith was brought to St. Pete by the firm Gregory, Sharer & Stuart to talk to CPAs and clients about how blockchain will change the financial industry as they know it. Smith took the time to explain those changes in this long-form, easy-to-follow conversation.
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.