Michael Udine With Broward County

Intro: [00:00:01] You’re listening to Innovation Radio, where we interview entrepreneurs focused on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. Innovation radio is brought to you by the world’s first theme park for entrepreneurs the Levan’s Center of Innovation, the only innovation center in the nation to support the founders journey from Birth of an Idea through successful exit or global expansion. Now here’s your host, Lee Kantor.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:28] Lee Kantor here another episode of Innovation Radio. And it’s important to recognize we couldn’t do this show without our sponsor, the Levan Center of Innovation. Without them, this show just wouldn’t exist. I’m so excited to be talking to today’s guest. Michael, Udine with Commissioner Broward County. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Udine: [00:00:48] Hi, Lee. Thank you for having me. I’m a big fan of everything they’re doing over at the Levan Innovation Center over at NSU. I know Jon very well, and I’m happy to join you this morning to talk about the innovation economy and specifically the innovation economy in South Florida and Broward County.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] Well, before we get into that, can you share a little bit about your back story? Why was it important to you to get involved in public service?

Michael Udine: [00:01:16] So I got involved in Parkland on their city commission in 2003 as a way to give back to the community, treating it like a volunteer and a and a role where I wanted my my children to see and see involvement in the community. I want to help people. I believe in paying it forward. And this was an interesting way for me to do that, to learn a lot, to help the Northwest Broward community grow. And the rest, as they say, is history. I was mayor of Parkland from oh six until 2016. Watch the growth of Parkland, which turned from, you know, a smaller bedroom community to a little bit of a bigger bedroom community. In 2016, I ran for the Broward County Commission and have been working with a dynamic board of County commissioners for the last six years. I was honored to be selected and chosen as the mayor of Broward County from last year in 2022. Now I’m back on the commission as we rotate the mayor. So one of my themes when I was mayor and one of my passions is technology and bringing the entrepreneurial and innovation spirit to South Florida. And it’s been an honor of mine to serve the residents of Broward County for these past 20 years.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:46] And then at the beginning of your career was in business, right? You were a successful business person.

Michael Udine: [00:02:51] So you’re my lens is business. I’m a practicing attorney. Presently. I served on the board of directors of a community bank for about ten years, which we built and sold to one of the larger community banks in the state of Florida. I’m an active investor in innovation and tech. I believe in building businesses. I believe in the interaction between business and government. My public service is all technically classified as part time, even though many times I spend a full time amount of time on the jobs. So I still have my law practice and I still have other interests that I’m involved with, that I do simultaneously with being an elected official.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] And because of that lens, do you feel that it’s really easier for you to embrace the idea of these public private partnerships where the community business, the government, everybody can kind of work arm in arm for that the goal of serving the community.

Michael Udine: [00:03:54] So as a business person, I like to look for efficiency and I like to look for logic. And when there are these projects that are efficient and logical that make sense, I usually like to try and support them. Take the Leaven Center. The Leaven Center in and of itself was an interesting thing that got done in record time. It was a public private partnership in a way. Broward County had the space in the library. We were partners with Nova Southeastern University. So and then Mr. Levine came in with his vision and his monetary contribution. The whole thing clicked together, and within a very quick time it was up and running. And now you have that as a centerpiece for the start up economy in Broward County.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:44] And that to me is where, you know, you can really have explosive growth when you have that type of partnership in both sides can kind of get on the same page and really leverage the strengths of both kind of sides of this coin here. And and the Levant Center is a great example of how that can happen quickly and make the big impact in the community.

Michael Udine: [00:05:08] I believe in that. And I’ve been to Sullivan Center many times. I’m a big supporter of what they’re doing there. I’ve been with John throughout the world, promoting the Levant Center and Broward County as a tech hub, as a place to generate jobs, as a place to generate the economy, as a place to start and incubate new businesses. And I’ve said before some of the things that we’re seeing at the Levant Center right now in ten and 15 years, those will be companies that are on the S&P 500 and on Nasdaq that we’re going to read about. And they’re going to all have been birthed in the Levant Center in Broward County in South Florida. And we’re going to see that story in the future. And it’s exciting to be a part of it. And I think when you walk in there, you see that excitement of innovators that want to be together, that want to be in in a collaborative space to push the ideas forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:07] Now, do you find that communities all over the country need this type of ecosystem where you have a place for these budding entrepreneurs to kind of learn and grow and to see what’s possible and to be partnered with other people who have been there and done that to help them accelerate their growth.

Michael Udine: [00:06:27] I really do. A couple of years ago, I was present and involved when the rise of the Rest and Revolution Financial came down to South Florida and their big thing was going outside of Silicon Valley, going into other areas in the country to see where the startup and innovation is happening. It’s certainly not going to all happen in Silicon Valley, and we’re seeing that now once and when. When they did come here a few years ago, this was before the pandemic. This was before any COVID. A Broward company won that competition, Zenda, which is a which is a startup that started right here in Broward County and is having explosive growth in the financial services industry. And we’re seeing that. And then the pandemic comes and people can kind of work a little bit more remotely and they can quote unquote, live in the sun and work in the clouds. And that’s our Broward County motto for bringing businesses down here. So a place like like the Levant Center feeds right into that.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] Now, are there any other initiatives you’re working on to help promote that new tech businesses coming to Broward County?

Michael Udine: [00:07:45] You know, it’s something that I’ve been very passionate about and we’ve seen, you know, and by the way, I think now that every business in a way is a quote unquote tech business. And we’ve seen, you know, if you’re at City Furniture, which is a big business in my district, they will tell you that not only are they a furniture company, but they’re a tech company because that’s how they’re getting their products out. That’s how they’re doing the logistics. And we keep seeing that. So we’ve seen like El Al, who has moved their headquarters down to Broward County, they’ve come here and they want to they want to be in Broward County because of what we have to offer gateway to Latin America, access to Port Everglades, to FL, to a big convention center to to to the Startup Foundation between Israel and Fort Lauderdale with the NMSU Innovation Hub. And we see that over and over again with company after company that want to come down to South Florida and Broward County and start up and incubate and grow their businesses. So it’s something that we continually look to do, working with the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, working with NDSU, working with the innovation centers around the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:01] So now let’s talk a little bit about infrastructure. What do you or is there anything on the runway to help in that area?

Michael Udine: [00:09:11] Well, we’ve expanded our airport. We continue to expanding it, and it’s a gateway to Latin America. We’re doing a lot throughout the county. When we when we did the penny sales tax a number of years ago for roads and transportation included in that. And a big part of that was fiber optics, which we’re trying to put in a lot of the main areas throughout the county. The technology is moving fast. Our port and Port Everglades, again, the gateway to Latin America. We’re expanding our convention center to bring more business down here. And we continue to be a support system and to be a government that can help companies flourish and grow here. We also have the responsibility to make sure that we’re bringing that growth in the proper way. So as a government, we need to make sure that there’s better housing affordability because people that are going to come and move here to work. These companies need to have a reasonable place to live. We need to find that there’s better transportation infrastructure because people want to get around. We need to work on education initiatives, which we do, and we need to work on cultural and the arts because people want to be here. They want to be able to do the fun things that make the communities flourish. And finally, and very important to Broward County, we need to make sure that we’re always thinking about resiliency, because whatever your politics are on this climate change in South Florida and our sea levels rising and different things that we’re seeing with king tides are real in South Florida and we need to pay attention to it because employees and the younger tech culture that are moving here, they’re demanding that as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Michael Udine: [00:11:03] I think that, you know, as these companies move here, as they scale up, as they as they mature, they need to hire our local tech people. We’ve just started an interesting campaign that we’ve put some billboards up in Silicon Valley and different areas that you think of with tech. And we said, we know, we see that companies are laying off tech workers. We need them here in South Florida. We need a better and we need a more educated and we need a higher performing workforce. And we’re going to go out and help get that. And we have that here. We have a cluster of universities with Nova Southeastern University of Miami, Florida, Atlantic, Broward College University. It all feeds into that. And we need to all work together to make things move faster and make things move better.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:59] So if you were a budding startup founder, how would you recommend that they plug in to the ecosystem there in Broward?

Michael Udine: [00:12:09] So I would definitely go check out the Innovation the Levant Innovation Center. I think that it puts you with like minded people. I would get involved with the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance. The good thing about South Florida and Broward County is you’re very close to real decision makers in real time. You know, there’s always a local elected official in a lot of these events. Decision makers are there. You can rub elbows with CEOs of major companies in South Florida, but I think it starts in a place like the Levant Center for Innovation. And I think that, you know, all the disciplines are right there there at Nova Southeastern University. So let’s take it. Let’s say you’re a health tech startup or you’re a health tech company. What better place to be than And it’s you in their innovation center because you have a med school there, both D.O. and an MD. One of the few places in the country that has that. So you have people that can work with you in those disciplines. You have a college right there, a law school right there, a business school right there. You have everything clustered right together in the central part of Broward County to help you grow your business. So I think that’s a big advantage that we have that helps us in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:25] Now, if someone’s listening outside of the area, can you are there certain clusters or certain kind of sweet spots that are are really good for Broward that you already have kind of some momentum in that if they’re working in that space, this would be a great way for them to maybe accelerate their growth.

Michael Udine: [00:13:47] I think that the best part to look is on the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance website. They talk about some of our targeted industries. And just by knowing what Broward County and what Fort Lauderdale area is, Marine tech, right? We have a big marine industry, aviation, health, tech, fintech. We have a lot of that right here in Broward County. And we look at our targeted industries, travel and tourism. You know, we have Port Everglades is bringing down Disney cruises, all different kind of cruise companies. We have all of those things right here at your fingertips that you can tap into and and and be a part of. So there’s a lot of opportunity to get involved with those situations.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:43] So if somebody wants to connect with you or anybody in Broward County, what what do you think is the best starting point to kind of launch into a discovery about what’s to be found at Broward County?

Michael Udine: [00:14:57] I mean, I’m I mean, for me personally, I’m very active on social media at Michael Udine. I’m on Twitter, I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram. I respond. Usually I get I get unsolicited LinkedIn messages every day for meetings with new tech startups. I usually listen to their we we set up a day when I listen to some of their, you know, their elevator pitch, so to speak, and I try to refer them to the right person within the county. A lot of times I’m referring them over to NDSU, you know, to check out what they have to offer. But but we’re easy to kind of navigate around the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance website. The Broward County website has a lot of different links. We also just started and it’s getting very big. We’re very big into film and the technology around making television shows and making movies in film, Florida and film Broward, that’s kind of taken off and we’ve put a lot behind that throughout the county. So there are those opportunities there. There’s really a lot to get involved with in Broward County and with our mid range access between Palm Beach County, which is getting a lot of the financial services company and Miami-Dade County, which is getting a lot of the the new tech type things, we’re right there. We’re right in the heart of it all. And we have a we have an easier cost of living and quality of life in Broward. And a lot of times people use the Miami or South Florida term synonymously. If they’re if they’re in Palm Beach County, they may still say they’re in Miami and vice versa with Broward. So it’s there’s a lot out there and there’s a lot to take advantage of.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:47] Well, Michael, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Michael Udine: [00:16:54] Thank you so much for having me. Keep up the good work. Follow me at Michael Dean on Twitter or LinkedIn or any of the social media. And I look forward to one day watching you start at the Innovation, the Levant Innovation Center scale up in Broward County and and who knows, exit and be a future Broward County unicorn.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:15] Amen to that. Well, thank you again. This is Lee Kantor. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Innovation Radio.

Intro: [00:17:25] This episode of Innovation Radio was brought to you by the world’s first theme park for entrepreneurs, the Levein’s Center of Innovation, the only innovation center in the nation to support the founder’s journey from Birth of an Idea through successful exit or global expansion. If you are ready to launch or scale your business, please check out the Levein’s Center of Innovation by visiting Nova Dot edu. Slash Innovation.