Coral Gables Magazine April 2024 Issue (Innovation)

Editor’s Note: Innovators Awaken!

Most outsiders think of Coral Gables as something of a staid community. Certainly, its affluent demographics, its heavy presence of legal and financial professionals, and its historic, old-world architecture lends to the image of a calm, conservative, even insular city.

When we started the magazine six years ago, we found that not to be the case. We began to produce an annual Innovation issue and discovered that Coral Gables was in the lead among Florida cities in numerous categories. The first few years we focused on the city’s infrastructure, looking at advances in municipal software, transportation alternatives, research at UM, shared workspace incubators, police technology and so forth. Very much Big Picture POV, high-tech and systemwide.

Last year we diverged from the Smart City approach and wrote about efforts by the public and private sector to increase sustainability. In the process, we realized that innovation in sustainability — and other areas — was not just a matter of advanced software systems and technical gadgetry. What it came down was the people — the innovators — leading the charge.

This year we stayed with that idea, that what makes Coral Gables an innovative city are its residents and small business owners, individuals who are working to solve problems we all face in creative ways. Not all are high tech. But all are highly interesting. We present this year five innovators worthy of the name, and of your time as a reader. Now go get inspired and invent some new way of doing things!