As she stood in front of the crowd at her first Orlando Tech Community event as CEO, Sheena Fowler shared how reluctant she was to move to Orlando initially.
At the time, she was living in New York with her now husband.
Her time in Central Florida was supposed to be temporary.
However, while here, Fowler connected with a community that she called “the most eclectic, passionate, creative and technically ignited people” she has ever met.
“I moved here and it captured my heart,” she said at the event, which was held at Ivanhoe Park Lager House on Thursday.
Roughly 20 years later, Fowler has been given the keys to one of Orlando tech’s most visible and most important organizations.
It’s an exciting time for Orlando tech, frankly.
After former CEO David Adler navigated some early growing pains of the new organization, which tightly intertwines OTC and Innovate Orlando, Fowler was the perfect follow up.
She knows Orlando’s business environment, having been an important part of Orlando Economic Partnership for more than a decade.
With that experience, of course, comes connections within all of Orlando’s prominent industries, including gaming, tourism, AR/VR and all of the rest.
In addition, her love for the city comes from spending time at the OEP as part of the group’s Orlando Film Commission, which meant travelling through the region as a site scout.
On the tech side, Fowler’s most recent job was with one of the most interesting high-tech businesses with a presence in Orlando in Red 6.
As you can see, we at Orlando Tech News have an admiration for her experience, which is important in her role.
But the statement that most closely aligns with what we advocate for at OTN was her heavy support for telling Orlando’s tech story.
As she said, it helps people from the outside know exactly who we are, as a community.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re making a technology for the defense industry or for the theme parks or (making) a video game,” she said. “It’s the people that make that technology and it’s the storytellers that grab it that makes these experiences rich. We change the world with the things that we do here because we never let go of the storytelling and the experiences.”
Honestly, we could not have said it better ourselves, but we will try.
First of all, it’s difficult to articulate exactly how (to steal a word from Sheena) eclectic Orlando is as a city.
However, even when you drill down into Orlando tech, specifically, the range of industries and stories don’t shrink that much because, in essence, industry in 2025 is tech.
Not to mention, the regions that are within the Central Florida tech umbrella span quite a large number of areas, many of which have their own industry specialty.
For instance, medical tech in Lake Nona, emerging tech downtown, defense tech at UCF’s complex and sensor-based tech in Kissimmee.
Oh, and by the way, did we mention we do space pretty well in Orlando and on down to the Coast, too?
So, as you can see, there is a ton of technology stories to tell.
The fact that the incoming CEO, a veteran of the film industry, understands this has us brimming with excitement.
“Innovate Orlando will serve as a giant megaphone,” Fowler said. “I am going to make sure that the world knows these stories.”
Our megaphone is tiny but mighty but that’s been our goal since we launched Orlando Tech News almost five years ago.
Check out Sheena’s full comments from the meetup below.