The Orlando-based office of video game giant Electronic Arts will welcome 16 local high school students to a summer camp that will show them the ropes of the game development industry.
The “Get in the Game STEAM Camp” runs for about one week, with college-bound women and non-binary students expected to receive mentorship from Electronic Arts employees.
The technical skills used in video game development have applications across industry in today’s tech-driven environment.
The EA program includes mentorship, peer support, coding instruction and real-world applications of coding to the STEAM fields.
Company officials said this year’s camp, which is the fifth for the company, drew the most applications, with the pool representing 24 Central Florida high schools.
“We are proud to create an inclusive environment where women and non-binary students can take the first steps toward their dream of a career in video games, while also fostering a supportive community that empowers them to reach their full potential,” said Jocel Thornhill, director of operations and program management at EA Tiburon in a press release.
Participants also receive a rare behind-the-scenes look at EA’s world-class technology and tools, and receive coaching from the software engineers and artists credited on iconic games such as EA Sports’ Madden and College Football series.
The camp will close with a video game showcase spotlighting the games that students created with their peers during the week.
The mix of high schools represented includes:
Oviedo High School, Lake Brantley High School (three students), Hagerty High School, Winter Springs High School, Trinity Preparatory School, Winter Park High School, Timber Creek High School, NeoCity Academy (three), Lyman High School, Harmony High School and Dr. Phillips High School.
As much as he loved working as a producer for Electronic Arts’ legendary Madden football video game series, another game tugged at him even more.
McLeod had started his career with EA in Orlando in 2011, spending two years working on the company’s college football title before it was formally discontinued in September 2013.
So when the gaming giant announced the return of the title this year, McLeod raised his hand.
“It goes back to when I was a kid,” he said. “I was born and raised in green and white. Michigan State University. That was my life.”
Now, the Michigan State University alum serves as lead producer of the new title, EA Sports College Football 25, which debuts on all major platforms July 19.
“College football was always my love,” McLeod said.
Challenge of Tradition
One of the natural challenges of building such a big game comes in meeting expectations. College football fans will know if something about a school’s tradition is off, he said.
“At the end of the day, every team is somebody’s favorite team,” McLeod said. “So, Florida Atlantic University needs as much love and attention as our Florida State University fans do, as Texas fans do.”
Fortunately, McLeod said, “we’re college football sickos.”
The game includes 134 schools with each having unique touches to their stadiums and experience, including fight songs or hand signals that add to the pageantry.
For instance, expect an accurate representation of the atmosphere of UCF’s FBC Mortgage Stadium, nicknamed “The Bounce House.”
“We have immersed ourselves within the college football ecosystem,” he said. “We immersed our team in the atmosphere. It’s about feeling the pageantry and being on the field.”
Add in that this represents a resurrection of a beloved franchise 10 years later and the challenge grows.
“We needed to make sure this wasn’t just a simple, ‘check the box’ exercise,” McLeod said. “There’s a certain pageantry, a certain affiliation that everybody has in college that is so much different than in the pro game and we had to capture that, as well.”
Individual Stadium touches
At Centennial Bank Stadium, home of Arkansas State University football, for instance, fans like to take a look and share pictures of the waterfall that sits on both sides of the north end zone.
Scoring a touchdown as the Red Wolves in that stadium in the game will trigger a water show within the waterfall, as it does on many fall Saturdays.
That’s just one of literally hundreds of little touches that make each stadium unique and immersive, he said.
“You’re going to be able to discover all new traditions,” he said. “Pageantry like this is going to make people fans of college football. We lost an entire generation of people playing this game. We are going to have a new generation experiencing this for the first time.”
The advantage of Electronic Arts’ location in Florida certainly helped the process, as well.
The state has several powerhouse football programs, each of which welcomed the EA team to campus to capture footage, stadium details and other authentic aspects that will be part of the game.
“Going to (UCF’s) Space Game and bringing a bunch of people from the team to the space game, just experiencing that in person, was amazing,” he said. “Making this product in a hotbed of college football is a pretty amazing thing. It’s a dream come true every single day.”
A ‘dream job’
McLeod’s plans initially had nothing to do with video games. His goal was medical school.
But first he wanted to take some time off.
As he was writing for a community website, he backed into an opportunity at Electronic Arts. The rest, he says, is history.
“I had my dream job right out of school,” he said.
The saga of the college football video game is a tale of millions of dollars, powerhouse conferences and an industry giant reaching an impasse 11 years ago.
A franchise renewed
The title was discontinued in September of 2013 after a 20-year run as complications arose about using realistic representations of players in the game.
So, this year’s version release marks a certain kind of history in video games.
It is the first major release of a college sports game since the NCAA adopted so-called “name, image and likeness” rules in 2021 that govern how college athletes can earn money while in school.
That meant Electronic Arts had to negotiate with individual players to include them in the game.
As of March, according to EA, the company had reached out with offers of at least $600 and a copy of the game to players, with more than 11,000 NCAA players accepting the offers.
As offer letters were returned, developers started to include real names in the game.
“To see them in the game as they start to sign and be put in via the rosters, it was surreal,” McLeod said.
With that major obstacle out of the way, developers could look toward creating a realistic setting.
That meant targeting moments that would evolve as “can’t miss” within the game.
“That’s the payoff moment,” McLeod said. “If I’m in a dynasty and I’m busting my rear to get into a bowl game, you better believe that if it’s the Pop Tart Bowl, it’s the Cure Bowl, there needs to be a giant payoff moment so we went pretty big there.”
McLeod wouldn’t reveal all the secrets but he did say the bowl games will have their own small touches that make you want to reach them.
“That’s a huge payoff moment for a user in their career loop, so we want to make sure to pay it off,” he said.
The process has been time-consuming, tedious, stressful, at times.
But, McLeod said, the effort to reignite a classic gaming franchise has been worth and has only just begun.
“It’s going to take us a few more years to just keep going deeper and deeper to where we want,” he said. “By then, there will be more new traditions out there, as well.”
With each version, it will also be important to stay informed on what players want, McLeod said.
“Players’ expectations have changed a ton in the last 10 years,” he said. “We want to make sure that we took the good parts … but then said, ‘Hey, 10 years later, what does a user want?’
A high-profile, long-running event that has attracted tech luminaries like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter and Square cofounder Jack Dorsey and last year brought entertainer Kerry Washington to Orlando will be back in Lake Nona for a second year.
Organizers behind Worth Magazine’s Techonomy conference announced this week that the three-day retreat will return Nov. 17-19. Guest speakers for this year’s conference have yet to be announced.
However, the event regularly hosts some of the more relevant and high-impact figures. The conference had been held in Silicon Valley up until last year, when the event shifted to Orlando.
“Techonomy 24: Leading with Intelligence” brings together top executives, technologists and thought leaders.
“Lake Nona is proud to once again host Techonomy 24, an event that embodies our commitment to fostering innovation and technological advancement,” said Juan Santos, senior vice president of brand experience and innovation for Lake Nona, said in a press release. “This gathering of visionary leaders and thinkers aligns perfectly with our mission to create a community where technology, sustainability and human wellbeing intersect.”
“The AI revolution happened very slowly and then all at once,” said Dan Costa, Worth Media Group’s chief content officer, in the release. “CEOs, policymakers, and even the technologists building these tools are grappling with what it all means–that conversation continues at Techonomy 24.”
The guest lists for previous events have been deep.
Along with the aforementioned trio, politician Andrew Yang, longtime Google executive Marissa Mayer, former Walt Disney Studios Chairman and DreamWorks SKG Cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg and Ford CEO Jim Farley have appeared.
This year’s program will revolve around how emerging technologies factor into industry while addressing other factors such as privacy and regulation.
The invitation-only event can be accessed through a request at worth.com/TE24.
As a child, he fixed things around the house, building a familiarity with the tools of the trade. Into his teens, Waldmann became a de facto technician at a paintball business, modifying and repairing low-end weapons to save the company money.
So, when the coronavirus pandemic interrupted a job search, he pivoted and decided to build a business that revolved around building, tinkering and repair.
He built up a stable of high-powered, professional-grade metal stamping and fabrication presses. But he had one problem: finding customers who needed the work done.
“If you have the work to keep them moving, there is money to be made,” he said. “It’s just a challenge to get that recurring production work because of overseas competition.”
But Waldmann saw an opportunity.
A billion dollar business opportunity
So, he launched Waldmann Enterprises, a front-to-back manufacturing business that takes a project from design to production and specializes in prototyping.
Rapid prototyping has become a nearly $1 billion business and is expected to reach nearly $4 billion by 2032, according to a study by Canadian research firm Precedence Research.
CNC machining and fabrication has applications in several industries that thrive in Central Florida, such as defense, aerospace and automotive.
That technology sits right in Waldmann’s wheelhouse.
“I can literally print something out of my CAD software and have it by tomorrow morning,” said Waldmann, a graduate of Winter Springs High School in Seminole County with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Central Florida.
As Waldmann’s business grew, evolved and went through some typical startup struggles, he started to add to his business’ capabilities.
Learning the business side at the incubator
That’s where the University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program came into the picture.
Waldmann first met the incubator through the director of its Eustis location, Wendy Taylor.
It wasn’t long before she determined that Waldmann Enterprises was a match for the program, with Taylor calling the company “a hidden gem.”
“He’s not a franchise,” she said. “He’s not a big corporation. It’s just him. They lean on us for the connections and the coaching. As a business owner, you generally don’t know what you’re getting into.”
Instead, she said, it’s usually a passion someone has that they need to learn how to turn into a business.
“He has a track record,” she said. “Whether self-taught or not, he went through the weeds of every level of business. That differentiates him.”
In March, incubator leaders decided Waldmann was far enough along to start working with.
“If someone is coming to us with a concept on a napkin, that’s a little too early for us.”
On the flip side, Waldmann’s network – and potential client base – grew quickly.
“They have opened my eyes to some of these industry clusters I was not aware of,” he said. “These tech clusters. That’s what I was hoping they would do.”
One example of Waldmann’s work is with Multicore Technologies, where he designed and built parts for their optic lab and adaptors for sensors.
“We needed very specific items for what we do that would hold up as we experimented with our technology and products,” said Jody Wilson, founder and CTO of Multicore Technologies in Winter Springs. “Our team has been very impressed with the designs and products Waldmann has delivered for us.”
Putting it all together
Before he launched the company, Waldmann spent a good bit of his career overseeing design and production of medical products with a company called Dot Decimal.
It was there that he started to see some unorthodox requests.
The requests – and his bosses – allowed him to essentially build a contract-based manufacturing business within a business.
When he moved on, he didn’t think he was headed into a career as an entrepreneur. Initially, he was just trying to ride out the COVID storm.
As the pandemic lengthened, however, he started to consider that he could turn his skills into a legitimate enterprise.
The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of the business incubation program, he said.
Waldmann admits that there have been times that he considered quitting and returning to full-time work in engineering. In fact, he said, he thought he would likely have been in a comfortable position right now had he done so.
But he still thinks there’s a higher ceiling through handling adversity.
“I see that upside, that potential,” he said. “I don’t want to give up because I’ve come so far. I’m going to make it work and that’s the kind of attitude I have had.”
A Space Coast-based health tech firm has raised money from the AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, to fund research and development into new products beyond its smart tech-based seat cushion.
Kalogon of Melbourne has previously released a wheelchair cushion that supports better posture and distributes pressure evenly to help people who suffer from pressure injuries from prolonged sitting.
The AARP contributed to a $1.2 million round that included SeedFundersOrlando, Sawmill Angels and other angels.
Kalogon founder and CEO Tim Balz said the funding is validation for the company.
“With our relentless pursuit of science-backed innovation and an unwavering dedication to the user experience, we are ushering in a new future for seated wellness,” he said in a press release announcing the investment. “The partnerships and product developments we have achieved recently have opened new doors, and this round will help us further expand our offerings and availability in the market.”
The round will help the company’s research and development while also helping handle a team that has become close to potential commercial and military aviation partners, including the U.S. Air Force.
“Kalogon is on an impressive trajectory, propelling the entire industry forward to provide solutions for health conditions that have been ignored for far too long,” said Jeff Ready, investor at Sawmill Angels and board member at Kalogon. “Kalogon has the potential to not only serve the medical industry with better mobility products but also solve complex seating problems in aviation, transportation, the public sector and many more industries, and we are proud to support their next growth phase.”
A Winter Garden-based mapping, surveying and geospatial services company has gone 3D.
Kind of.
Allen & Company, which launched in 1988 and employs more than 130, announced on Wednesday a new subsidiary Allen3D. The new entity will incorporate emerging technologies including digital twins, gaming, LiDAR and simulation into its offerings.
“Forming Allen3D is a great step forward in how we innovate, pioneer the latest technology and proof of concepts, while driving forward in an industry that has always looked to us as leaders,” Allen3D Founder Butch Allen said in a press release.
Allen is also president and principal of Allen & Co.
Late last year, Allen & Co. acquired Nexus 3D Consulting in an effort to expand its services and reach. Allen3D formally joins the two businesses.
Allen & Company will continue to focus on mapping, surveying, and geospatial services while Allen 3D will take on clients with the use of emerging technologies in mind.
Allen3D will operate out of offices in Florida, Idaho and California.
Full Sail University on Sunday announced the recipients of five $10,000 scholarships related to its esports program.
The announcement, which was made during an alumni vs. students esports tournament, helped the Winter Park school kick off its Hall of Fame week.
This week, Full Sail University will honor six alumni, including two from recording arts, and one each from computer animation, game development, web design and film.
The 14th annual event will include guest lectures, panels, workshops, career networking events, a technology expo, live musical performances, interactive creative challenges, gaming tournaments and more.
Orlando-based Concepta Technologies will invest $10 million into the development of technology that focuses on fields like generative AI, quantum computing and cloud infrastructure.
The goal is to advance research and development in Central Florida.
The Machine Advancement and General Intelligence Center, or MAGIC, is a virtual R&D center and incubator.
The 20-year-old company has worked in the past with Disney, Red Lobstr and Truist Bank, among others.
Concepta MAGIC will bring together business leaders and researchers to tackle real-world AI implementation.
Kismet to launch biotech podcast
Another week, another podcast launch.
Kismet Technologies has launched a monthly podcast that promises to introduce you to the world of disinfection and antimicrobial technologies.
Cofounders Christina Drake and Shari Dingle Constantini will host.
You can find more information along with the podcast AT THS LINK.
LAKE NONA – The symptoms came in several forms for young athlete Lily Kemp in high school.
Headaches. Nausea. Sensations of her eyes “not working together,” which of course affected her vision.
Uncharacteristic periods of both a lack of interest in school and emotional outbursts.
“There were many weeks I was just in school, wearing a hat and sunglasses,” she said. “I was just trying not to get a headache. But I was out of it, especially when it was pretty bad.”
Even when she tried to apply herself, basic activities like reading would make her dizzy.
It was the aftermath of multiple concussions she had suffered in various ways.
“It was like she was a different person,” recalled her mother, Kelly Kemp. “She was so much more emotional than she’d ever been before. She was tanking at school.”
While desperate for some explanation, Kelly and her family discovered NESTRE Labs in Lake Nona through one of Lily’s former lacrosse teammates.
The company deploys neuroscience and machine learning to personalize programs meant to improve mental and cognitive strength and health. As part of National Mental Health Awareness month, the company has offered free access to its brain improvement mobile app for a month.
For 19-year-old Lily Kemp, just a few sessions with the company’s proprietary hardware had her noticing a a difference.
Brain training is the new wave industry
NESTRE CEO Tommy Shavers makes it clear that his company focuses on mind and brain fitness. It’s not a company that claims to prevent or treat concussions.
NESTRE CEO Tommy Shavers
Instead, it’s a mind and brain fitness company that helps athletes, CEOs, high school students and moms.
For Lily, that meant working on brain fitness after that series of injuries.
“We focus on how much better we can make humanity by giving people an opportunity to exercise the mind and brain the way we exercise the body,” Shavers said. “We can do some tremendous good in that way. Lily is an example of that.”
Shavers has experienced firsthand the rough nature of sports competition.
He was team captain of the UCF football team and became the program’s life skills coordinator shortly after graduation.
Despite the nature of athletics, Shavers said passion often drives athletes to perform after suffering injuries.
“We are all athletes in our own arenas,” he said. “There are things that may seem irrational that certain other individuals would not do but to athletes it makes total sense.”
That was the case with Kemp, who continued to play lacrosse despite having suffered as many as six diagnosed concussions in two years.
For love of sport
Lily Kemp had been an active teenager.
She was a member of The First Academy School’s lacrosse team, played intramural flag football and, in her recreation time, enjoyed wakeboarding.
But along with competing hard comes the risk of injury and concussions. In fact, within a span of a few activities, Lily strung together a few in quick succession.
To combat them, she tried several forms of therapy. While each method worked to an extent, she still felt something was off.
Although a full supporter now, she says she was skeptical of NESTRE then.
“I didn’t tell them where I’d hit my head because I was super-suspicious of what it was going to be like,” she said.
When the staff at NESTRE showed her heat maps of areas of her head that displayed evidence of damage, her skepticism disappeared.
More importantly, however, it proved to her and her family that there was actual damage she was dealing with and not just teenage angst-like characteristics.
“I wasn’t crazy,” said Kemp, now a student at Florida State University who said she likely would not have been able to go to college without NESTRE. “Something was actually going on. So that was comforting just to begin with.”
As Lily retold her story, Shavers appeared to have an emotional response.
“This is what created the drive and purpose to do this,” he said. “There is a visceral response because I know what it was like because I lived it. I know what it was like to not be able to formulate words and sentences, with people looking at you not knowing what was going on.”
A concerned mother finds a ‘miracle’
For Lily’s mother, Kelly, discovering NESTRE seemed like a miracle.
She had noticed a change in her daughter, who had long been a solid student but seemed to have been prioritizing schoolwork less.
Initially, she dismissed it as just Lily being a teenager.
I feel like they care about my girl. I feel like they all love her. It’s a friendly environment. It’s a miracle, really. I can’t imagine what she would be like if she hadn’t had this opportunity.
Kelly Kemp, mother, on NESTRE’s effect on her daughter’s recovery from concussion aftermath
But Kelly became more concerned when she seemed to dismiss college admission essays despite friends pushing her to complete them.
In fact, at one point, Lily could not even figure out how to copy-and-paste her resume into a document.
“We didn’t know what was wrong,” Kelly Kemp said.
So, when Lily mentioned NESTRE, Kelly went along to see if it could help.
She quickly bonded with the team that would help Lily improve.
More importantly, however, she soon started to see her upbeat, silly and athletic Lily returning.
“I feel like they care about my girl,” Kelly Kemp said. “I feel like they all love her. It’s a friendly environment. It’s a miracle, really. I can’t imagine what she would be like if she hadn’t had this opportunity.”
Walking through a haze in high school
Lily remembers the time before she started visiting NESTRE, though the memory can sometimes be hazy.
Sometimes, it was scary, she said, when she would try to type something and not recognize the words that came out.
Or she would read something aloud and mess up simple words.
“It was a lot,” she said.
But after a few sessions, her reading came back to her normal level.
“I was like, ‘It worked,’” she said.
That led to her finishing her senior lacrosse season, despite the risk.
“I was thankful to go back and finish my season with my friends,” she said. “I felt completely better and ready for college. I don’t think I could have gone to college if I wouldn’t have come to NESTRE.”
NESTRE and the pros
NESTRE has the potential to become one of Central Florida’s biggest tech success stories.
It’s already well on its way.
If you need the flashy names, just look at the list of people who have backed the company so far.
Hall of Fame wide receiver Calvin Johnson. His former Detroit Lions teammate Rob Sims.
An institute backed by Hall of Fame linebacker and former Tampa Bay Buc Derrick Brooks.
Jaylon Smith, a former pro bowl linebacker who is a free agent right now.
“Whether it’s Olympic champions, Hall of Fame athletes, Heisman winners, we have had the gamut come through here,” Shavers said. “They have all been beyond excited and impressed. This is a muscle you have to train.”
So far, results have been strong.
You don’t have to be broken to get better.
NESTRE Labs CEO Tommy Shavers
Since as far back as 2018, when former NFL QB Josh McCown told ESPN that NESTRE was part of the reason that he had his best season at 38 years old, NESTRE has been grabbing the occasional national headline.
At the time, McCown was coming off career highs in several passing categories with the New York Jets.
Meanwhile, former San Francisco 49ers WR Kyle Williams has said NESTRE’s brain training saved his life.
“The technology has begun to quantify the rewards and benefits associated with playing sport,” Shavers said. “How can we proactively optimize cognitive health and resilience?”
Return to lacrosse risky but worth it
While the backer list is certainly impressive, Shavers clarifies as much as possible that NESTRE isn’t just for world-class, professional athletes.
The majority of the people who have explored the company as a solution are everyday athletes and others who need optimal cognitive training to work a 9-to-5 or executives who want to be at their best.
However, on a recent day, as NESTRE’s lead neurotrainer Everett Talbert tucked Lily Kemp into a small skull cap-like contraption equipped with dozens of small nodes to track activity in multiple parts of her brain, she said getting better allowed her to finish up her senior year in high school on her terms.
“Yeah, I went back, of course,” she said. “It was definitely a risky move but I was so thankful to be able to go back and finish my season with all my friends.”
For Shavers, Lily’s story illustrates an extreme example of how NESTRE can help.
But he stresses that the goal is to build a network similar to gyms but for your brain.
“We want to create that kind of environment that you come in, you work your brain out and you get better,” he said. “You don’t have to be broken to get better.”
One of Electronic Arts’ most-anticipated video games in years has an official release date.
College Football 25, which will be built mostly in Orlando, will launch on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 on July 19.
Early access options and trial versions will go live on July 16, as well.
Texas QB Quinn Ewers, Colorado two-way player Travis Hunter and Michigan RB Donovan Edwards feature prominently in the promotional material.
“Donovan, Quinn and Travis are extraordinary talents who impressed and entertained millions of college football fans on the field last season and are poised to do so again this year,” EA’s Orlando-based SVP and Group GM Daryl Holt said in a press release.
“Hey College Football fans, welcome to the Campus Huddle, your home for the latest news and updates straight from our development team,” the post read.
The page listed several features and incentives toward pre-ordering, a standard feature of big video game releases in recent years.
A full reveal of the game, which was discontinued 11 years ago, is expected to go live on Friday.
The release marks an historic moment in video games and in sports video games, in particular.
It is the first major release of a college sports game since the NCAA adopted so-called “name, image and likeness” rules in 2021 that govern how players can earn money while in college.
That necessitated Electronic Arts to negotiate with individual players to include them in the game.
As of March, according to EA, the company had reached out with offers of at least $600 and a copy of the game to players, with more than 11,000 NCAA players accepting the offers.
