As the Edison Awards celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, we’ve been doing a lot of looking back, and nowhere does that reflection feel more meaningful than in Southwest Florida.

For the past seven years, Fort Myers has been our home. Not just a venue for an annual Gala, but a genuine partner in bringing our mission to life: honoring the innovators shaping our world, and inspiring the next generation to join them. This year, we’re taking a gap year from hosting our gala event in the region. This is a deliberate pause, and we wanted to take this moment to say thank you.

Why Fort Myers, Of All Places

When we first started thinking about where to plant real roots for the Edison Awards, the answer was almost poetic. Thomas Edison came to Fort Myers in 1885, drawn by its climate and natural beauty, and built a winter estate and laboratory that became a home base for experimentation, and later a gathering place for fellow inventors, including his close friend Henry Ford. Decades before “innovation hub” was a phrase anyone used, Fort Myers already was one.

Seven years ago, we set out to reconnect that history to the present. Through the vision of former Mayor Randy Henderson, John Talmage and Tatum Walker, and the generosity and support from the Horizon Foundation, FGCU, Lee County and the City of Fort Myers, and so many other partners who believe in this community, we didn’t just tell that story, we built a stage for it. Southwest Florida became, once again, a place where the world’s innovators gathered. That’s a credit to the region as much as it is to us, and it’s something we’ll always be proud to have built together.

Bringing the World’s Innovators Home

Each year, we welcomed some of the most influential minds on the planet to Fort Myers. People whose ideas have reshaped entire industries and touched lives around the globe. Over seven years, that list included Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia; Jony Ive, former Chief Design Officer at Apple; Gwynne Shotwell, COO of SpaceX; Adam Silver, Commissioner of the NBA; Pat Gelsinger, CEO Intel; Carmichael Roberts, Breakthrough Energy Ventures; Bracken Darrell, CEO, VF Corp; and Reinhold Schmeiding, founder and CEO of Arthrex. The presence of thousands of innovators from more than 15 countries globally turned Southwest Florida into a meeting point for global innovation leadership, drawing international media attention and putting the region on the map alongside the world’s most recognized innovation hubs.

But the story was never just about who showed up for one night. It was about what stayed behind.

The Impact, By the Numbers

Beyond the headlines and the high-profile guests, our seven years in Southwest Florida delivered real, measurable impact. According to Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau, six years of Edison Awards events generated $30 million in new economic impact for Fort Myers and Lee County, supporting local hospitality, tourism, and small businesses while drawing visitors, media, and business interest to the region. Just as meaningfully, the program helped build something harder to measure but just as valuable: a stronger sense of regional pride, connecting students, entrepreneurs, and civic leaders around a shared identity rooted in Edison’s legacy of collaboration and  invention.

Investing in What Comes Next

From the beginning, our work in Southwest Florida was as much about the region’s future as its present. Through hands-on programming with high school and college students across the community, we worked to connect young people directly to innovators, mentors, and career pathways, the kind of connections that can shape a lifetime of achievement. We’re incredibly proud of the students who walked away from these experiences with a new sense of what’s possible for them.

That commitment extended to a close partnership with the Collaboratory, Southwest Florida’s hub for civic innovation and social impact, helping strengthen the pipeline that connects bold local ideas to the resources needed to bring them to life. It’s a partnership we’re proud of and we are thrilled to continue supporting the Collaboratory’s Lightbulb Series events, keeping that connection to the local innovation community alive and active.

We also left something behind that we hope will outlast any single event: the Lewis Latimer Fellowship Program and the inception of the Innovation Walk, a permanent public tribute celebrating the region’s innovators.  

Why We’re Pausing, And Why We’re Not Worried About It

As the Edison Awards marks 40 years of honoring the people and ideas moving our world forward, it felt like the right moment to pause, reflect, and reimagine what the next chapter of this program looks like. That’s why we’re taking a gap year from our gala event in 2027 to make sure the next one is even better. 

“We’ll be spending this time researching how best to present the Edison Awards from 2028 through 2035, and identifying strategies to grow the program’s economic impact by 40 percent,” said Rob Manes, Director of Business Development. “We’ll be working closely with our Steering Committee throughout this process to secure investors and shape what comes next, and look forward to continuing to bring together the people who are building the future, the way we have these past seven years.”

With Gratitude

To Babcock Ranch, Black & Veatch, Blue Waters Development Group, The City of Fort Myers, HBKS, The Horizon Foundation, FGCU, FPL, Lee County Economic Development, The Luminary Hotel, US Sugar, and every partner, sponsor, volunteer, student, and neighbor who welcomed us: thank you. You helped us tell a story about American innovation that grew from one inventor’s winter laboratory into something the world took notice of.

Happy 40th to us. And thank you, Southwest Florida, for seven years we won’t forget.