Three years after Hurricane Ian struck Sanibel Island, business leaders from the area turned to Florida Gulf Coast University’s Daveler & Kauanui School of Entrepreneurship for help tracking recovery progress. Mark Bole, faculty fellow at FGCU’s Ain Technology & Design Hub and an entrepreneurship instructor, explained that local leaders struggled with decision-making due to a lack of reliable data. “They couldn’t track recovery very well after Ian and the other hurricanes. They were making decisions without good data, and they were concerned about that,” Bole said.
In response, Bole and six students consolidated recovery data previously spread across various sources. The result was the “Sanibel Solutions” dashboard, an artificial intelligence-powered tool designed to monitor the island’s post-hurricane recovery. The dashboard provides civic leaders, residents, and businesses with access to data and analysis on housing, infrastructure, tourism, and economic indicators. According to Bole, “It took us about a weekend to build it, prototype it, and then another month and a half to collect all the data from all the different sources.”
The project aimed to support rebuilding efforts by offering measurable tools tailored to Sanibel’s challenges. “We’re teaching our students how to solve problems — and there’s plenty of problems to solve in Southwest Florida,” Bole said.
Students like Stella Kane, team leader at Ain Hub and a digital media design major, used AI technology such as ChatGPT for in-depth research on businesses assigned to them. Kane noted that within 20 minutes she had comprehensive information for meetings: “I felt far more prepared to go into the first meeting because I could tell them about their own company instead of asking questions.” Bole highlighted that while traditional agencies may spend weeks researching clients at significant cost, his team arrived prepared with AI-driven insights.
“Starting on day one, we had a marketing strategy that we had the businesses review. Then we built a social media strategy, and they could just react to it and tweak it,” Kane added.
Eric Pfeifer, broker and owner of Pfeifer Realty Group on Sanibel, observed how some businesses hesitated to reopen while waiting for visitors’ return—while some visitors delayed their trips until more businesses reopened. He said the dashboard helped bridge this gap: “No one knows what they don’t know after a disaster. We needed professional help.” He called the dashboard “the best — and only — way to track progress.”
The FGCU team identified 40 key metrics comparing current conditions with those before Hurricane Ian. Their analysis revealed that while Sanibel had rebounded more than many expected, limited lodging capacity continued as a major challenge affecting tourism and tax revenue. The city also adopted improved construction permitting processes based on insights from the collected data.
Bole commented on these developments: “We were able to quantify not just what that capacity is, but the trickle-down effect on tourism, tax revenue and businesses.” He added that visualizing impacts through AI-driven analysis provided clarity for community discussions: “I think everything we showed here, they knew intuitively. But getting agreement on what the real problems are becomes harder when you don’t have a dashboard.”
He concluded that these efforts offer hope: “The dashboard and the workshops are taking a community that was pretty beat up and giving them some hope.”
The Ain Technology & Design Hub was established in 2023 through a $2 million donation from Mark Ain, founder of Kronos Incorporated. Through projects like Sanibel Solutions, FGCU aims to strengthen its partnerships within Southwest Florida communities.
“Mark knew that when students tackle real problems in partnership with the business community, they rise to the challenge, learn more deeply and create real change. I see that every day in the projects my students take on and in the confidence they gain,” Bole said. “Our students are getting real world experience and they’re making a difference.”
Pfeifer expressed appreciation for FGCU’s involvement: “We could not have made the same progress without [the Ain Hub students]. The city of Sanibel and all of its residents are just so thankful that FGCU understood how devastating this event was, and we feel they acknowledged that we are all one big community,” he said. “Feeling that FGCU is a partner with us and aiding in our recovery is very comforting.”
