Building an Innovative, Entrepreneurial and Equitable Miami
This is the April 12, 2022 edition of the Opportunity Miami newsletter, which we send every Tuesday. Click here to subscribe to get our weekly updates in your inbox.
In the middle of a cold December night in 1989, sculptor Arturo Di Modica drove into lower Manhattan in a flatbed truck and illegally deposited a 7,100 pound bronze bull on the sidewalk outside the New York Stock Exchange. The next day, even as gawkers and admirers gathered, police were called and the enormous sculpture installed without a permit was carted away.
Yet, amid an outcry of support, the “Charging Bull” was brought back and remains a Wall Street fixture to this day.
Now Miami has its own version of the iconic bull. Last week a 3,000 pound, laser eyed, Transformer action figure-looking interpretation was unveiled at the launch of Bitcoin 2022 on Miami Beach. Unlike Di Modica’s work of public art, though, this was done with the knowledge and enthusiastic support of government officials.
“Welcome to the future of finance,” City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said, as the futuristic bull was revealed, and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava stood nearby.
Miami Tech Month is here. Miami NFT Week kicked it off in Wynwood. Then Bitcoin 2022 on Miami Beach. Upcoming events include eMerge Americas, CoMotion Miami, Miami Tech Summit, Premios Verdes and Miami Tech Week. It’s a month when we take another step in imagining what’s possible for Miami.
It’s also a time when we redouble efforts to ensure we are building a future that provides opportunity to all of Miami.
With that in mind, Tech Equity Miami was announced this month. It’s an ambitious effort to galvanize funding in initiatives across Miami that remove barriers to tech and create more opportunities for under-represented groups. The goal is to spur $100 million invested in initiatives over the next five years.
Today we’re launching a partnership with Tech Equity Miami by featuring a series of essays focused on each of the four areas the initiative is focused on. Namely, facilitating greater broadband access, building pipelines by exposing more K-12 students to tech, developing talent by creating more career pathways into tech, and assisting small business owners to better use technology to propel their businesses.
To start, we’re sharing a post by Leigh-Ann Buchanan, president and founder of Aire Ventures, which is leading Tech Equity Miami, along with JP Morgan Chase, Knight Foundation and The Miami Foundation. You can find the post here.
As we continue to mourn the loss of our friend and leader, Miami-Dade Beacon Council CEO Michael A. Finney, it’s a timely effort too. Mike believed deeply in the need to expand opportunity across the entire community. It’s for that reason that he launched Miami Community Ventures.
Indeed, last week in announcing Tech Equity Miami, Mayor Levine Cava said of Mike, “It’s really hard to imagine doing this announcement without him.”
The need for expanding opportunity in tech is clear. Established centers of innovation, such as San Francisco and Silicon Valley, are marked by wide income disparity and a notable lack of diversity. Miami is already a place that struggles with large socio-economic divides, making it even more important that the city’s rise as a tech hub not exacerbate existing gaps.
But, more than concerns about how things can go wrong, this is a moment to focus on how things can go right. Namely, as Miami emerges as a center of tech and innovation in its own right, it has the opportunity to build a uniquely diverse, tech-enabled workforce that is differentiated nationally, even globally.
Consider the numbers. We’re building a tech community in a metro area of 2.6 million people (that’s Miami-Dade County’s population — by the far the biggest county in Florida). Our population is 87.1 percent Black or Hispanic, and 54 percent were born outside the U.S. By providing the tools, support and pathways to people across Miami-Dade to have careers in tech, we have the chance to do something special: build a center of innovation that is truly diverse and drives social mobility across the community.
To learn more, check out the projects that are already part of Tech Equity Miami (and seeking further support), or consider your own projects that could be part of this consortium.
After all, it’s on us to build the Miami we want. And someday when people look at our Miami version of the “Charging Bull” — which will be relocated to Miami-Dade College’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami — they will see public art that not only represents a community building an innovative and entrepreneurial future, but an equitable one too.
As always, we want to hear from you. Email us at next@opportunity.miami or engage with us on social media. Please invite friends to subscribe to the newsletter here.
Hope to see you at one — or many — of the gatherings during Miami Tech Month.
Matt Haggman
Opportunity Miami
matt@opportunity.miami
@matthaggman
P.S. Our friend Justin Sayfie, who is organizing the Miami Tech Summit, has offered a discount to our readers to attend the conference at Perez Art Museum Miami. Please go here and use the password “ToTheMoon” and promo code “Beacon.”
