Building an upskilling ecosystem
How two very different Miami organizations seek to change Miami’s innovation landscape. Here’s what we’re digging into at Opportunity Miami.
This is the March 1, 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 digital age, talent is king. The places that attract and produce the best talent win.
That fact alone has made it a common belief that you need an elite research university at your city’s core to become a place that produces innovative companies and high-wage jobs.
Take, for instance, venture capital investment, in which investors make bets on promising early-stage companies. Last year, according to CB Insights, the three U.S. regions home to the most VC investment were the Bay Area, New York and Boston — the three regions with the best universities in the world.
But the geography of talent and innovation is shifting under our feet — many workers are thinking anew about where they want to live, and cities are recalibrating their approaches to developing their next generation workforces.
To be clear, leading research universities and colleges are vital. Indeed, some cities have buttressed their educational foundations by recruiting top-flight engineering schools, such as New York City’s partnership with Cornell and Technion to create Cornell Tech. But as technology upends our economy and jobs at an ever-increasing clip, non-traditional educational programs are also becoming a key part of the talent development playbook.
It’s built on a bet that many more people can be — in fact, must be — trained to be part of the tech economy. Efforts like certificate programs, reskilling offerings, boot camps, apprenticeships and online training are all part of making that happen.
In Miami, efforts have been ramping up to build an upskilling ecosystem. These range from General Assembly, Brainstation, and Softbank Operator School to Microsoft Accelerate or Correlation One and its Data Science for All initiative.
Last week, this growing and critically important trend was illustrated by two announcements by two very different organizations at very different stages of growth, that are each focused on new ways to develop talent and expand opportunity.
First, Miami Dade College, a 62-year old community pillar that’s risen to become the largest, most diverse campus-based college in the country, announced $15 million in grants to expand its offerings in technology education.
From its founding, MDC was a community college, meant to serve many students off the traditional four-year college track. To illustrate MDC’s unique role, the average student age of its more than 100,000 enrollees is 24, nearly 80 percent of its students work while taking classes, and 58 percent of its students come from low-income backgrounds.
The grant — funded by Knight Foundation, Miami-Dade County, City of Miami and Miami’s Downtown Development Authority — will include 15 new faculty in its School of Engineering and Technology, with a focus on artificial intelligence. It will include an “AI for All” initiative, in which every MDC student takes a course in applied AI. And, while it includes four-year programs, it will significantly expand what is MDC’s bread and butter: two-year associate degree offerings and certificate programs in specific skills.
MDC is taking this step as enrollment in its engineering and technology programs has climbed 120% the last five years. The program serves more than 5,000 students annually.
MDC President Madeline Pumariega said the move is aimed to help “residents upskill to attain economic mobility” and drive “the growth of businesses in South Florida, while fueling the local talent for the jobs of tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, a less than one-year old startup called Bootup announced a $2.1 million seed round to scale its business. Bootup helps companies fill their tech talent gap by identifying candidates from non-traditional educational training programs, and helps individuals find tech training programs and jobs that are the best fit. In 2022, Bootup is expected to help more than 2,000 people across the U.S. land their first jobs in tech at an average salary of more than $75,000 annually.
The company’s founder, Chandler Malone, based in Miami, announced the deal in a Twitter thread, explaining that there’s a 3 million+ person talent gap in the tech industry that’s projected to grow to more than 85 million by 2030. Meanwhile, income equality continues to rise.
Currently, university systems are the largest pipeline of talent into tech, but the annual U.S. enrollment has declined over the past 11 years, leading to three million fewer students enrolled than a decade ago, he wrote.
“Alternative education programs like bootcamps, online course + certifications, and apprenticeship programs help close both the talent and opportunity gaps by making the skills training necessary to succeed in tech jobs more accessible,” Malone wrote.
He continued that cities “like Miami,” which are rapidly growing as a result of a migration of skilled workers, are “at risk of falling victim to some of the same plights” as cities like San Francisco if they “don’t take an aggressive approach to closing income inequality by getting more local citizens into tech careers.”
In sum, it’s the cities that not only have a strong traditional educational ecosystem, but also a strong non-traditional ecosystem of educational opportunities that will win the rapidly changing future.
As always, we would like to hear from you. Email us at next@opportunity.miami or engage with us on social media. Please invite friends to subscribe to this newsletter.
Hope to see you,
Matt Haggman
Opportunity Miami
@matthaggman
Photo (top) by sol on Unsplash
