Big push to train workers for lucrative jobs in Miami’s growing technology arena
Carmen Butcher, an English and communications professor, works with students, seated from left, Lucas Fernandez, Jacklyn Calzadilla, Lea Rabaron and Grace Penza, to solve a problem during a class at Miami Dade College’s North Campus. They are trying to use artificial intelligence to look for literary devices in Harry Potter novels.
Since he was 18, Christopher Matthews has worked at Pizza Hut and 7-11, done a stint in food delivery and taught carpentry. Now, the Miami native is trying to forge a vocational path that could lead to a promising career.
Seated at a desk in front of his computer screen at a plush new artificial intelligence center at Miami Dade College’s North Campus on a recent evening, Matthews, 25, was digesting how to use chatbots to analyze information found on the web and becoming familiar with computer programming. He’s a student in an AI Thinking class.
Last fall, he started the college’s two-year associate’s degree program in cybersecurity. Although still in his first year, he added one of the newer courses in artificial intelligence, even though his major didn’t require it. It piqued his interest, and he was also thinking practically, “what is the most amount of money I can make with the least amount of arduous labor.”
He concluded, “Tech was the perfect balance to me because it always came easy to me.”
Matthews is one of more than 100 Miami Dade students, and among countless others in South Florida, looking and hoping to find satisfying, good-paying jobs provided by the explosive growth in Miami’s technology and finance sectors. The AI class he’s taking is part of an expanding tech curriculum the college is offering thanks to securing $15 million early last year in private and public funding.
To be sure, in many ways, now may seem like a strange time to go all-in on tech. Companies in the oldest innovation hubs in the United States, such as California, have recently laid off thousands of workers. Google and Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent, have slashed their payrolls. Venture capital funding of startups nationwide plummeted last year.
Yet, Miami, long known for its verve and glamour, has moved in a different rhythm the past two years. In 2022, it drew a record amount of venture capital, surpassing $5.3 billion, its second straight yearly increase. Respected national venture investment firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund now have offices here.
With that though comes the pressure to produce enough local workers to sustain the rapid growth in the technology industry. And so, Miami is rushing to produce a new generation of workers for the digital economy. It is accelerating the development of education options — in high school through college and for continuing career learning — to meet the needs of the growing companies here and sustain the tech boom.
City and county business, political and education leaders also want to help ensure that as more millionaires move to Miami from established tech hubs, locals are not cast aside or left behind because they don’t have necessary skills and training required for an array of high-paying job openings in technology and computerrelated fields.
COMES DOWN TO EDUCATION
“When we talk about how we democratize opportunity for all Miamians, how we make sure every single Miamian born in this city can partake of the high-paying jobs we’re creating in this Miami movement, it always comes down to one thing: education,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said in February 2022, during an event with going toe-to-toe over raising the U.S. debt limit.
The deadline to do that approaches, so the country won’t default on its debts — a calamitous event that would send shock waves through the global economy if it happened..
Another strong month of inflation does not guarantee a recession, but will continue to test the Fed’s resolve and investors’ patience.
Tom Hudson is chief content officer at WAMU public radio station in Washington, D.C.
established tech hubs, but “now, we need to continue to produce more [talent] to be able to support the many hundreds of jobs that have already been publicly committed for growth.”
A big reason that’s vital to the local economy is the average salary for tech hires in the county since 2017 was $97,000, about $40,000 above the median household income in Miami-Dade, according to Beacon Council data.
Antonio Delgado, vice president of technology and innovation partnerships at Miami Dade College, said generating tech talent “is key for Miami to continue growing.”
Emblematic of the massive education effort underway countywide is what’s happening at the college, the school that traditionally caters to middleand lower-income Miamians. It had already bet heavily on cybersecurity studies but now is assembling a broad range of additional coursework covering artificial intelligence, cloud computing and much more.
GOING BIG ON AI
Now, using its $15 million windfall — $7 million from the Knight Foundation, $5 million from Miami-Dade County, $2 million from the city of Miami and $1 million from the Miami Downtown Development Authority — it is adding a bevy of artificial intelligence coursework and faculty by the end of the decade.
Six of 15 new professors, three in AI/Data Analytics and three in computer science, were hired. Nine more will join the college over three years.
The college has approved plans for a fourmonth certificate program, two-year associate’s in science degree, and fouryear bachelor of science degree focused on artificial intelligence.
Delgado said the Florida Department of Education recently recommended approval of the four-month certificate program and the associate’s degree, and he expects both to be presented to the State Board of Education in April. If approved, both programs would become available in the 2023-24 school year. The four-year degree was approved by the college’s Board of Trustees in February and now awaits review by the state education department.
Some of the $15 million also goes to a separate innovation fund run by Miami Dade College President Madeline Pumariega. It also supports 10 faculty projects that apply AI in innovative ways. That includes an English professor getting her student to use AI tools to analyze Harry Potter books. Each project receives $10,000.
Separately, the college, via a $2 million state investment, is creating a tech-focused charter high school. It plans to start with ninth and tenth grades in August and is recruiting students. It will be housed in a building at the college’s downtown campus. Students will be able to take classes at Miami
Dade, while still in high school and graduate with a high school diploma and associate’s degree in science.
Pierson Mandell, 21, is a classmate of Matthews’ in the college’s AI Thinking class. He hopes to land a job at a Miami tech company.
He credits the college with the way the class is being taught. “Everyone can follow along no matter where we’re coming from, which I think is really nice.”
That’s by design, faculty members said.
“The majority of our students are non-tech students,” said professor George Gabb, associate senior professor in the information technology department at Miami Dade, and one of the leaders developing the AI initiatives.
“And they are very interested in understanding the technology.”
TECH BOOT CAMPS WITH TRACK RECORD
Training people new to tech has precedence and past success in Miami.
Wyncode Academy started offering classes and boot camps in computer coding and other digital skills in 2014. Since then, more than 1,400 individuals have gone through the academy. The majority of them eventually were hired by South Florida tech companies, co-founder Johanna Mikkola said.
Microsoft, Google, and Stripe, among others, have hired its students. After the private equity giant Blackstone opened an office in Miami in 2020, it hired several people who attended Wyncode, said the firm’s chief technology officer John Stecher.
Blackstone has also worked closely with local universities, Stecher said. “We’ve grown out of the [two] floors that we have.”
Brainstation’s acquisi