Students to tech employers: Take a chance on us and watch us grow

Miami Tech Talent Coalition showcases programs that help connect emerging talent with opportunities.

We do have tech talent in South Florida, particularly rising talent that just needs a chance to show what they can do and are capable of learning quickly. Last week’s Miami Tech Talent Coalition gathering was all about putting some of that emerging talent on stage for all the attending businesses to see for themselves.

Coral Gables, for instance, developed a work experience incubator they call Gables Tech Tank to surface and track emerging talent for companies as well as offer work experience with live industry projects. “We do have great talent coming out of our colleges and universities, and we just need to work together to get those stories out in our community,” said Belkys Perez, Coral Gables’ Director of Economic Development.

The Miami Tech Talent Coalition, as part of Miami Tech Works, is on a mission to help build pathways for students and professionals into well-paying local jobs in tech. The employer-led Coalition, hundreds of members strong, has been working to connect emerging tech talent coming out of universities and tech bootcamps with employers through meetings like the one last week in Coral Gables packed with employers and community leaders. The Coalition also surfaces best practices from innovative programs like the Gables TechTank and Break Through Tech, an organization focused on launching a generation of diverse talent into tech careers.

Coral Gables created a survey for all the city’s tech companies and discovered that nearly half of them rated cybersecurity their top essential skill, and data science, AI, machine learning and full-stack development weren’t far behind. When the city asked if they would be interested in participating in a program that could provide that tech talent, three quarters of respondents said yes. “With this information, we decided to bridge the gap between our businesses and the community by facilitating the upskilling of professionals through training programs. The goal is to provide reliable, sustainable sources of technical talent, data services and innovative solutions to organizations located within the City of Coral Gables,” Perez said.

As part of that, Gables TechTank partnered with the Miami-based tech bootcamp 4Geeks Academy and a division of Beyond Academics to create a syllabus to address the technical skills needed in the labor force and provide that training with certificates and credentials.

Later in the meeting, 15 students from local colleges and high schools got an opportunity to demo some of the projects they have been working on as interns with the City of Coral Gables this summer, many of them related to smart city innovation, which the City Beautiful is well known for. Projects the students worked on included a tree of the year project that involves NFTs, an augmented reality tour of the city, a Coral Gables archives project, AR experiences for city departments, a drone data project, a video game experience about navigating obstacles, a real-time map of city repair and improvement needs, and many more.

“It’s challenging, but at the same time, it’s super motivating to keep learning and to keep growing as a professional,” said Patricia Hernandez, a student at Miami Dade College and one of the interns. The experience “pushed me out of my comfort zone,” added Nathan Chen, an FIU student. “I took the lead in front-end development, and it required a lot of communication with my mentor and my team, and it helped me to develop professionally as well.”

The Inclusive Tech Talent Workgroup, chaired by Toia Santamarina of Radical Partners and Selenis Leguisamon of AWS and one of the four employer-led workgroups within the Tech Talent Coalition, also shined a spotlight on our region’s emerging tech talent.

*The Inclusive Tech Talent WorkGroup’s* *Toia Santamarina and Selenis Leguisamon speak with students Ian De Leon and Elizabeth Hechevarria.*

Ian De Leon, a recent FIU computer science graduate, is working at La Calle Group, thanks to the help of Break Through Tech that helped connect him with an internship. He’s now working in back-end development and has been dabbling in front-end development too while helping to create innovative products for the company.

Elizabeth Hechevarria is a project manager at FIU’s ShellHacks, Florida’s largest hackathon, as part of INIT, which aims to engage high school students to get interested in computer science. She earned her software development degree at MDC and is now working studying cybersecurity at FIU.

Hechevarria said she went into the workforce with this attitude: “I’m going to tackle everything they give me. I’m going to do it well.” Fellow employees were happy to help her out, she said. “If you see someone who’s graduated with a degree, who has had part time or full time jobs and they have a good GPA, give them a shot,” she told the audience. “I would highly encourage you to go for the underdog, because although they don’t have experience, they don’t have bad habits formed. “

Terri-Ann Brown, Director of Miami Tech Works, agrees. Young talent, she said, is “basically a canvas that an employer can look at and say, what can I build, what can I create with this?”

To employers in the audience, Brown added, “I hope that you are walking away from this with so much energy and so much inspiration for what we are building here in South Florida.” She also reminded the employers that Miami Tech Works has resources and funding to help. “We look to bring in a lot of different funding partners to help employers grow and scale your internship programs. So please let us know how we can help you.”

Miami Tech Works is funded by a $10-million, three-year grant through the US Economic Development Administration and is a consortium of leaders from Miami Dade College, FIU, Florida Memorial University, OIC of South Florida, Brain Station, 4Geeks Academy, Ironhack, and additional partners. Its mission, in part, is to identify and partner with the training programs that lead to tech jobs paying $70,000+ for South Florida students and residents and its goal is to train at least 1,000 people and place 500 In jobs. Miami Tech Works is currently tracking the participation of 1,233 participants. To date, 111 of them have been placed into full-time jobs and 107 have been placed into internships.

“Your call to action today, if you’re an employer, is you’ve got plenty of work to do with partnerships,” Brown said. “Let us know how Miami Tech Works can help you. We’ve got the ClimateReady Tech Hub coming up. We’ve got lots of reinvestments coming into the community. There’s even a broadband grant that’s coming up. If you’re a community partner that’s passionate about the tech talent pipeline, there are lots of opportunities to partner. If you are an intern looking for job opportunities, there’s opportunities to grow and develop yourself.”

*Miami Tech Works Director Terri-Ann Brown*

For employers: How to get involved in the Miami Tech Talent Coalition

Your involvement can make a significant difference in shaping the future of Miami’s tech industry, creating a vibrant and sustainable tech talent ecosystem. Together, participants can continue to build Miami as an innovative hub and a desirable destination for businesses and tech talent.

Join the Coalition here. Employers can also specify a work group they are interested in.

Attend a meeting: The next Coalition meeting is Oct. 10, 2024. Register here.

Stay connected with the coalition’s progress and updates by signing up for their newsletter here, reviewing the website here, and following Miami Tech Works on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Miami Tech Talent Coalition showcases programs that help connect emerging talent with opportunities.

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For employers: How to get involved in the Miami Tech Talent Coalition

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