Reasons for Miami to Develop as a Technology Center in the US

The city of Miami always surprises for different reasons from its incredible beaches to its impressive malls, now several businessmen and investors want it to develop as one of the technology centers U.S..

By MiamiDiario Newsroom

Among the initiatives organized by various businessmen, he highlighted the eMerge Americas event which was held last May in Miami, in which participated -among other prominent personalities- Steve Case who is a venture investor and former CEO of America OnLine, the singer and entrepreneur Armando Christian Pérez, better known as Pitbull, prominent musician and entrepreneur, reported forbes.com.

Steve Case

More than 16 thousand assistants including investors and business executives from 40 countries attended eMerge Americas, apparently this has been the latest attempt to develop a Miami for it to be a global startup hub concentrated on Latin America.

The reality is that converting to Miami in a tech hub is an ambitious goal for a city that has now become a national business centerIn fact, it is listed along with New York and Los Angeles as one of the most popular locations in the United States for startup activity.

Due to the multiculturalism that exists in Miami -because it is one of the cities that has one of the immigrant communities largest in the United States - becomes a emerging hub for Latin America without actually being in that region.

CEO of eMerge Americas, Felice Gorordo

eMerge Americas

El CEO of eMerge Americas, Felice Gorordo he stated, "We have our fair share of challenges."

Gorordo, who also organized the kick-off program, noted, "Part of our secret sauce is that we are a city built by immigrants. Miami is a very young city, but we have the courage and resilience of those people. Miami is a startup in itself. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves, you can do it here."

One example was given by Cuban businessman, Manny Medina, who sold his data center company, Terremark, to Verizon for $1.4 billion seven years ago, and decided that Miami needed a systems builder, so he created emerges, a conference company with an affiliated philanthropic arm.

The investors in eMerge are Pitbull, baseball player Alex Rodríguez, and Felice Gorordo, who was named CEO of the organization by Medina.

Miami It works!

something is really going on Miami, since according to the Economic Innovation Group, from 2010 to 2014 it was one of the five metropolis that accounted for 50% of all new businesses in the United States, the other four were New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas.

In 2016, an investigation by the Martin Prosperity Institute concluded that Miami was in the 15th place in terms of venture capital dollars, with 0,98% of total US venture capital investment. The cities taking the most venture capital investment are Silicon Valley, New York and Boston.

The Kauffman Index found that in 2017 South Florida earned the first place as a city with startup activity in the United States.

Pitchbook indicated that in 2018, Miami ranked 11th place in terms of investment dollars, with $1.4 billion.

But, the city of Miami also has its detractors, such as the sociologist Alejandro Portes, who recently asserted that this metropolis was NOT a start-up center, at least not on a global scale, because it does not have first-rate universities.

But despite that opinion Miami has several elements that place it as a city With Startup Activity, one of them is that it is a immigrant town, who start businesses at higher rates than native people, and the energy that comes from a mix of cultures also helps.

Immigrant cities maintain their links with their countries through diasporas, that relationship helps the start-up activity. eMerge produced a semi-annual report to report on the connections between Miami and startups in Latin America.

Another influencing aspect is that the business world is changing. Gorordo believes that what makes a city like Miami a tech hub is having thriving innovation and "an entrepreneurial ecosystem that is built on the support and collaboration of all businesses: from government to the top."