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Celebrating A Decade Shaping The Future Of Tech

eMerge Americas Announces Kathryn Finney As Keynote Speaker

Kathryn Finney is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and the Founder and Managing General Partner of Genius Guild, a Chicago-based venture fund. Genius Guild invests in scalable businesses led by Black founders using innovation to build and promote healthy communities. Kathryn's visionary leadership actively fosters economic, financial, and social opportunities for Black-owned businesses across the United States. At eMerge 2024, Kathryn Finney will share invaluable insights on the challenges minority founders face and how supporting minority entrepreneurs and their visions lifts up their communities. 

Endeavor Miami's Claudia Duran On What Investors Look For In Startups

Claudia Duran is used to making big changes. Now based in South Florida, she continues to support entrepreneurs as the managing director of Endeavor Miami. Founded in 2013, the organization mentors and accelerates high-growth ventures in the tri-county region. It’s the first U.S. affiliate of Endeavor, a global nonprofit that has advised and helped scale more than 1,000 ventures worldwide.

 

-Source: South Florida Business Journal

$5M Gift To UM To Help Elevate Student Entrepreneurs With New Accelerator Program And Funding

The University of Miami has long empowered aspiring engineers, architects, and entrepreneurs from all disciplines to develop design ideas as part of their coursework and capstone projects. The next step — the ability to launch student-created concepts in the marketplace — has received a significant boost with a $5 million pledge from University alumnus Angel Alvarez, founder and chairman of ABB OPTICAL, and his family to establish the University Student Startup Accelerator or USTAAR. The USTAAR program is open to any student or student team from any area of the University and will nurture and support their new ideas from inception to implementation. Motivated by their own experiences as successful entrepreneurs, Alvarez and his brother, Victor, seek to galvanize student entrepreneurs — helping them turn their daydreams into real-life ventures. “Our vision is to be a catalyst that allows students to see how they can change the world,” explained Angel Alvarez. 

 

-Source: Refresh Miami

The Future Of Insurance: Fintech 50 2024

Fintech startups have taken longer than many expected to crack the insurance business. Some of the companies that have exited the private market, like auto insurer Root and home insurer Hippo, continue to see deeply depressed stock prices years after going public. But six insurtech startups still made standout progress over the past year and earned spots on our Fintech 50 list for 2024, with each using technology differently to try to make insurance cheaper, more effective and more accessible. Cyber insurance, where companies offer coverage against incidents like ransomware attacks and phishing emails, is the fastest growing category of insurance, and two startups made our list again this year: Coalition and At-Bay. The two six-year-old San Francisco companies, both founded by former government intelligence analysts, have used tech to better assess the risks that small and mid-sized businesses will suffer from costly hacks–and to alert their customers to potential threats. 

 

 

-Source: Forbes

OpenAI Shows Off Life-Like Videos Made With AI

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI showed off a new AI tool that can generate highly realistic 60-second videos based off a simple text prompt, a jump forward in quality for AI videos and “deepfakes” that have already been used to deceive voters. The new tool, called “Sora,” will initially only be available to a small group of artists and filmmakers as well as “red teamers,” or researchers who try to find ways that an AI tool can be used for malicious purposes, OpenAI said in an announcement last Thursday. Sora builds on the tech behind OpenAI’s image-generating DALL-E tool. It interprets a user’s prompt, expanding it into a more detailed set of instructions, and then uses an AI model trained on video and images to create the new video. The quality of AI-generated images, audio and video has rapidly increased over the past year, with companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta and Stable Diffusion racing to make more capable tools and find ways to sell them. 

 

-Source: Washington Post 

Odysseus, A Private Lunar Lander, Launches Toward the Moon

Another month, another try at the moon. A robotic lunar lander launched into space last week. If all goes well, on Feb. 22 it will become the first American spacecraft to gently set down on the moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972. It would also become the first private effort to reach the surface of the moon in one piece. Three earlier attempts, by an American company, a Japanese company and an Israeli nonprofit, failed. The company in charge of this mission, Intuitive Machines of Houston, is optimistic. “I feel fairly confident that we’re going to be successful softly touching down on the moon,” Stephen Altemus, the president and chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said in an interview. “We’ve done the tests. We tested and tested and tested. As much testing as we could do.” If private companies can pull off this feat, at a cost much lower than a traditional NASA mission, that will open the door to wider exploration of the moon by NASA and commercial endeavors. 

 

-Source: New York Times

CELEBRATE!

February 28th | eMerge Americas

 

Join us as we merge with Chris Adamo & Natalia Martinez-Kalinina’s “Miami Tech Happy Hour” for a night of networking, music, light bites & drinks, + a live pitch event shining a light on Black Changemakers’ + Leaders’ POV. Celebrate Black History Month and explore the story of diversity in our community. 6 PM EST. 

February Happy Hour

February 20th | Women in Miami Tech

 

Join us for our monthly Women in Miami Tech Happy Hour! Connect with fellow founders, tech professionals and investors, all with the goal of supporting and advancing each other! Atmosphere is friendly and casual. Come as you are, bring friends or come alone, stay as little or as long as you like! 6-8 PM EST.

State of the CIO LIVE! 2024

March 5th | CIO Council of South Florida

 

The CIO Council of South Florida invites you to join us for the 18th Annual State of the CIO LIVE! The State of the CIO brings together senior IT leaders from across the region for a morning of learning, sharing, and connecting. 7 AM EST. 

Shine! Pitch Competition

Deadline: March 6th | eMerge Americas

 

In celebration of Women's History Month, we are offering female founders an opportunity to showcase their startup. As such, at least one member of the founding team must be representative of this gender identity. 6 companies will pitch live on March 20th! The winner of the Shine! pitch competition will receive a $2,500 grant prize. Please submit your application by March 6, 2024 for consideration. Please submit your application by March 6, 2024 for consideration.

Women Leading Change: Making a Difference

March 14th | FIU Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication

 

Aspire to be a future leader. Join the first woman president of the Knight Foundation in a discussion about what it takes to become a leader and make a positive impact in your profession. Kopenhaver Center Virgil and Joann Smith Thought Leaders Forum for Women’s History Month presents two of our council colleagues,  Maribel Perez Wadsworth, the first woman president of the Knight Foundation, and Dianne Lynch, president of Stephens College, as they discuss Women Leading Change: Making a Difference. 1 PM EST. 

2024 M-DCPS MEGA NAF Student Industry Conference

April 16th | Miami-Dade County Public School

 

This annual conference features a college & career fair, employers from different NAF themes, and industry-related workshop sessions, plus opportunities for students to interview for internships with industry partners. The goal is to expose students and teachers to in-demand topics and skills and connect employers with the local HS talent pipeline.

S.T.E.A.M. Day

April 17th | Miami Marlins

 

The Miami Marlins have teamed up with local school boards to invite students in grades K-8 to loanDepot park for our annual S.T.E.A.M. Day field trip. Enjoy a Pre-Game S.T.E.A.M. Fair with hands-on activities followed by a Marlins game! 

2024 Concordia Americas Summit

April 22nd-23rd | Concordia

 

Now in its eighth year, the 2024 Concordia Americas Summit will provide the leading nonpartisan, public-private sector forum on the Western Hemisphere, bringing to the forefront the abundance of opportunities to embrace market-led solutions that have the potential to transform the region and advance opportunity. Conversations will promote the discussion, definition, and implementation of impactful market-led transformations.

100 Startup Project Scholarship
Apply Now| lan B. Levan NSU Broward Center of Innovation

 

Calling all entrepreneurs in need! Thanks to the generous support of Memorial Healthcare System, we are thrilled to offer 10 entrepreneurs the opportunity of a lifetime—a one-year membership to the Levan Center of Innovation. Don't miss this chance to access a variety of resources, mentorship, and a thriving community that will help turn your dreams into reality. Apply now and join us on this incredible journey towards success.

TEALS Volunteer Program

Recruiting Now | Microsoft Philanthropies TEALS Program

 

TEALS is a Microsoft Philanthropies program looking for volunteer computer science professionals that wish to use their skills to inspire the coders and creators of tomorrow. Volunteering with TEALS helps to make a difference in our community and schools that stand to gain the most from computer science knowledge and expertise. Volunteers help TEALS provide high school students with equitable access to CS education and create a pathway to economic opportunity. 

eMerge Americas  2222 Ponce de Leon Blvd  Miami  FL 

 

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