Setting new benchmarks for our future

Our educational leaders establish talent goals for Greater Miami -- and a look ahead.

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Join us on Thursday for our latest event with the Academic Leaders Council which will focus on community-wide talent development goals. Register here.

More than two years ago, in November 2021, we launched Opportunity Miami as the successor to One Community One Goal at the Miami-Dade Beacon Council. The mission stayed the same - helping shape Greater Miami’s economic future - but the focus and strategy evolved. 

We set our gaze on the Miami of 2040 - when the child today will be readying to enter the workforce - and identified three areas critical to that future. Driving entrepreneurship and innovation. Dramatically increasing talent development and inclusion. Becoming a leader in the transition to a sustainable, net-zero economy. 

The strategy, meanwhile, moved from voluminous reports and an annual meeting to a variety of weekly engagements: newsletter, podcast, video series, and events. The aim was to create a flexible platform that allows us to learn as we go. 

We especially leaned into talent and sustainability, declaring in a Miami Herald op-ed that Miami’s future is a “talent and sustainability game.” Our second newsletter, on Nov. 23, 2021, was entitled “Making Miami a climate tech leader.” Dozens and dozens of podcasts, newsletters, events, and meetups followed. It was exciting last Fall to see South Florida designated as a Climate Resilience Tech Hub by the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

With the Academic Leaders Council, we’ve done the same around talent development. This Thursday we’ll take another step with the ALC - composed of the presidents of Miami’s six major colleges and universities and the Superintendent of Public Schools – by sharing community-wide talent development goals. We will meet at 9 am on Thursday at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami. You can find further details and register here. 

TRANSITION  

As we take this next step, I wanted to share some news: after more than two wonderful years launching and leading Opportunity Miami with an amazing team, I accepted a new role to help in the work of building a national non-profit supporting entrepreneurship across the country. For more than two decades I’ve worked and focused on Miami - as a reporter at The Miami Herald, at Knight Foundation, as a candidate for US Congress, and here with Opportunity Miami at the Miami-Dade Beacon Council. I’ve loved all of it, but this new opportunity is a unique one.  

After discussing this news with my Opportunity Miami and Beacon Council colleagues a few weeks ago, I wanted to share it with you - readers of our Opportunity Miami newsletter. I’ll share more in the days ahead about this new role. Thursday with the ALC will be my final event with Opportunity Miami. 

EXCITING THINGS AHEAD

With the amazing team behind Opportunity Miami, it is in great hands and very exciting things are ahead. 

The past two years have reaffirmed to me the importance of a platform like Opportunity Miami. Namely, the importance of having a place that very intentionally pulls itself out of the here and now, and is laser-focused on the long-term future. It's a luxury that, for instance, elected officials or news media rarely have; the pressure on each is often to address present-day challenges. 

With every podcast, conversation series, on site video series, and newsletter, we’ve tried to check three boxes. Namely, content that’s relevant to Miami, about the future, and offers a solution. Indeed, if people were asked to give a word cloud about Opportunity Miami the aim is that those three words come to mind: Miami, Future, Solutions. 

As we’ve thought about the next iteration of Opportunity Miami, three things have come to mind as potential additional paths forward. One, to be a platform that sets goals for our future and tracks progress. On Thursday we will do that with the ALC as it relates to talent development, but it could be in other areas too. Two, to be a robust source of research about our future. Three, actively work to make a few select, strategic projects happen that are important for our future. For instance, not just advocate for a Climate Campus - which we’ve brought up several times in this space - but actively work to make it a reality. 

There are many directions Opportunity Miami can go. And that is the point: to create a platform with a long-term view that isn’t static, but changes and evolves. After all, the world today requires compasses, not maps. 

THE MIAMI OF 2040  

In the last two years, we’ve set Opportunity Miami’s mission as imagining the Miami of 2040 and helping our community build it. It’s a question we’ve posed again and again in many different forums: What do you think the Miami of 2040 should look like? And what do you think we should do to get there? 

I was recently asked that question. My response was centered on the three areas we’ve focused on Opportunity Miami these past two years. 

One, the Miami of 2040 can be one of the leading centers of startup activity and innovation in North America. Two, it can be the most uniquely diverse, skilled regional workforce in the Western Hemisphere. Three, Miami can be the global hub for climate solutions and a worldwide leader in the transition to a sustainable, net-zero economy. 

This can be the Miami of 2040. The bet is that if we do these three things, many other good things will happen too. 

Hope to see you Thursday at 9 am at Miami Dade College with the ALC to set talent development goals for our community. 

– Matt