By Raul Moas
Over the last five years, Knight Foundation, headquartered in Miami, has eagerly supported the creatives, entrepreneurs and changemakers who are shaping our city's future. We have sought to amplify key trends, supporting innovators in transforming ideas into ventures.
Rather than providing funding to companies directly, Knight’s more than $25 million in investments have helped build an ecosystem in Miami, focusing on three pillars:
· Connecting entrepreneurs at all levels.
· Attracting capital and investment.
· Building Miami’s talent base.
Our goal throughout has been to foster a startup culture, open to the broader community, to establish Miami as a place where ideas are built and scaled. With this goal in mind, Knight Foundation has proudly sponsored eMerge Americas since its start.
Some of our key investments have seen much success. They represent different building blocks in this journey: places to connect and build ideas, such as The LAB Miami; major events, including eMerge Americas and Black Tech Week; mentorship and funding opportunities, such as Endeavor Miami and Miami Angels; and entrepreneurship education programs that help to close the opportunity gap, including LaunchCode, Girls Who Code, Babson College’s Women Innovating Now Lab, CodeFever and Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Taking the time to learn from the investments that did not meet intended goals is as important as celebrating successes. At Knight, we recognize that the keenest insights are often gleaned from missteps and failures.
We’re proud to be a part of what the Miami community has accomplished in such a small window of time. Miami’s innovation economy is growing, and each week we welcome an increasing number of amazing people to our city. We know that eMerge Americas has played a key role in driving Miami's growing innovation economy. Yet, like you, we know there's more to achieve, more opportunities to explore, and more obstacles to overcome. In a spirit of continuous learning, we want to hear from you about what it will take to ensure Miami succeeds as an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Where do the greatest untapped opportunities exist to enable our culture to grow stronger? What challenges may arise? Where has progress been too stubborn and slow?
I want to hear from you directly. If you’re able to join, I’ll be at the following events in the month ahead and would love to see you there.
Meet Knight Foundation Breakfast
Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 9 a.m.
@ Knight Foundation: 200 S. Biscayne Blvd., Suite 3300, Miami, FL 33131
Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 6:30 p.m.
@ Converge Miami, Amazon Room: 1951 N.W. Seventh Ave., Suite 600, Miami, FL 33136
April 23 and 24, 2018
@ Knight Foundation Booth: Miami Beach Convention Center
Raul Moas is Miami program director at Knight Foundation. You can reach him at moas@knightfoundation.org; his Twitter is @rmoas.
