Our Why
This is a pivotal moment for Miami. We have never been positioned so strongly for success as we are today. But we also face daunting and ongoing challenges – from sea-level rise, to income inequality, to a much-needed economic reinvention that’s just getting started.
Opportunity Miami is a platform to help catalyze a long-term vision for Greater Miami’s economic future and rally the community to create it. The approach: elevate the best ideas, practices, research and people addressing questions pivotal to our economic future, engage across Miami-Dade County, and share clear, actionable solutions to help our community make better decisions, faster.
It’s an effort that takes the long view. Moving beyond election and news cycles to imagine the Miami we want in 2040 - when the child today in Miami will be readying to enter the workforce.
Our belief is that our greatest challenges present our biggest opportunities. That a more innovative, inclusive and sustainable future can only be built together - with you. And to stay ahead of new challenges and opportunities, a new model for how we envision and build that future is needed.
Join in. Let’s shape our economic future, together.
Our Focus
We believe Miami’s economic future hinges on doing three things well:
Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Continue driving entrepreneurship and innovation in order to create well-paying jobs and further diversifying the economy;
Talent and Inclusion: Dramatically increase economic inclusion and spur social mobility through talent development;
Sustainability and Resilience: Turn the challenge of climate change into a generational business opportunity by being a leader in the global transition to a carbon-neutral economy.
We believe Miami can be a global leader across all three – consider what’s possible:
As technology allows for capital and talent to become more distributed, new centers of innovation and job creation are becoming established. Miami - already ascending - has the opportunity to cement its role as a leader among these new emergent, entrepreneurial cities.
As a historic demographic shift plays out over the next 25 years in the US, Miami can be a global example of what a uniquely diverse and skilled workforce looks like by increasing economic inclusion and driving social mobility through talent development.
As the world transitions to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 - resulting in countless new industries, companies and jobs - Miami can be a leader in turning the challenge of climate change into an historic business opportunity that creates jobs and drives our economy for more than a generation.
How We Work
Opportunity Miami is a new model for how we envision and build our long-term economic future. Today’s world of rapid change requires compasses, not maps. Organizations have often created lengthy blueprints to do this sort of work. The risk today, however, is that static reports will become obsolete within months. Opportunity Miami aims to be a platform that is iterative, can move quickly and meet people where they are.
Our approach is in three parts:
Ideas: Elevate the best ideas, practices, research and people addressing questions pivotal to our economic future.
Engagement: Engage across the community in five ways: daily social media, weekly email newsletter, biweekly podcast, forthcoming in-person events, and website that organizes the various content into threads framed around specific questions pivotal to our future. We aim to raise a new question each month and tackle it publicly - with you - through digital media and events, learning with the community as we go.
Solutions: Share clear, actionable solutions – by framing our most pressing issues, elevating good ideas about how to address them, and giving a voice to leading thinkers and community champions.
Miami-Dade Beacon Council
Opportunity Miami is powered by Miami-Dade Beacon Council, a public-private partnership that is the official economic development organization for Miami-Dade County. It stands on the shoulders of One Community One Goal, the initiative founded in the 1990s by civic leader Jay Malina and re-launched in 2012 by The Beacon Council, that focused on identifying the key economic issues and proposing steps to address them.
Co-Chairs
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Miami-Dade County
Juan Carlos Liscano, Vice President for Miami, the Caribbean and Latin America
Rick Beasley, Executive Director for the South Florida Workforce Investment Board
