Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities Expands to Miami to Diversify the Tech Ecosystem

Supported by Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company, GET Cities will help grow tech ecosystems that have gender equity at the core of how they educate, select and promote talent

Miami, FL — Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities, led by SecondMuse Foundation and Break Through Tech, has launched a third city hub, GET Miami, as part of Pivotal Ventures’ $50 million investment into the national initiative. GET Miami will work collaboratively with the region’s tech ecosystem to propel more women, trans and nonbinary people, particularly Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and people of color, into tech education, careers, and leadership.

“We are excited to see GET Cities expand to Miami, a city working to become one of the most diverse and inclusive tech hubs in the United States,” said Dr. Renee Wittemyer, Pivotal Ventures Director of Program Strategy and Investment. “It’s vital that we work together to ensure women are represented and leading a more vibrant tech industry. Greater representation drives greater innovation and better outcomes. GET Miami offers a strong blueprint to achieving these critical goals.”

With many global tech giants, startups and investors having already begun to establish a presence in the South Florida city, and with the widespread embrace of remote work, Miami – an area built on its diversity – is primed for tech expansion. This new attention creates a perfect opportunity to capture the commitment to proactively building one of the most diverse and inclusive tech hubs in the country with existing, local talent, and to pouring energy and resources toward that goal. Over a year and a half into the COVID-19 era, we are seeing with a clearer lens the gross inequities across gender, race, and other underrepresented identities in society. Tech is an industry that has the scale to match the need for accessible economic empowerment that can and should be available to all of us. And GET Cities believes Miami is an ideal city to accelerate the inclusion of women and other marginalized groups in building these new, thriving, sustainable tech economies.

GET Cities Blueprint Addresses The Challenge of Inclusion By Leveraging Three Key Pillars – Academia, Industry, And Entrepreneurship

GET Miami will build on the model presented in its other GET Cities, GET Chicago and GET DC, to create an inclusive tech economy by focusing on three key pillars – academia, industry, and entrepreneurship. Specifically, it aims to:

• Build resilient pathways into tech: Break Through Tech will propel women at Florida International University in Miami, FL into tech careers through programs that encourage and incentivize more women to pursue computing degrees. It will support these women along their educational journey by providing real-world experiences and a network of supportive professionals and peers.

Align the local tech and entrepreneurial ecosystems: SecondMuse Foundation, along with one of its implementing partners, SecondMuse, drives the industry and entrepreneurship pillars by convening city-based partners and collaborating on increasing marginalized groups’ leadership and representation in all aspects of the tech economy. SecondMuse Foundation pilots and iterates programs and provides grants and fellowships within the tech workforce and across the landscape of organizations funding startups and entrepreneurs, in partnership with those already on the ground in each city. City partners include the aforementioned academic partnership, tech companies, the VC and startup community, civic and nonprofit institutions, and local and national advocacy organizations.

As the city of Miami navigates this exciting renaissance and becomes the up-and-coming place for relocation and sourcing talent, GET Miami is committed to working to accelerate the representation and leadership of women and other marginalized people in tech, with the mission of supporting the growth of an inclusive tech economy.

“GET Cities exists to lift women, trans and nonbinary people – particularly those with other intersecting identities like race, class and ability – into their power. We believe when this happens, the tech industry becomes resilient, doing more good than harm. Miami is the perfect next stop to expand this mission, as a city that leads from its deep diversity of experiences and one that has a quickly expanding tech ecosystem.” says Leslie Lynne Smith, National Director of GET Cities.

Break Through Tech, a national initiative that began at Cornell Tech in New York City, will bring together the supply side (academia) and the demand side (industry) to build an ecosystem where more women are graduating with relevant degrees today and finding an inclusive career environment waiting for them for years to come.

Strong, Local, Strategic Partnerships Are  What Set GET’s Model Apart

Break Through Tech is proud to work with Florida International University in Miami (FIU) to host the this next Break Through Tech site. With over 650 students graduating with degrees in computing, and with 75 percent of all women in computing being Black, Latina, or Indigenous, the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences is one of the largest growing computing programs in the country with one of the most diverse student populations and provides the opportunity to exponentially grow the number of diverse women in computing.

FIU is well-poised to introduce hundreds of women at FIU and surrounding community colleges to Break Through Tech’s Guild Program, expose the local tech employers to hundreds of talented female prospective hires through the Sprinternship Program, as well as innovate on Break Through Tech’s model to accelerate the pace of change to recruit and retain more women in computing. Building upon the crucial investment of the Knight Foundation and other efforts, FIU will utilize Break Through Tech’s model and join a national network of like-minded universities to provide new opportunities for their students and contribute to a growing body of knowledge about how to drive gender equality in tech at scale. Break Through Tech Miami at FIU is ambitious in their goals of diversifying the tech sector and, in the words of FIU President Mark Rosenberg, is committed to “turning the impossible into the inevitable.”

“As we continue to expand our national footprint, we are thrilled to bring Break Through Tech’s innovative programming to FIU. Together we will help make real the promise of Miami as one of the nation’s most diverse and thriving tech ecosystems. The future of innovation depends on all of us, and our partnership with FIU will help fuel a future in which women are technology creators and not just consumers,” says Judith Spitz, Founder and Executive Director at Break Through Tech.

There’s A Seat At The Table For Everyone In This Collaborative Approach To Gender Equality In Tech

GET Cities Miami will kick off with a launch event in early 2022, with the purpose of co-designing a local approach in partnership with the community. A key theme of the event will be to highlight opportunities for local students, talent, entrepreneurs and employers as GET Cities launches new initiatives. An example of GET Cities’ programming is the #GETChicago Tech Equity Working Group, a consortium of piloted projects across 20 entrepreneur support organizations to increase equity in start-up investment for women and other underrepresented founders. Attendees will also have the opportunity to join the conversation as GET Cities designs its fellowships, micro internships, and grants programs to be tailored to the specific needs of the Miami tech ecosystem over the next few years.

To learn more about GET Miami and GET Cities and to get involved, please visit: https://www.getcities.org/  and https://breakthroughtech.org

About GET Cities

GET Cities is an initiative designed to accelerate the representation and leadership of women in tech through the development of inclusive tech hubs across the United States. Launched in 2020, GET Cities is led by SecondMuse Foundation and Break Through Tech, in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company created by Melinda French Gates. Now in Chicago, the DC Metro Area, and Miami,  GET Cities will leverage collaboration across its national ecosystem of city hubs to drive positive social and economic change.

About SecondMuse LLC

SecondMuse LLC is an implementing partner of SecondMuse Foundation. SecondMuse LLC is an impact and innovation company that builds resilient economies by supporting entrepreneurs and the ecosystems around them. They do this by designing, developing, and implementing a mix of innovation programming and investing capital. From Singapore to San Francisco, SecondMuse programs define inspiring visions, build lasting businesses, and unite people across the globe. Over the last decade, they’ve designed and implemented programs on 7 continents with 600+ organizations such as NASA, The World Bank, and Nike. To find out more about how SecondMuse is positively shaping the world, visit: www.secondmuse.com.

About Break Through Tech 

Launched at Cornell Tech, with support from Pivotal Ventures, Cognizant Foundation, and Verizon, Break Through Tech provides curriculum innovation, career access, and community building for women in tech. The program originated in 2016 as a program called Women in Technology & Entrepreneurship New York (WiTNY), created at Cornell Tech in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY) and a broad set of industry partners. Now Break Through Tech is replicating the highly effective ecosystem model originated in New York City to increase women’s representation in computing graduates across the United States. To date, the program is in New York City, Chicago, the DC Metro Area, and now Miami.