the university’s four-year degree programs and give students a competitive edge for jobs. “The ideal scenario is to create and produce graduates who have that four-year degree but also pick up all the certifications along the way,” says Allen. Barry is working closely with corporations to guide curriculum and place students in the job pipeline. As a part of its four-year degrees, Barry is partnered with Kaseya and Aptima to offer students internships and experiential learning while still in school. The university currently offers Kaseya’s RITSM certifications along with CISSP® (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), CompTIA® (Computing Technology Industry Association), Cybersecurity, Interactive Design Media, Social Media, UAV (Drones) Technologies, and WordPress. In addition, Tiffani Malvin – Barry’s director of continuing education and portfolio program – is a trainer for the Miami Tech Talent Coalition and serves on the tech skills gap group. NON-ACADEMIC TRAINING PROVIDERS: 4GEEKS ACADEMY
Miami’s private sector also plays an important role in preparing and educating Miami’s workforce for the high-tech future. Training 68
Before the Academy, we needed to train talent inside, and then make sure they were able to actually build the applications that we needed... MARCELO RICIGLIANO AND ALEJANDRO SÁNCHEZ, FOUNDERS, 4GEEKS ACADEMY ON THE CRISIS OF FINDING TALENT
boot camps are another part of the equation; when Miami Tech Works was formed, its members identified the need for tech training boot camps to meet employment demands. Since tech training boot camps are skills-based and shorter than an academic degree program, they can be an effective way to reach the incumbent workforce. So, Miami Tech Works chose two tech training boot camps as sub-awardees of the $10 million grant. Both are receiving grant money in the form of scholarships for their respective programs. One of these is the 4Geeks Academy, a coding boot camp founded in 2015 by Marcelo Ricigliano and Alejandro Sánchez. Before starting 4Geeks, the pair had launched a few of their own start-ups where they repeatedly faced the challenge of finding tech talent. Eventually, they decided to create a school to train workers for entry-level and
mid-level tech jobs. “There was always a crisis of talent. Before the Academy, we needed to train [talent] inside, and then make sure they were able to actually build the applications that we needed,” says Ricigliano. “That’s how 4Geeks was created – because there was a huge talent crisis. And there still is an important gap in the industry.” Since its start, 4Geeks has expanded across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America with eight campuses and over 120 people working for the company. But even with such a wide footprint 4Geeks is doubling down on its efforts to solve Miami’s tech talent problem. More significantly, the company currently offers boot camps ranging from 15-18 weeks. Interested individuals can join its coding boot camps, data science and machine learning boot camps, software engineer boot camps, or its AI/machine learning engineering program. 4Geeks will GLOBALMIAMIMAGAZINE.COM
