Introducing Opportunity Miami, a New Initiative to Help Build Greater Miami’s Economic Future

MIAMI, FL – The Miami-Dade Beacon Council will launch on Monday Opportunity Miami, a new platform to help catalyze a vision for Greater Miami’s economic future — and rally the community to create it. 

Matt Haggman speaking at Miami Dade College for the launch of Accelerate Miami-Dade in October. (Miami-Dade Beacon Council Photo)Opportunity Miami will focus on three areas critical to Greater Miami’s economic future: innovation and entrepreneurship; talent and inclusion; and sustainability and resilience.   Opportunity Miami is led by Matt Haggman, Beacon Council executive vice president.

“Miami’s biggest challenges also present our greatest opportunities,” said Haggman. “The risks we face, such as climate change, also present a generational business opportunity that can create jobs and drive our economy for decades to come. Opportunity Miami will be a platform where the community can help identify these opportunities and act on them.”

Built for a hybrid era marked by rapid change, Opportunity Miami will utilize digital technology and in-person events to elevate ideas, engage the community and spotlight clear, actionable solutions. Drawing on research and reporting from around the world, Opportunity Miami’s mission is to help the community make good decisions faster on issues defining our economic future.

The initiative is launched at a pivotal moment for Miami-Dade County. The region is positioned for success more than ever, but also faces daunting challenges, including sea-level rise and income inequality. Additionally, despite great progress, Greater Miami is still in the early days of building an innovative, diversified economy with the high-wage jobs and talent to match.

“Miami-Dade has the opportunity to build one of the world’s truly innovative, inclusive and sustainable economies, creating jobs and prosperity well into the future,” said Michael A. Finney, President and CEO, Miami-Dade Beacon Council. “Opportunity Miami is a place for the community to come together to discuss pathways toward that vision and collaborate on solutions.”

The new initiative is the successor to One Community One Goal, which focused on identifying the key economic development issues facing Miami-Dade County and the steps needed to address them. Haggman joined Miami-Dade Beacon Council in 2020 to develop the next iteration of One Community One Goal. Previously, he was Miami Director at Knight Foundation where he created and built the foundation’s program focused on building Miami’s startup and tech community.

The goal is to drive action toward solutions --- by framing our most pressing issues, elevating good ideas about how to address them, giving a voice to our community champions, and measuring progress. The approach is long-term, moving beyond news and election cycles to imagine and build the Miami we want in 2040 -- when a young child today in Miami will be readying to enter the workforce.

Opportunity Miami presents a new model of how a community envisions and builds its economic future. Rather than lengthy, static reports that risk becoming obsolete within months,Opportunity Miami will be a platform that is iterative, can move quickly and meets people where they are.

With that in mind, Opportunity Miami will engage in five ways: weekly email newsletter, daily social media, biweekly podcast, monthly live events (starting in 2022) and a website --opportunity.miami -- that organizes the various content into threads framed around specific questions pivotal to our future.

The aim is to raise a new question each month and tackle it publicly, through digital media and events, learning with the community as we go. How can we ensure every family in Miami-Dade has access to high-speed internet? How can technology innovation boost small businesses? How do we achieve carbon-free mobility and drive economic growth?

Haggman's guests on the first Opportunity Miami video podcast, also released today, included Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and venture capitalists Christian Hernandez, Patricia Wexler, and Kiel Barry, discussing how the global push to lower carbon emissions will produce new industries, businesses and jobs, and the cities -- like Miami -- that embrace this opportunity will prosper.

“The challenges here — at ground zero for sea-level rise and climate change — create opportunities for new economic growth and innovation,” Levine Cava said on the podcast. For more on Opportunity Miami, visit opportunity.miami.