MIAMI – Oct. 16, 2014 – Miami Dade College’s new entrepreneurship hub, the groundbreaking Idea Center, will broaden its efforts to foster and implement an entrepreneurial mindset across the entire college with a $2.18 million investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. As the college’s new engine of innovation, the Idea Center is set to become the place where students from all disciplines can gather, collaborate and take advantage of resources and training to develop their entrepreneurial ideas.

At a press conference today, Miami Dade College President Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón, Knight Foundation Program Director for Miami Matt Haggman, Idea Center Executive Director Leandro Finol and students discussed the plan. With the funding, the Idea Center will enhance its program by focusing on five key elements:

1. Preparing college leadership and faculty to develop entrepreneurial methods and advance innovation across the curriculum;
2. Developing entrepreneur-focused programming and events;
3. Creating co-working spaces for Miami Dade students to encourage idea generation, sharing and interaction;
4. Establishing an accelerator where students can test and build ideas; and
5. Leveraging the college’s extensive alumni network and community support to establish an entrepreneur mentoring/coaching program.

Knight’s investment will also fund a partnership with Babson College to introduce principles of entrepreneurship across the curriculum in all disciplines. Babson is the No. 1 entrepreneurship-focused college in the country.

“Entrepreneurship should be viewed as a skill to be taught, learned and used in the community. This mindset helps encourage the starting of new small businesses, which is the bedrock of the local economy,” Padrón said. “In a community of small businesses, creating an entrepreneurial belief system is as responsive to the community’s needs as educating for specific job openings, and this is something MDC has excelled at over the last half-century. We are extremely grateful for the support from and the partnership with Knight Foundation.”

“The Idea Center will be a new center of learning and doing in Miami’s rapidly growing entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Haggman said. “The college’s diverse student body will have the opportunity, the space and resources to learn, as well as the tools they need to connect, get inspired and build ideas of their choosing; this will lead to a larger and more diverse group of entrepreneurs building ideas in Miami.”

The Idea Center is a collaboration between the Miami Dade College School of Business and School of Engineering and Technology. The dynamic events and programming the center will offer include:

• An Idea Factory: an initiative for students with an interest in innovation and entrepreneurship, but who do not know where or how to start. Students will attend a workshop and then pitch an idea to a panel of experts who evaluate the idea and assess the likelihood of success.
• The Pioneers@MDC speakers’ series: a regular gathering that will invite a leading successful entrepreneur to appear before a panel of aspiring student entrepreneurs. Students will have the opportunity to ask the entrepreneur questions about their experiences and glean insights. Last month’s inaugural presentation featured Juan Diego Calle, founder of .CO Internet SAS.
• The Startup Challenge: After a rigorous and competitive assessment of a small business idea, a student or a team of students will receive $5,000 to bring the idea to life.
• Phase II Ventures: modeled after the successful Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. Next Step will be a resource for students whose families are already operating a small business ($50,000 to $150,000 in revenue) and are looking to scale.
• Lean LaunchPad: designed for students who have a specific idea they would like to refine and launch. The Idea Center will establish its own version of the The Lean LaunchPad, which was developed at Stanford University. The Lean LaunchpPad is a method for developing products and services that involves testing products and talking to customers to either validate or refine developer assumptions about the idea.

The Idea Center will also house the CREATE Accelerator, which will support aspiring student entrepreneurs with new ideas and help them scale their ideas to market. CREATE (Center for Research and Transformative Entrepreneurship) will ensure students have the knowledge to sustain a successful business. 

In addition, co-working spaces at the Idea Center will encourage idea sharing, interaction and collaboration among students. The spaces will be located in the college’s newest building at the Wolfson Campus located in downtown Miami at 315 N.E. Second Ave. One floor of the building is dedicated to the Idea Center. A board of advisers, including leading business and entrepreneurial minds, support the effort. 

Support for Miami Dade College forms a key part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to invest in Miami’s emerging innovators and entrepreneurs as a tool to build community, while fostering talent and opportunity. Over the past 18 months Knight has made more than 90 investments in entrepreneurship in South Florida.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit .

Media contact: Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, Knight Foundation, 305-908-2677, [email protected]

About Miami Dade College

Miami Dade College is the higher education institution with the largest undergraduate enrollment in the Americas, with more than 165,000 students. It is also the nation’s top producer of associate in arts and science degrees and awards more degrees to minorities than any other college or university in the country. The college’s seven campuses and two outreach centers offer more than 300 academic pathways leading to baccalaureate degrees, associate in arts and science degrees and numerous career training certificates leading to in-demand jobs. In fact, its academic and workforce training programs are national models of excellence. MDC is also renowned for its rich cultural programming. It is home of the Miami Book Fair International, Miami International Film Festival, the MDC Live Arts Performing Arts Series, the National Historic Landmark Miami Freedom Tower, a major sculpture park and large art gallery and theater systems. MDC has served more than 2,000,000 students since it opened its doors in 1960.

Media contacts: Juan Mendieta, MDC director of communications, 305-237-7611, [email protected]; Tere Estorino Florin, director of media relations, 305-237-3949, [email protected]; Sue Arrowsmith, 305-237-3710, [email protected], or Roxana Romero, 305-237-7187, [email protected]. 

This and other MDC releases are available on the Web at www.mdc.edu.

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