Push to Train Workers for Jobs in Miami’s Growing Tech Arena

Since he was 18, Christopher Matthews has worked at Pizza Hut and 7-11, done a stint in food delivery and taught carpentry. Now, the Miami native is trying to forge a vocational path that could lead to a promising career.

Seated at a desk in front of his computer screen at a plush new $6.5 million artificial intelligence center at Miami Dade College’s North Campus on a recent evening, Matthews, 25, was digesting how to use chatbots to analyze information found on the web and becoming familiar with computer programming. He’s a student in an AI Thinking class.

Last fall, he started the college’s two-year associate’s degree program in cybersecurity. Although still in his first year, he added one of the newer courses in artificial intelligence, even though his major didn’t require it. It piqued his interest, and he was also thinking practically, “what is the most amount of money I can make with the least amount of arduous labor.”

He concluded, “Tech was the perfect balance to me because it always came easy to me.”

Matthews is one of more than 100 Miami Dade students, and among countless others in South Florida, looking and hoping to find satisfying, good-paying jobs provided by the explosive growth in Miami’s technology and finance sectors. The AI class he’s taking is part of an expanding tech curriculum the college is offering thanks to securing $15 million early last year in private and public funding.