Creativity, a collaborative spirit and real-world learnings by South Florida鈥檚 fresh tech talent combined for a day to remember for local startups and students at inaugural EPIC Challenge Student Showcase last week at .
EPIC stands for Employer-Provided Innovation Challenges, a program created by the U.S. Chamber Foundation to connect college and high school students with local employers to solve real-world business challenges.
鈥淐onnecting students with employers to gain real-world experience is at the heart of what Miami Tech Works is all about,鈥� said Terri-Ann Brown [pictured below], director for Miami Tech Works, during her opening remarks. 鈥淓PIC is doing real work for real companies, and we鈥檙e seeing the application of what is learned in the classroom in action.鈥�
Over the course of five weeks in the EPIC program, Miami Dade College students collaborated with four startups 鈥� , , and 鈥� to tackle real business problems while building technical and professional skills through project-based learning. On July 29, the students presented their projects in front of a room of faculty, employers, technology ecosystem leaders and community members.
鈥淎s an entrepreneur, you have to have different qualities such as flexibility, creativity, self-discipline, and curiosity,鈥� said Michael Mannino, co-founder of Syneurgy, an AI platform to improve team collaboration. 鈥淥ur student team embraced those qualities, doing meaningful work that produced impactful results.鈥�
And EPIC鈥檚 mission? To bridge the gap between classroom learning and practical application 鈥� a goal Miami Tech Works, an initiative funded with a $10 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration鈥檚 Good Jobs Challenge, has been championing since its inception in early 2023.
鈥淭he past five weeks has been a great experience for our company,鈥� said D鈥橝ngelo Senat, founder at AllPeeP, a software development/SaaS company that offers a people-first, open-source community platform. 鈥淭he projects that our EPIC interns have been working on have actually been shipped out to customers, improving the experience for our community members and helping us move at a faster pace.鈥�
Together, the four startups collaborated with 20 MDC students, each enrolled in associate or bachelor鈥檚 degree programs in data science, software engineering, AI, and machine learning engineering.
The students worked on solutions ranging from infrastructure development to UX and AI enhancements. What were they?
- Hakim AI tasked students with redesigning the company鈥檚 website to improve storytelling, usability, and overall user flow.
- Spark Founders partnered with students to build a secure, scalable user management system for its event platform.
- Syneurgy focused on building a dynamic dashboard that transforms raw data from the company鈥檚 software into AI-generated insights.
- AllPeeP engaged students in creating new infrastructure, powered by AI, to better manage incoming customer reports.
鈥淭hese aren鈥檛 just students, they have been valuable members of our team for the past few weeks,鈥� said Daniel Pena, chief technology officer at Spark Founders, which focuses on connecting aspiring entrepreneurs with compatible co-founders using AI-powered matching tools. 鈥淲e are going to use their work and code to help us launch our upcoming platform that connects founders with those that can help them. The students fit perfect in their roles across quality assurance, user database optimization, and software development. They did amazing work as a team.鈥�
Throughout the program, students gained hands-on experience across different fields, such as frontend, backend, full stack development, quality assurance, data analytics and management, UX/UI design, software development, web development, business analytics and research, applied and generative AI, and project management 鈥� skills that they鈥檒l now use in their careers and overall professional growth.
鈥淎s a data science major, this experience gave me a chance to apply what I learned in the real world,鈥� said Christina Abrahamyan, part of AllPeeP鈥檚 student team [pictured below]. 鈥淚 was able to act as a moderator on AllPeeP鈥檚 community platform, engage with the data on the backend to identify trends, and make recommendations on what changes to implement to improve the customer support flow. I couldn鈥檛 have gotten this same experience in school alone.鈥�
Miami is only one of six pilot cities for the U.S. Chamber Foundation鈥檚 EPIC program. To date, the initiative has supported over 50 employer projects and engaged more than 500 students nationwide.
鈥淚 had a great experience and felt confident in my abilities to contribute and work as part of a team,鈥� said Camilo Cedeno [pictured below], a student on the Spark Founders鈥� team. 鈥淲e were doing meaningful work, while gaining valuable experience and feedback.鈥�
Brown added, 鈥淲e aim to do more EPIC Challenges to give more employers a chance to sign up and for more students, from Miami Dade and other universities, to get this valuable work and learning experience.鈥�
Miami Tech Works has not yet shared details for the next EPIC Challenge program, but interested employers can visit to get more information on this program and other opportunities to connect with students, resources, and other businesses. To learn more about the programs and curriculum available at Miami Dade College, visit .
This story was originally published by , a SA国际传谋 News partner. Refresh Miami is the oldest and largest tech and startup community in Miami with over 16,000 members.
