Building Miami’s Tech Talent from the Inside Out
Miami Dade College alumna Farah Cadet knows firsthand what it means to feel out of place.
“The biggest challenge has been feeling like I belong,” said Cadet, a technology entrepreneur. “I don’t see many people that look like me or have a non-technical background. It’s easy to feel out of my league.”
Born in Canada to a Haitian family, Cadet grew up in Miami, built a career in interior design for hotels and cruise ships, and then watched it disappear during the pandemic. What came next surprised even her.
She enrolled in a coding bootcamp at MDC, landed a job as a software developer, and eventually found her way back to MDC — this time to learn iOS development through the College’s Apple Swift program. The program is a collaborative effort between the School of Engineering and Technology and the School of Continuing Education and Professional Development.
Within months, she had built Ritually, now live on the Apple App Store, a wellness app that uses AI to recommend personalized mindfulness practices based on a user’s mood and energy. When she presented it at an Apple end-of-program showcase at a local Apple Store, her two young boys were in the audience watching their mother speak to a room full of strangers about something she had built from scratch.
“I love sharing my school journey with my boys,” she said, “so they can see that learning never stops — and that we can do challenging things.”
Access into Action
Cadet’s story is not unique at MDC. In many ways, it is a mirror of Miami itself — a city that has spent the last several years reinventing what it can become.
Miami has transformed into a serious global tech hub, drawing startups, venture capital and major technology companies at a pace few cities can match. But growth at the top creates pressure at the base. Companies need engineers, developers and builders — and they need them now.
Students work on iOS app development using Macs in Miami Dade College’s Apple Swift program classroom.
“The need for tech talent is in high demand,” said Manny Pérez, dean of MDC’s School of Engineering and Technology. “As Miami’s tech ecosystem continues to grow, so does the demand for skilled talent. It is essential that we continue to offer programs that align with industry needs.”
MDC has leaned into that responsibility by turning access into action. With classes across the Kendall, North, West and Wolfson campuses and a student body that reflects the city’s full diversity — multilingual, multi-generational, working-class and middle-class alike — the college is positioned to do something elite universities cannot: reach the people who would otherwise be left out of the boom.
The Apple Swift program is a clear example of that mission in practice, offering hands-on iOS app development training, certification preparation and direct exposure to industry opportunities.
Enrique Infanzon, dean of MDC’s School of Continuing Education and Professional Development, said Apple saw the potential of a partnership from the beginning.
“We saw strong interest from both college students and working professionals — people who wanted to build their own future, not wait for someone else to build it for them.”
Miami is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the United States — and the program was built to reflect that. Courses run in English, Spanish and Creole across four MDC campuses, deliberately lowering the barriers that have historically kept working adults, career changers and first-generation learners out of tech. Infanzon saw the city’s diversity not as a challenge to manage, but as the program’s greatest strength. “My focus has always been the non-traditional student,” he said. “Many come with business ideas and prefer to learn how to develop their own applications rather than give their ideas to someone else.”
The demand revealed something Miami already knew but rarely said out loud. “We would receive 100 calls for 30 spots,” Infanzon recalled. “There was always a waiting list.” Our community is ready to be part of the tech workforce.
Where Learning Meets the Workforce
An instructor assists a student with Swift programming in Miami Dade College’s hands-on learning environment.
The results have been tangible. Hundreds of students have moved from the classroom to real industry exposure — presenting their apps to industry experts, building portfolios, and stepping into internships and full-time roles inside Miami’s tech sector. Many arrived without a prior degree. All of them left with something concrete.
“The program has already touched the lives of hundreds of students,” he said, “demonstrating our commitment to workforce development.”
Students do not just study app development — they ship real products, pitch to industry professionals and build the kind of confidence that opens doors. Cadet is proof of that. She is now rebuilding Ritually in React Native so it works across both iOS and Android, pursuing an Associate in Science in Applied AI, and has already passed her first Amazon Web Services certification exam, which opens doors in the tech industry. What began as a single course has become a full professional trajectory.
That is precisely what MDC and Apple set out to build — not just a program, but a pathway. One that meets students where they are, equips them with skills the market demands and connects them to a city hungry for the talent they represent.
As Infanzon put it: “Miami’s technological growth cannot be sustained if we do not develop local talent. The ecosystem grows because talent grows, and talent grows because the ecosystem grows.”
Miami’s tech future is not arriving from somewhere else. It is being built here, in MDC’s classrooms by an institution that understood early on that the city’s greatest competitive advantage was always the people already living in it.