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By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | VIDEOBOLT.COM

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Empowers companies to create data-driven videos with personalized distribution

Founded: 2009

HQ: West Palm Beach

Employees: 10

Website: VIDEOBOLT.COM

 

These days, content is king. It is more important than ever for businesses to create engaging content that attracts and informs potential customers.

“The best way to get new business is to help people who are looking for information,” Brian Albert, Founder/President of VIDEOBOLT.COM told South Florida Tech Hub. That’s why Albert has created the world’s first conversational video platform for business.

VIDEOBOLT.COM enables companies of all shapes and sizes to easily and affordably create video content. Albert leverages his years of experience in the world of television journalism to develop top-quality content for his customers at a cost that is impossible to beat.

How does he do it? The key is scale. Albert’s digital platform lets users create videos instantly with only providing a few key details. For instance, one of their clients sells tax free municipal bonds. This company makes daily videos highlighting a particular bond. All this client has to do is fill out a couple of fields on a form, press submit, and VIDEOBOLT automatically generates a one-minute video using text overlays to include all the relevant bond information.

And these videos are far from cookie cutter. The graphics change, the B-roll is always fresh, the on-camera talent is different each day a week. These videos are then seamlessly distributed to the client’s customer base via email.

Another top client for VIDEOBOLT.COM is national real estate agency Douglas Elliman. “We built a platform for almost 8,000 of their agents to build videos just by pointing and clicking,” explained Albert. VIDEOBOLT.COM’s system then connected to Douglas Elliman’s backend and MLS systems. 

“We pull in all of the assets: the information about the home and about the agent. The agent can go into their browser and simply choose what images they want included in the video,” said Albert. “They can do other customization like adding a headline, and within about three minutes they receive the video.” 

On top of generating an mp4 video file, VIDEOBOLT.COM also creates a landing page. That’s ideal for someone who may be less technically inclined. “They can just take that link to that landing page and share that simply by text or by email,” said Albert.

A major advantage for Douglas Elliman is that they don’t have to worry about compliance and branding requirements, since this is standardized across all videos on the platform.

The two major factors that set VIDEOBOLT.COM from the crowd are launch time and price. They can typically launch a project in a matter of hours or days, not months or weeks. And VIDEOBOLT.COM’s pricing comes in at 10-20% of their competitors’. 

“There’s a huge market that’s available for us because of the fact that we’ve developed our own technology that allows us to launch these products quickly, and at a price point that makes sense for a much wider range of businesses than just the Fortune 100,” asserted Albert.

He explained that the company is poised for growth. “We’re excited to get into more verticals with our data driven video product,” said Albert. “Our product is really strong – already several years ahead of what everyone else is doing. So we will continue to innovate as we get that product in front of more businesses, so they can really benefit from video in a scalable way.”

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | Bidtellect

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Bidtellect is a performance-driven, demand-side advertising platform specializing in context-first optimization, cookieless solutions, and quality programmatic. 

Founded: 2014

HQ: Delray Beach

Employees: 78

Website: Bidtellect.com

 

The pandemic has fundamentally changed the way consumers interact with content. In particular, the shift from analog to digital content has been accelerated. This has major impacts on advertisers, whose goal remains clear: share their message with the right audience in the most efficient, most effective way possible.

Delray Beach-based Bidtellect is paving the way when it comes to cookieless advertising. They have built platform context-driven technology and optimization down to the placement level, ensuring readiness for our cookieless future while achieving performance goals.

“We pride ourselves on having built our system based on context and based on behavior – not the individual person,” Bidtellect’s CTO, Michael Conway, told South Florida Tech Hub. “We don’t collect any personal identifiable information.”

“We put users in different types of audiences based on the sites they’ve visited, and categorize them based on the industry standards,” Conway continued.

We’re living through a major reckoning in the advertising industry, explained Conway. The cookieless infrastructure on which Bidtellect is built will go a long way to ensure it remains a major player in the industry, despite the constant change in the space.

The technical prowess of Bidtellect cannot be understated. Their system handles five million decisions a second to serve the eight billion requests it receives each day. Conway measures their data in petabytes (for context: there are 1,024 terabytes in a single petabyte). All this happens within the milliseconds it takes for a website to load.

Bidtellect has recently begun to focus on the digital television space. “There was always a move toward connected TV, but the pandemic really accelerated that trend,” said Conway. In response, Bidtellect is creating tools to place targeted ads to consumers based on their behavior. “Everyone cutting the cord has become such a growth area for AdTech,” he noted.

Few technologists can boast about having as broad and deep a set of experiences as Conway. In the late 1980s, he was a programmer at NASA, working on small satellite systems and technology in support of deep space travel. He then started working on tech to map the human genome, before stints developing E-ZPass and SunPass systems and even helping the EU supercharge their interoperability. In 2011, he landed in the ad industry, which eventually brought him to Bidtellect.

Conway sits on South Florida Tech Hub’s Board of Directors and also heads the organization’s Higher Education subcommittee. He is bullish on our mission of promoting South Florida as an internationally recognized tech hub.

He asserted that we have reached a certain tipping point in the maturity of our tech ecosystem, now that so many major players have decided to relocate to our region. “I think we’ve already made South Florida a tech hub. Now our job is to help that hub grow.”

Education is an important challenge our region is confronting, according to Conway. “The need for talent has become abundantly clear,” he said, underscoring the positive efforts of local universities to create a strong talent pipeline.

 

 

Learn more about Tech Hub’s Talent subcommittees. They’re a huge part of our work to develop South Florida’s tech hub.

By Nikki Cabus

Broward-based CERA reacts to mass shooting mayhem this month

Read Time 3 Minutes

“It has sadly been a very deadly month from coast to coast due to gun violence, ” says Edward McGovern, Founder & CEO at CERA. “Nineteen elementary school students and two teachers were killed by an alleged lone gunman days ago in Uvalde, Texas. A doctor was killed and five other churchgoers were injured in a Laguna Woods, CA shooting. Ten innocent lives were taken at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, NY in what is believed to be a racially-motivated crime.

It has been nearly 10 years since Sandy Hook, slightly over 4 years since Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and 23 whole years since Columbine. How and why is this still happening?”

It is a more difficult task to stop the bad guys from having intent to kill and pulling the trigger. What we CAN control is effective response of critical incidents.

It is quite disheartening to learn that a Tops grocery store employee is claiming a 9-1-1 operator hung up on her when she called to report the shooter, according to the New York Times. She alleges that she was whispering so that the shooter would hopefully not hear her on the phone. This is just one example of the weaknesses in our current communications systems that we are solving.

Critical Event Response Applications, or CERA, is a public safety app that “creates a direct line of communication between law enforcement, emergency medical providers, and individuals on the ground.” CERA greatly assists in containing the scene, neutralizing the threat, and treating and evacuating the injured and in danger. Simply put, it eliminates the chaos and confusion during a critical event to be able to save more lives in a time when time is of the essence.

CERA enables people to report threatening situations and injuries directly to law enforcement officers who have the CERA app with a tap of a button, instantly giving law enforcement the exact location of the threat and getting the information directly into the hands of police and fire as efficiently as possible.

As communities and public safety officials search for solutions to this epidemic of violence, we need to start prioritizing how we are going to address it. We cannot solve our response difficulties using the same antiquated technology that are general multi-purpose tools. In other words, the tools we need to address active killer events are not the same tools used to report a theft, the dynamics are completely different. We need to commit resources to our children’s safety with school attacks much like we committed to their safety when it comes to a fire.

The last school fire in the US that killed 10 or more children was 1958 in Chicago. Why? Because we addressed the specific issue using technology, resources and laws. From fire-codes to inspections to fire drills, we effectively took on a unique problem, committed to make changes and succeeded. It is also possible to change many of the outcomes in targeted violence cases.

Our hearts are saddened to see all of these senseless mass murders. We are praying for all of those affected by these tragedies. Parents are now fearful of sending their kids to school each morning. Shoppers and grocery store workers are worried if a trip to the supermarket or a day at work will be a death sentence. We can do better, but it only works if we join forces to do so.

Please click on the image below to see Edward’s response to the Uvalde massacre on CBS Miami.

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | Digital Resource

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Providing companies with custom online marketing strategies for business growth.

Founded: 2014

HQ: Downtown West Palm Beach

Employees: 125

Website: YourDigitalResource.com

 

The digital marketing landscape is the most complicated it has been since the dawn of social media. Facebook’s removal of certain ad targeting options coupled with Apple’s new anti-tracking privacy features have brought uncertainty to the space.

For the last eight years, West Palm Beach-based Digital Resource has been a trusted resource for companies looking to up their marketing game.

While Digital Resource works with businesses of all shapes and sizes across all industries, their typical client is a small to medium-sized business. They specialize in a few industries in particular, including medical services, franchising, and home services. Often, customers come to Digital Resource when they are looking to increase their lead flow and fine-tune how they present themselves online.

Since the pandemic, Digital Resource has been on a supercharged growth trajectory. The company reports that they have been increasing their revenues by $4-5 million each year. They also acquired their first agency, a Nashville-based marketing shop, last month. This growth, combined with an acquisition or two each year over the next few years, puts the company on track to increase their annual revenue from $11 million to $50 million within five years.

“West Palm Beach plays a great role in that growth,” Digital Resource founder and president Shay Berman told South Florida Tech Hub. “It’s a central base to pull talent from north and south.”

“And it’s a growing city,” continued Berman. “We hope to be a part of the positive transition of West Palm from a small to medium city to a large city.”

Berman also expressed excitement about the rise of South Florida’s tech scene. “There’s high quality talent in the area,” he said, noting that technologists from the southern end of the region are increasingly moving to Palm Beach. 

He explained that Digital Resource has benefited from the national and international trend of people wanting to move to our region. “The talent pool is growing on its own by people flowing here to live, and we’ve been able to take advantage of it by being a great option for them as they come into the state.”

When it comes to helping younger companies and startups chart out their most efficient digital marketing strategy, Berman advises that they find the right partner who understands how their business works first and foremost. Then they can try to implement the right marketing pieces. The other way around leads to disaster, he said. 

“The biggest reason why marketing fails is that marketers try to make a specific service or type of marketing fit the business. You have to understand the business, its growth, and how people would engage with it – and market to that.”

Berman underscores that social media is key to digital marketing success. “There are a hundred plus reasons to use social media as a business,” he said. “And you have to first understand why you’re using social media, and connect that to your business’s goals.”

By Nikki Cabus

FPL/NextEra Energy surprises students with some new tech as they head off to college

Read Time 2 Minutes

We are now in graduation season for our high school seniors and the Nuclear Division of Florida Power & Light/NextEra Energy is helping out some of them out by partnering with a local South Florida nonprofit called Path To College. FPL is making sure they are equipped with some new tech as they head off to college.

This past week during Path To College’s “Senior Success Send-Off” at the Boynton Beach City Hall, 30 seniors from underserved communities were given a special gift  – their own iPad!

For students like these, this extraordinary gift is a significant barrier removed. The simple tools and technology necessary that we often take for granted are necessary for leveling the playing field for so many others. Every single one of those 30 students is now off to college and has the tech to stay on top of their school work.

“It’s taking away a very real stress that they are not going to be able to afford an iPad or a computer that they are going to need to keep up,” says Path To College’s Founder and Executive Director, Christine Sylvain. “Plus, it’s a really cool gift!”

Path To College was founded in 2017 to “fearlessly clear the path for overlooked students to get into the best colleges” through higher SAT scores, creating a positive community, increased amount of applications to higher education institutions, and connected neighborhoods with a strong focus on education. And they are doing just that.

Graduates from the Path To College flagship program, a 3-year academic fellowship, have achieved the following successes:

  • 100% acceptance into 4-year universities
  • 75% accepted to top-tier institutions
  • 70% achieve full-ride scholarships

Christine and the students would like to thank the Nuclear Division of Florida Power & Light/NextEra Energy and to Dr. Ayodele Ishola-Salawu and Damon Hobson for making this fantastic contribution happen!

Want to see a video of the students immediate reaction? Watch below. It’s worth it!

 

By Nikki Cabus

Broward-based CloudHesive announces recent acquisition of Dextr

Read Time 2 Minutes

CloudHesive, a Broward-based Amazon Web Services Premier Consulting partner and managed services provider, today announced the acquisition of Dextr, the industry’s most powerful customer service and performance dashboard for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud contact center. This combination delivers a unique, easy-to-use, contact center solution backed by a committed Amazon Connect leader focused on happy customers and continued innovation.

Powered by Amazon Connect, Dextr combines a full-agent dashboard with a rich library of cloud services at an affordable price. Dextr deploys rapidly to complement and enhance the expanding capabilities of Amazon Connect, accelerating time-to-value and business impact. The powerful combination of Dextr and CloudHesive extends CloudHesive’s investment in the Amazon Connect contact center space and provides customers with world-class agent management, contact center operations, and reporting capabilities for their Amazon Connect deployments.

“We’re excited to bring the Dextr cloud platform into the CloudHesive portfolio,” says Jim Walker, CEO of CloudHesive. “We can offer a truly unparalleled customer contact experience platform for our customers combining Dextr with our expertise in consulting and managed services for Amazon Connect and our Customer Connect software-as-a-service platform.”

The addition of Dextr rounds out CloudHesive’s leadership in the cloud contact center space. CloudHesive is an AWS Premier Partner and AWS Managed Services partner that delivers comprehensive consulting and managed services to a large and growing base of public sector and commercial accounts worldwide. It serves the Amazon Connect ecosystem leveraging its Centricity Customer Connect software-as-a-service platform to deliver migration and integration projects, deploy contact centers for remote workforces, develop capacity-on-demand and disaster-recovery-as-a-service solutions, and implement and manage cloud contact center security operations.

“CloudHesive’s status as an AWS Premier partner, excellent reputation, extensive footprint across the US and LATAM regions, and their deep knowledge and expertise with Amazon Connect make them the perfect choice to take Dextr to the next level,” says Peter Buswell, founder of Dextr. “They’re a true leader and innovator in the cloud contact center space.”

Dextr, is available now via the AWS Marketplace, a curated digital catalog that makes it easy for public sector and commercial organizations to discover, procure, entitle, provision, and govern third-party applications.

Visit http://www.cloudhesive.com for more information.

By Nikki Cabus

Davie-based public safety startup, CERA, places 2nd at eMerge, but could be the most impactful pitch yet

Read Time 3 Minutes

300 seconds. That’s that amount of time is takes for an active shooter to cause mass casualty at your child’s school, in a mall, or at an event venue. Due to extremely outdated technology, first responders aren’t able to respond fast enough or communicate through the chaos during an incident.

100 startups were chosen out of 1000 applicants to pitch at eMerge Americas’ Startup Showcase this year. Only five were chosen as finalists to pitch in front of judges which included Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and Broward-based CERA was one of them. Although the startup took home 2nd place, we think they have the most impactful eMerge pitch to date.

Edward McGovern, former Major of the Hallandale Beach Police Department and first responder to some of the most tragic events such as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 and the Fort Lauderdale Airport shooting in 2017, has developed a technology that will save more lives. Now retired from the police department, Ed is the startup Founder & CEO of CERA.

Critical Event Response Applications, or CERA, is a public safety app that “creates a direct line of communication between law enforcement, emergency medical providers, and individuals on the ground.” CERA greatly assists in containing the scene, neutralizing the threat, and treating and evacuating the injured and in danger. Simply put, it eliminates the chaos and confusion during a critical event to be able to save more lives in a time when time is of the essence.

“CERA’s at the eMerge Americas Startup Showcase was amazing,” said McGovern. “Even though we didn’t take the top prize, watching us start with over 1000 applicants and make it to the final 5 was such an important validation of our company and our mission. We were so proud to be be on that stage, not just representing CERA, but also the Alan B Levan | NSU Broward Center of Innovation, whose help has been invaluable to us,” he continued. “As I walked on stage, I saw guest judges like Kevin “Mr Wonderful” O’Leary, Paul Judge, and Ryan Whittemore sitting under the CERA brand, along with Levan Center and South Florida Tech Hub logos, and thinking how amazing our region is for innovation. I’m more determined than ever.”

Watch McGovern’s pitch for CERA here.

Congratulations to all the companies who pitched that day including the top five finalists: Genially, from Spain, which helps users build interactive digital content, TicketRev, from Boca Raton, which is a reverse event ticket selling platform, CERA, from Davie, offering a group of public safety applications, Togal.AI, from Miami, which helps improve estimating in the construction industry, and MOVIA Robotics, from the UK, which offers robotics that help children on the autism spectrum.

For more information on CERA, visit https://www.ceraapp.com/

 

By Riley Kaminer

800+ developers gather in Davie for SoFlo DevCon 2022

Read Time 4 Minutes

On April 16th, South Florida Tech Hub hosted the 17th annual edition of one of the largest conferences for software developers, designers, engineers and tech professionals across the region. SoFlo Dev Con 2022 saw upwards of 1,000 attendees and more than 100 speakers descend upon Nova Southeastern University’s Carl DeSantis building in Davie.

Topics and workshops included Machine Learning, AI, VR/AR/MR, IoT, .NET, DevOps, MVC Framework, JavaScript, JQuery, SQL Server, Business Intelligence, Software Testing, Xamarin/Mobile Development, Azure/Cloud, Business/Career Development, and more. There were 17 tracks including web3, blockchain, AI, cloud, web development, leadership, and investment.

Thanks to Tech Hub’s community partners and sponsors, the event was completely free to attend.

The presenting sponsor for the event was Schonfeld, a preeminent global investment management firm. Recent Miami transplant Yael Mayfield, Head of Front Office at Schonfeld and co-head of the Miami office, gave SoFlo DevCon’s keynote presentation (video), discussing how to build a high frequency trading system. Mayfield provided a high-level overview of what HFTs are and how to go about building an HFT system. She explained the various trade offs of different operating system architectures for HFTs.

Schonfeld also offered a session moderated by tech recruiter Jordan DiCambio discussing fintech trends, including cloud computing, low latency trading systems, and real-time data. On the panel was an all-star lineup from Schonfeld: Rusty Conover (Head of Cloud Data Platform), Wes Maness (Architect on our Quantitative Trading Platform), and Drashti Trivedi (Senior Software Engineer on our reference data team).

“The event was great,” Radhika Arora, Schonfeld’s Head of Enterprise Technology Talent Acquisition, told South Florida Tech Hub. “There was such a variety of attendees, including vendors, agencies, lateral candidates, campus candidates and more.”

Arora explained that Schonfeld got involved in the event for two main reasons. First, to help develop a strong development community in South Florida. Second, to help attract and engage some of the best talent in South Florida – with the view for the firm’s Miami office to be a true HQ2. Schonfeld is looking for employees across a wide range of verticals: from cybersecurity to software engineering to QA. Learn more and apply by visiting their careers website.

Miami-based Streann Media, a video and audio platform to distribute, engage, and monetize content, was the t-shirt and streaming partner. Co-founder Gio Punzo presented on the topic, “The Future of Streaming is Interactive, NFT, Crypto,” highlighting the top trends for content creators and providers. 

During the talk, Punzo showcased the company’s newest innovation, Live2.Social, which is a multi-camera streaming app. “It’s time to say bye to Zoom and welcome Live2.Social created by Streann,” Punzo told South Florida Tech Hub.

Punzo relished the opportunity to share Streann’s story with the South Florida tech industry at SoFlo DevCon. He explained that, having raised funds from top VC firms and angel syndicates, he is passionate about giving back to SMBs. “Everyone, every SMB, needs to create more content – and our technologies can help. Let us show you how. Let us help the community grow with new innovative tech made in South Florida.”

Overall, Punzo called the event “spectacular,” highlighting the many tracks and high-quality speakers. “There was great energy. South Florida is booming and you can feel it. At the conference, I met people that moved to Miami from New York, and they said they moved because SoFlo is where it’s at!”

To finish off a full slate of tech talks, decentralized blockchain Algorand who also gave a talk during one of the tracks, sponsored a fun happy hour with food and drink in NSU’s Flight Deck with indoor gaming area and outdoor bar and seating – an excellent networking opportunity for all participants. 

To view more photos from the event, click here.

TOGETHER, we are #BuildingSoFlo!

By Nikki Cabus

FPL Pledges nearly $1 Million to Support Black Students in Tech with Degree Completion

Read Time 3 Minutes

Florida Power & Light (FPL) announced an $800,000 investment in scholarships for black students to facilitate the completion of baccalaureate degrees at Miami Dade College (MDC) in the technology field. The funds from FPL will be used to cover tuition, fees, books and transportation costs for eligible black students facing a financial need over the next 4 years. This support will allow students to focus on their education, accelerating completion and entry into the tech workforce in South Florida.

FPL has had a long standing relationship with MDC. “We recognize the value in the contemporary programs, degrees and curriculum that they have developed. In some cases, we’ve partnered with them to ensure that the students are getting skills that will enable them to be competitive in technology careers,” said Michael Fowler, VP of IT and Business Unit CIO for FPL and Co-Chair of the South Florida Tech Hub Board of Directors. “I’ve personally been impressed with the nimbleness of the college to stay ahead of the technology curve.”

“It is extremely satisfying to have partners such as FPL who are raising the bar of good corporate citizenship, investing in our students and, in turn, in our community,” said MDC President Madeline Pumariega. “We must be intentional and strategic in our efforts to bridge the opportunity divide. I am especially grateful with this initiative because it is in line with and expands many things we are already doing with our groundbreaking Rising Black Scholars Program, our MOSAIC Initiative, Data Science 4 All and others.”

Last year, NextEra Energy was again named to Forbes magazine’s list of “America’s Best Employers for Diversity. “We highly value diversity of thought, style, technical and functional abilities, and leadership. Our company identified specific actions our company could take to make transformational impact in race equity,” said Grace Kurian, Senior Director, Information Technology- Nuclear. “Our focus for Black Girls Code (BGC) falls in three main areas: 1) BGC alumni engagement to strengthen the pipeline of BGC alumni, 2) upscaling BGC curriculum for students 7-17 years old interested in robotics, coding, artificial intelligence, & data analysis, and 3) scholarship endowment funds to ensure current & future BGC students have scholarships to fund for college.”

According to research, low-income working college students are less likely than their higher-income peers to get good grades or obtain bachelor’s degrees. These working learners are disproportionately black. These grant funds from FPL will potentially enable students who work full-time or part-time to work fewer hours or to stop working to concentrate on their studies without the burden of financial distractions.

“At FPL, we believe in breaking down barriers to opportunity for underserved communities, and we are always looking for ways to help empower our next generation of leaders,” said Pamela Rauch, Vice President of External Affairs and Economic Development for FPL. “FPL has long supported Miami Dade College’s technology programs and students, and we are honored to be able to expand opportunities for eligible black students to help them build an even stronger foundation for in demand technology jobs.”

As part of the Black Students in Tech grant, the School of Engineering and Technology (EnTec) lead by Manny Perez, Dean of Engineering, Technology and Design, will lead the recruitment, selection and retention of 30 students per academic year on a pathway to baccalaureate degree programs such as in Information Systems Technology, Cybersecurity, or Data Analytics. Eligible students will begin qualifying for the grants this summer term. For more information and to apply to the scholarship visit here.

MDC and FPL will host an event with students accepted into the program this coming August and ahead of the fall term to provide an update on progress and celebrate student achievement.

 

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | Dedicated IT

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Providing trusted IT support and technology solutions, with a focus on the healthcare industry.

Established in its current form: 2016

HQ: Lake Park, FL

Employees: 90

Website: DedicatedIT.com

 

Gartner forecasts that worldwide IT spending will increase upwards of 5% this year, coming in at a projected total of $4.5 trillion. Healthcare providers in particular are expected to increase their spending by approximately the same amount, growing to $136 billion. 

Dedicated IT is far from your typical managed service provider. The Lake Park-based company focuses on serving healthcare providers, both locally and nationally. 

Dedicated IT is very active in South Florida, working with some of our high-profile medical practices such as MD Now Urgent Care, the Cleveland Clinic in Vero, and United Surgical Partners International. The company is also experiencing significant growth, having grown its revenue by 10x since 2016.

Chris Burns, Dedicated IT’s Managing Partner & CXO, broke down some of the trends that have led to the growth of the healthcare IT market.

For one, the pandemic has pushed healthcare providers to embrace digital technologies like telemedicine. Burns described these providers’ decisions to take go digital as akin to ripping off the proverbial band aid. “A lot of people who were not ready to make a move to a digital system or do what was required to make remote work possible were really forced to make those decisions.”

Burns explained how evolving expectations in a post-pandemic world required healthcare providers to rethink their business processes, such as allowing staff to work from home and enabling doctors to see patients remotely.

Another major trend Burns highlighted is cybersecurity. Ransomware alone is expected to cost businesses $20 billion globally, with the average breach costing $4.37 million according to IBM research.

Burns explained to South Florida Tech Hub that cybersecurity insurance, which has historically been one of the most popular ways to mitigate cybersecurity risk, is now a less viable option. “Cybersecurity insurance carriers are no longer writing policies anymore to cover near the amount that they used to. They require all kinds of new criteria and process changes – all of which has become a burden on the practice.”

Dedicated IT takes pride in helping its customers protect themselves and their data while they scale their digital transformation efforts. Their key differentiator? According to CEO Aaron Underhill, it’s their specialization that shines through: “We know them. We’re not just an IT company that can fix their issues. We understand their business and the problems they encounter.”

Underhill gave the example of their healthcare specialty. Because they have upwards of 30 orthopaedic clients, the Dedicated IT team knows exactly the software and hardware necessary to drive their business goals.

Burns added that Dedicated IT’s data-driven approach makes them stand out. “Our customers like to see benchmarking data that shows clients where they stand against their peers. It’s hard to argue against data when we can bring accuracy like that to the table.”

Are you a healthcare provider looking for help managing your IT systems? Learn more about Dedicated IT’s services on their website.

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | Dynatrace

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Global, publicly traded technology company. Provides a software intelligence platform that combines broad and deep observability and continuous runtime application security with advanced AIOps to deliver answers and intelligent automation from data.

Founded: 2005

HQ: Waltham, Massachusetts

Employees: Over 3,000

Website: Dynatrace.com

 

Dynatrace is a global technology company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, that provides an all-in-one software intelligence platform. The company prides itself on providing a platform that combines broad and deep observability and continuous runtime application security with advanced AIOps to provide answers and intelligent automation from data at an enormous scale about the performance of its clients’ applications, their underlying infrastructure, and the experience of their end users.

As the adoption of cloud computing technologies continues its rapid growth trajectory, Dynatrace will play an increasingly important role in monitoring and optimizing application performance as well as developing security IT infrastructure.

The Dynatrace® Platform provides users with automatic and intelligent observability, cloud automation, continuous runtime application security, and digital experience and business analytics – within which we offer technologies such as Session Reply, Real User Monitoring, and Synthetic Monitoring.

A key feature of its platform is Davis, a causal AI engine that sits at the core of the Dynatrace® platform. Davis works by continuously and automatically processing high-fidelity logs, metrics, traces, and user data to provide precise answers. From there, Davis can then detect and report any problems like slowdown or error-rate increases, and prioritize these by business impact.

Nestor Zapata is a Partner Cloud Evangelist for Dynatrace, focusing particularly on LATAM Partners and Alliances. In an interview with South Florida Tech Hub, Zapata underscored Dynatrace’s capabilities for intelligent observability. This goes beyond traditional monitoring, he explained: “You observe everything, but you do it with some intelligence.”

“You have an app that went down, but what caused it to go down? What is it also going to affect? How many customers potentially could be affected or have been affected by this app going down?” Zapata said that Dynatrace’s system aims to answer these questions and more.

Zapata has a uniquely comprehensive perspective on Dynatrace, having worked with the company as a customer at a previous company for many years. His day-to-day is varied: one day he could be doing training certifications, another he could be delivering hands-on workshops.

One of the most exciting trends Zapata sees in the space right now is the automation of artificial intelligence. “The AI is really there,” he asserted. “I’ve been able to experience some of that AI at work within Dynatrace as a customer.”

For Zapata, the further development of AI tech can lead to more opportunities for tech workers. “Automate yourself out of your current job role and into the next one,” he said. 

As a native Miamian, Zapata is pleased with the strides the South Florida tech scene has made recently. “It’s near and dear to me, and I’m excited about South Florida Tech Hub’s work uniting our region.” He previously worked at other major South Florida tech organizations, including Citrix, Voyager, and Miami-Dade County.

Zapata underscored the value of coming together with fellow technologists to lift each other up: “Tech Hub is a mesh of great people, and great organizations that can share their insights in a tight-knit community.”

“I’m proud to be a member of South Florida Tech Hub,” he said.

 

Learn more about Dynatrace by visiting their website, Dynatrace.com.

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | Castle Group

Read Time 3 Minutes

Mission: Providing top-tier property management for the finest residential communities of Florida and Texas.

Founded: 1992

HQ: Plantation

Employees: 2,000+

Website: CastleGroup.com

 

For the last 30 years, the Castle Group has been at the forefront of property management. The Plantation-based company now manages over 400 homeowner associations. Over 300,000 people live in 150,000 homes located in communities managed by the Castle Group.

Over the years, founder and CEO James Donnelly has developed the Castle Group’s philosophy: “Hiring the best people, supporting them with the best systems, and marrying them with the best technology.”

Donnelly told South Florida Tech Hub that technology has long been at the core of the Castle Group’s business. “It’s people that run everything,” he explained. “But people are imperfect. So we believe that you need to have systems supporting them so when someone forgets to do something, an alarm goes off.”

The Castle Group previously designed custom solutions to fit its needs. Nowadays, Donnelly explained that third party systems are so advanced that it is no longer necessary to develop software in-house.

For Donnelly, there are four main drivers of tech in property management. First is workflow. “It’s about the extent to which we can enhance workflows with technology,” he noted. “We want to become more efficient, more economic, more effective.”

Second is auto-service. “Our audience really loves self-help,” he said, noting that residents appreciate the ability to manage their property through their smartphone.

Third: cybersecurity. “Now that we’ve gone online, we’ve become targets,” he said. “It’s been in every industry, including ours.” Donnelly, who sits on the board of Nova Southeastern University, highlighted the cybersecurity range at NSU’s Levan Center as a particularly important local initiative.

Finally, Donnelly underscored that a focus on tech can lead to a competitive edge. “With technology, we can work a bit better and win more market share.”

Donnelly is bullish on the growth of our market, and the Castle Group’s place in it. “750 people net move to Florida every day,” he said. “Three to a household means we need 250 more households every day. And the approximate size of a new community is 250 units. So we have to build 365 more residential properties every year just to house the immigration.”

When it comes to South Florida tech, Donnelly prefers to take a regional approach: “We’re going to win not as competitors but as partners.” 

“We can put ourselves on the tech map, and we need to because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he continued. “You can’t get talent if no one knows about it, and you can’t get businesses here if we don’t have talent here.”

Donnelly praised local universities for the work they are doing to develop a strong pipeline for tech talent. “All our major colleges have stepped up,” he said. “I’m really excited.”

As for the future of the Castle Group, Donnelly hopes to maintain a consistent, measured level of growth and continue to attract top talent. “Millennials and Gen Z will have on average 15 jobs in their lifetime. I challenge my younger teammates to stay at this company and get those 15 jobs. We’ll help to make it happen.”

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | Boca Raton Innovation Campus

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Provides office space and fosters a community among innovators in the South Florida tech ecosystem

Launched: Originally built in the 1960s, upgraded in 2005 and 2018

Location: Boca Raton

Size: 1.7 million square-foot campus situated on 123 acres; 36 tenants with a cumulative 6,000 employees

Website: WorkAtBRiC.com

Innovation rarely happens in isolation. Collaboration is key – bringing together people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise to catalyze and crystalize the next big idea.

The Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC) aims to be the nexus for collaboration in South Florida and beyond. The office park is known for its iconic modernist style, designed by world-renowned Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer. 

The facilities were originally built for IBM, and it was on this site in 1981 that the world’s first personal computer was invented. Now it houses a wide range of South Florida’s most innovative firms, from local healthtech success story Modernizing Medicine to photography pioneer Canon.

Giana Pacinelli, Marketing Director for CP Group, the landlord and property management team for BRiC, explained their goal of “taking BRiC’s history and bringing it to the future.” She said that CP Group aims to harness the campus’s storied past as a space for innovation while also providing the amenities that will impress even the most discerning tenants.

Pacinelli noted BRiC’s “Google-style” facilities, including a lush campus with seven miles of walking paths and amenities like a dining hall that converts into a 1,000-person capacity presentation hall, two coffee shops, and a recently-renovated fitness center. Soon, they plan to open an autonomous grab-and-go store that will enable workers to purchase staples like bread and produce through a completely contactless system.

Currently, BRiC is zoned strictly for commercial office use. However, Pacinelli explained that they are now working with the city to rezone the campus to make it a “true live-work-play ecosystem.” The vision is to create a 15-minute city that residents can walk around and access everything they need – from work and living spaces to medical facilities and restaurants.

“In order to do all of that, we need to rezone BRiC,” said Pacinelli, underscoring the property’s interest in attracting big businesses and international meetings.

CP Group has put together a campaign to connect with the community. By visiting WorkAtBRiC.com/Support, Boca Raton residents can sign a letter to show their support for BRiC’s plans. Through this link, neighbors can also schedule a tour of the campus.

While work for home became a daily reality for many South Floridians during the pandemic, Pacinelli said that CP Group is “bullish that people will return to the office.” She evidenced the recent uptick in employees returning to the office as a signal that trend of workers returning to the office will continue

“Work has successfully invaded our personal lives,” she explained, noting that heading to an office can help create much-needed barriers between work and personal lives. Many of BRiC’s tenants have refreshed their workspaces to include more spaces for collaboration. BRiC also has imminent plans to unveil a co-working space later this year.

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | GenoBank.io

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Blockchain-powered platform to help people keep their genomic data secure

Launched: 2018

HQs: Miami and Silicon Valley

Website: Genobank.io

 

When most people think of NFTs these days, an image of a melancholy monkey or a pixelated punk might be the first things that comes to mind. But one group of Miami-based entrepreneurs is working on leveraging this blockchain technology to empower users to maintain control of their genomic data.

GenoBank.io has developed a platform that tokenizes genomic data. By controlling their genomic sequence in a transparent way, users can decide who accesses this information, when they access it, and how. 

“We call this a consent token,” explained GenoBank.io’s co-founder and CEO, Daniel Uribe. “It gives permission to share your genomic data with someone for research purposes, and it’s revocable by the donor.” This falls in line with the latest privacy laws, including those in California and Europe.

“Consumers have the right to know what data they have, the right to edit their data, right to port their data, and the right for erasure,” Uribe told South Florida Tech Hub. Before GenoBank.io, Uribe worked as an IT cybersecurity expert for multinational firms including Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Ericsson. 

Diversity is a key part of GenoBank.io’s business model, asserted its COO, Sharon Holm. “We’re bringing equity to genetics,” she said. Holm highlighted the historical lack of transparency in the world of genomic research. For instance, the case of Henrietta Lacks – one of a diverse group of patients whose cancer cells were collected without her knowledge or consent. 

The result of examples like this, according to Holm: “the African American community over time and through history has been very hesitant to participate in clinical trials.”

“We believe that our platform will enable them to feel more secure: having their results and being able to give consent to then possibly participate in trials to help with furthering medical breakthroughs,” said Holm. “To find cures for the health issues that happen in their particular race.”

GenoBank.io protects ethical researchers, keeping them compliant with data privacy laws and are B2B and license their technology to researchers.

Uribe has been working in NFTs since 2017. “We’re the only ones working with NFTs and genomic info,” he said. “It makes sense because the human genome is non-fungible by nature.”

Being based in South Florida has presented GenoBank.io with a wide range of opportunities. They just finished the Endeavor Miami scaleup program. “It feels like we’ve become part of their family,” noted Holm. She and Uribe hope that the connection with Endeavor will prove advantageous when it comes to raising capital. 

“It was such a well organized program,” Holm said. “Very well thought through and executed wonderfully.” Now, GenoBank.io has its sights set on eMerge America’s CNB Startup Studio.

Moving forward, Uribe is excited about the prospect of using MiamiCoins, the City of Miami’s cryptocurrency, for public health. The theory is that through this blockchain, researchers could more easily track Covid-19 variants across the population. “This would be the first time that the MiamiCoin treasure would be used for a public health purpose,” Uribe said.

By Riley Kaminer

Member Spotlight | bundleIQ

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: An AI assistant that provides valuable information from notes, emails, and docs so you can focus on working rather than searching.

Launched: 2018

HQ: West Palm Beach

Employees: 6

Website: BundleIQ.com

 

 

Are you drowning in docs? It seems like the pandemic has pushed digital workers into flurries of files and mountains of messages. But what if you need to find some specific information amongst all of this clutter? Command-F will only get you so far.

Enter West Palm Beach startup bundleIQ. Founded by Nicholas Mohnacky, who also wears a hat as Chairman of innovation hub 1909, bundleIQ is an AI-powered platform that provides users with the most valuable information from all their digital files and communications. The goal: to enable its users to spend more time working rather than searching. Mohnacky calls these searches “semantic.”

“It’s about making connections that go beyond a specific keyword and focusing on the essence of the information you’re trying to retrieve,” Mohnacky explained.

For instance, a researcher could upload a slew of government reports on a topic that they are investigating. Then, as they write, bundleIQ actively suggests content from those reports that is related to the topic at hand. This becomes particularly useful for users with a significant amount of digital assets.

“Our vision is to be a second brain that serves as an AI knowledge worker,” asserted Mohnacky. “It’s a companion that helps you make use of your information. Think of it as a Grammarly for knowledge tool.” While bundleIQ is helpful for anyone that deals with digital written content, the platform has gained particular notoriety ag academics and researchers.

Now, bundleIQ works across users’ Gmail accounts as well. “When you search your inbox, bundleIQ taps into your knowledge base and serves insights,” said Mohnacky. bundleIQ works in your web browser, as a Chrome plugin, and as an iPhone app.

There is a free plan for bundleIQ that gives users unlimited workspaces, bundles, and email support. For just under $200 a year, users get additional functionality such as being able to bulk upload PDFs and access to their AI-powered extension. For a further $100 annually, users are also given additional storage, a knowledge graph, and custom branding – perfect for its B2B clients.

The future of South Florida tech is bright

Having been active in the Palm Beach tech community for over a decade, Mohnacky is excited about the county’s role in the broader South Florida tech movement.

“West Palm Beach can be a hub between the two ends of the Brightline: Miami and Orlando,” he commented. “It’s great to be part of a community that’s concentrated on people that care about building technology in South Florida.”

Mohnacky noted that West Palm Beach benefits from “a lot of intellectual and financial capital,” as it is home to many of the world’s top executives and businesspeople. “Our market is really mature, and it has fertile soil for growth,” he said, underscoring that South Florida is an increasingly popular destination for innovators of all ages and abilities.Learn more about bundleIQ and check out the free trial by visiting their website.

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