By Jay Moskowitz
The Rokk Miami-Brad Feld event really brought out the tremendous interest in growing the Miami tech community, making it easy for people to learn of the wealth of events and groups meeting throughout the region, allowing people to easily find each other and encouraging others outside of our area to learn why they should start or bring their business to South Florida. What the attendees summarized after their breakout sessions is exactly what the Group of Groups, which started at the beginning of this year, is focused upon. Here is some information about the Group of Groups:
The Group of Groups' focus is to bring together all of the leaders of the various groups in the Southeast Florida region from Martin County to Miami-Dade County, to work together to address common issues and concerns of our region and to promote South Florida as a technology center. This effort is also educate all of us, both within and outside of South Florida, of all of the diverse groups that exist and all of the events that are happening throughout the area. Just out of our first meeting, many group leaders had no idea of the existence of certain other specialty groups and they have already formed new relationships that did not exist prior to our first event.
The members of the Group of Groups represent the interests of their particular group and can bring back information regarding the work of the full Group of Groups, to their individual membership. They may even solicit assistance from their own membership to assist in initiatives that the entire Group of Groups wish to work on to promote the South Florida community.
Members of the Group of Groups are:
* Group leaders (which is any special interest groups such as software development groups, hardware, life sciences, entrepreneurship, technology, hacker groups, Makerspace groups, etc. as well as Meetup groups)
* Universities (such as the business development groups of such schools)
* Large businesses (such as Scripps Florida, Office Depot, Citrix, Hewlett-Packard Latin America, Nokia)
* Financial organizations (angel groups, venture capital groups, foundations)
* Government representatives
Our first full meeting, consisting of 45 members, was held on Feb. 19. Among this membership are the leaders across each of the areas mentioned above. It was decided, at that meeting, that the full Group of Groups would meet once per quarter and that a steering committee would meet in between meetings to move forward on items of common interest.
We are soliciting more group leaders to join the Group of Groups and to attend our Spring 2013 meeting, which will be held in Miami at the UM Life Science and Technology Park on May 29. This is an event limited to Group Leaders. Please contact the founder of the Group of Groups, Jay Moskowitz, jay@spdControlSystems.com to register as a member. You will receive an Eventbrite private invitation to reserve your seat at the upcoming meeting. If the group leader is unable to attend, please join the group and have an associate attend the meeting on your behalf. Once you join, you will receive the Emails about the activities of the full group. Please provide your contact information, the name of your group and a brief description of your group to Jay Moskowitz to add your name to the invitation list and to introduce you to the other members of the group. The full list of all members will be shared with everyone. It is important to first contact Jay so that we have a proper headcount. If you are interested in joining but cannot attend the upcoming meeting, please still add your group as a member of the Group of Groups.
Please note that a bus is being arranged to bring members in Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties to the meeting in Miami.
Current Members
| | | --- | | AIFFL – Angel Forum of Florida - Chairman | | Athenian Venture Partners | | Boca Chamber's Technology Committee | | Citrix | | CocoaHeads Fort Lauderdale Chapter | | Commissioner Palm Beach County | | EDC - Enterprise Development Corporation | | Entrepreneurs Organization South Florida Chapter | | FAU - Adams Center for Entrepreneurship | | FAU Computer Science and Engineering Industry Advisory Board | | Florida Technology Enthusiasts | | GCVCA - Gold Coast Venture Capital Association | | iCoast | | iCoast CIO Council | | Infotech Workforce Development Initiative (IWDI) | | Inventors Society | | Knight Foundation | | LSTHUB - Life Science and Technology Hub | | Lynn University, College of Business | | Makerspace Development | | MIT Enterprise Forum of South Florida | | Miami Startup Digest | | New Tech Community | | New World Angels | | Palm Beach County Entrepreneur Task Force | | Palm Beach State College | | PBC Entrepreneurship Group | | Scripps Florida | | SFTA - South Florida Technology Alliance | | South Florida Hack n Tell | | South Florida Life Sciences Information Clearinghouse | | Startup Delray | | TheLaunchPad.org – University of Miami entrepreneur community | | TheReef.biz | | Workforce Alliance |
Jay Moskowitz, a holder of many patents, has started eight tech companies. He created the Group of Groups, which currently has a membership of more than 50 leaders of various technology groups from Miami-Dade to Martin County.