Business Innovation & Technology Center At MDC Receives $2.9 Million Grant

The Business Innovation & Technology Center at Miami Dade College has been awarded a $2.9 million federal grant from the Department of Education to expand its curriculum, student support services, satellite hubs and faculty training.

“It is an honor to receive this type of grant,” said Chechu Lasheras, the director of the BIT Center. “We need people from different disciplines to be aware of how technology will disrupt the world.”

The center opened in 2020 to connect new technologies, such as blockchain and cryptocurrency, with the business world. It is located at Wolfson Campus with satellite hubs at North and Kendall Campus.

To broaden its reach, the BIT Center will expand its satellite hubs virtually by offering online courses. The Eduardo J. Padrón Campus is already set to host a cryptocurrency fundamentals course this summer while West Campus is working on hosting a virtual summer camp on digital marketing.

“We will love to have every campus involved,” Lasheras said. 

With the expansion of course offerings, a new curriculum will be developed to provide students with the opportunity to obtain marketing industry certifications from Google Ads, Hootsuite, Bloomberg and Facebook. 

Besides certifications, the grant will seek to expand its programs to offer students the opportunity to obtain a bachelor’s degree in digital marketing while also offering college-credit certificates in sales and customer service or asset and wealth management. 

Faculty will receive training through webinars and workshops about social media, business analytics, cryptocurrency and digital marketing. This year, more than 70 professors have participated in a webinar. 

To enable faculty to enhance their digital marketing campaign curriculum, the grant will also allow the BIT Center to buy new digital licenses for Google Ads and Mailchimp and customer relationship management software such as Salesforce. 

The grant will also finance the addition of four tutors who will assist students with learning course material and completing industry certifications. Besides tutoring, special projects such as the Student Operated Digital Agency and the Student Managed Investment Fund give students further opportunities to learn. 

“The BIT center has helped me by giving me the opportunity to use its modern technology like the Bloomberg terminal to conduct research on financial markets,” said Kevin Guillen, a 19-year-old accounting major at Kendall Campus, who is part of the SMIF.

In May, the BIT Center hosted the Activate x Wormhole Hackathon. The five-day-long event featured a competition that awarded a winner a $2,500 prize. 

“We are having a stellar year,” said Rogelio Ramirez, the BIT Center manager and a professor of digital marketing. “There is nothing in life like seeing success in the face of young people.”