In advance of Miami’s eMerge Americas conference in April, the British American Business Council welcomed the tech event’s creator, Manny Medina, to talk about “The New Miami: Global Technology Hub”. Mr. Medina is the Chairman and CEO of Medina Capital Partners, an investment firm focused on funding technology companies. Before that, he was founder and CEO of Terremark before selling that company to Verizon-Communications for $1.4 billion.
Around the world, leaders and think-tanks are talking about a “data revolution” as our next huge step forward:
The Data Revolution is not the first time technology promises to transform our world. It may, however, be the fastest. In the long view of economic history, the first major technological shift forward was the Agricultural Revolution, which benefited humankind with more efficient farming methods and a higher standard of living. Next, in the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, economic productivity doubled in about 150-200 years. Productivity skyrocketed in the Computer Revolution, with a three-fold gain in the half century starting in the 1960s.
Now, at the onset of what we believe to be a fourth revolution, the world may be entering a period of even more rapid productivity gains thanks to the remarkable power which can be gained from data.
Mr. Medina agrees, and he believes that Miami is uniquely positioned to be a global technology hub in this productivity revolution. Established tech companies – including Google, Twitter and Facebook – as well as the booming growth of tech start-ups in Miami see our city as a gateway to Latin America and Europe.
At the British American Business Council breakfast seminar, Manny Medina also talked about the benefits and problems of the data revolution. Among the positives, he cited the tremendous advances in financing, health care, smart cities, energy, and government thanks to innovation in data storage and retrieval. But he cautioned that cyber security is the “biggest danger since the threat of nuclear war”. He says that 97% of all data networks have already been compromised. A rather sobering thought as we move forward in this data revolution.
The British American Business Council’s breakfast seminar was hosted by Nicolas Watkins at GrayRobinson law firm in the Wells Fargo Center at 333 SE 2 Avenue, Downtown Miami. eMerge Americas 2016 is scheduled for April 18 and 19 at the Miami Beach Convention.