Black-owned downtown Miami tech center opens: ‘This business exists to empower others’

Miami has a new tech hub thanks to The Source, a Black-owned tech center in downtown Miami that opened Thursday morning. The Source is owned by Miami Gardens native Ted Lucas and his business partner Hilmon Sorey, a venture capitalist who spent 25 years investing in more than 100 companies, including Uber and Lyft.

“If you look like me, I want to see how you are going to help my community,” said Lucas, the founder of Slip-N-Slide Records. “That’s very important to me.”

The Source Miami will develop local tech talent and support students, startups and small businesses through accelerators, workshops and networking opportunities. The space has offices, meeting rooms and a central room for workshops with a large painting of $1 million in cash to visually inspire attendees.

Lucas credited Miami Mayor Francis Suarez with helping him develop a strategy for entering Miami’s tech economy. After noticing Suarez’s efforts to bring tech founders to Miami, Lucas met with him during the pandemic to better understand the tech economy and how Black residents could better participate.

“It’s important to have a space like this because there are a lot of different organizations handling different aspects of the tech ecosystem,” said Stefan Owens, The Source’s head of growth and investment.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III, who attended the grand opening, believes in The Source’s promise of supporting startup founders in their growth.

“Most businesses exist to empower themselves,” he said. “This business exists to empower others. Our economy is made up of thousands of small companies, and it’s our job to empower them. Faith without works is dead, and this thing is alive.”

Through the partnership of Lucas’ Tech Knowledge organization and Florida Memorial University, Lucas has been able to support tech boot camps to train local residents for the tech jobs of the future. “Within the last two years we’ve invested $500,000 in startup companies, and we’re just getting started,” he said.

A single mother of two boys, Miami Gardens native Desiray Malcolm is one example of the type of professional The Source wants to support. Malcolm, 30, previously worked in warehousing and sought better professional opportunities. Once she heard from a friend that she could earn six figures after participating in a tech bootcamp at Florida Memorial University, she had to learn more.

“I was always optimistic about everything,”’ she said. “They started talking about optimization and after I optimized my resume, the next day I heard from a recruiter at Kaseya.”

Malcolm graduated from the second cohort of Tech Knowledge and Florida Memorial’s tech bootcamp and now works as an account manager for Kaseya.

“They say this is the beginning for The Source, but I feel like we’ve already taken off,” she said.