Campuses & Programs

Who We Serve

Our mission is to unleash the entrepreneurial mindset in our students, faculty, and staff. In addition, we look outward in our community empowering small business owners to keep growing their ventures. Visit our website to learn more: theideacenter.co.

Students

We serve our students by promoting entrepreneurship as a career option, providing access to startup funding, connecting them with the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and helping develop their innovation skills.

Faculty and Staff

We empower faculty and staff to become "intrapreneurs" and innovate at MDC from within. We organize professional development opportunities, seminars and workshops, among others.

Community

We have a series of programs for small business owners, including our signature 12-week leadership and training program as well as monthly workshops to learn about business growth tools.

Our Impact In Numbers

In 2023, we served 5,000 people, executed 60+ programs across eight campuses, engaged 500+ employees with our entrepreneurial workshops, and “Scaled Up” 25+ businesses with our small business training.

Success Stories

Students:

Neo Gaitan, Founder of Valor
Now a recent MDC graduate, Neo came to us with an idea of founding his design brand. We helped him with coaching and startup founding. Look at him now!

Faculty:

Yanatha Desouvre, Professor and Author
We’ve supported entrepreneurship professor, author and filmmaker, Yanatha Desouvre with access to professional development and co-curricular programming in his class.

Community:

Xenia Marcinko, Founder of The Magus Films
We provided pitch coaching support to Xenia, a Scale Up alum, helping her win $50k at Miami-Dade County’s BizUp Pitch Competition. 

In the News:

“[The Idea Center] will provide valuable entrepreneurial resources to Miami Dade College students and small business owners in the South Dade community.” (South Dade News Leader)

“At The Idea Center, we help support [students] - build out that idea, build out that business plan- put together a pitch for it, looks for some of the investments”

“Together with our world-class faculty, we will transform The Idea Center at Miami Dade College into the leader in entrepreneurship and innovation education among colleges in the nation” (Refresh Miami)