Through the Hemispheric Innovation Hub initiative, part of the Roadmap to Our New Century, the University of Miami is advancing its role as a catalyst for innovation and new ventures that encourage entrepreneurship, enable collaboration and spur product development.

Led by Norma Kenyon, vice provost for innovation, the Hemispheric Innovation Hub action team—composed of faculty, staff and students—is working to further develop the University’s infrastructure for innovation. Among its key first steps, the action team reviewed the U’s current innovation activities and identified priorities for innovation hires and investments.

Also key to the initiative is the University’s new partnership with the Cambridge Innovation Center and the creation of Converge Miami, located just east of the medical campus. Originally developed as UM’s Life Science and Technology Park, the six-story, 252,000-square-foot building provides a space where innovators and entrepreneurs, health care experts, investors and established companies can converge in a dense cluster of talent to fuel commercialization through strategic capital investments, scale great ideas regionally and globally, and facilitate connections throughout the Americas.

By providing a welcoming entry point for entrepreneurs from Latin America and the Caribbean, Converge Miami will help the University build alliances with leading institutions throughout our hemisphere, and position the U as the hemisphere’s innovation hub.