{"id":244305,"date":"2026-04-24T04:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/244305\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T04:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:44:18","slug":"emerge-americas-returns-with-a-big-show-of-tech-and-miami-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/244305\/","title":{"rendered":"eMerge Americas returns with a big show of tech \u2013 and Miami momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a high energy light show featuring live music and dance, Melissa and Manny Medina kicked off the eMerge Americas<\/a> Conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on Thursday. This year\u2019s conference is bringing together 400 exhibitors, 300 speakers, pavilions for AI, national security, healthtech and SMBs, and content spanning AI, quantum, healthtech, fintech and national security.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiami has a great opportunity to become a hub of innovation. The acceleration is palpable \u2026 you see in AI and quantum. you see in FinTech and, of course, in healthtech, and I think the verticals will continue to grow. Miami will continue to grow, and I\u2019m very, very proud of that,\u201d said Manny Medina, who founded eMerge Americas in 2013 to help bring tech to the region.<\/p>\n

And this week has been full of tech. The conference follows eMerge\u2019s \u00a0AI hackathon at The Lab Miami that attracted 400 developers, eMerge\u2019s National Security Demo Day at Port Miami, and AI and quantum master classes earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Here are some snippets from Day 1:<\/p>\n

Leadership in the age of \u00a0AI and tech acceleration<\/p>\n

As the first female pilot selected to fly in the US Air Force Demonstration Squadron known as the Thunderbirds, retired combat veteran Nicole Malachowski knows something about leadership. She mustered skills from her 21-year military career to overcome a sudden, devastating tick-borne illness that left her hospitalized for nine months and then, re-learning to walk, talk and read over another year and a half.<\/p>\n

As a pilot, Malachowski is clear on leadership: \u201cNever let the jet fly you. You have to fly it.\u201d She feels the same about tech. Humans need to run it, with strong ethics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more complex technology gets, the more we need humans,\u201d she told a Main Stage audience at eMerge 2026. Too often, she said, the focus on tech is efficiency, not values or accountability: \u201cWe can\u2019t have an abdication of moral responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

To bolster judgement among tech builders and users, Malachowski suggests schools focus more on critical thinking and the humanities, including philosophy and ethics. \u201cWe don\u2019t work for technology. Technology needs to work for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Waymo rides its way to adoption \u2013 and Miami<\/p>\n

More than a decade before AI became a household word, Waymo as part of Alphabet was already at the forefront of AI, developing the tech that would ensure its autonomous\u00a0 vehicles could make split second decisions in real time in very complicated environments. The reason the service is now available in 11 cities including Miami, is because its service\u00a0 has the safety record that has built trust among riders and stakeholders.\u00a0 \u201cMillions of miles of actual on-road test driving, billions of miles in simulation, and the proof is in the pudding. Now we can show, based on real 200 million miles of driving without anybody in the front seat, that this technology is 13 times\u00a0 safer than when humans are behind the wheel,\u201d said Sasway Panigrahi, CPO of Waymo, in an on-stage\u00a0 conversation with Lab22c founder Saif Ishoof.<\/p>\n

With the safety record, it was easier to convince\u00a0 cities\u2019 stakeholders to get on board. Building that trust city by city, Waymo announced this month the service was fully available in Miami, its 11th US market. \u201cHere in Miami, we have felt extremely welcome. It\u2019s a very innovation-forward city.\u201d It\u2019s a cultural capital with big transportation needs.<\/p>\n

Today Waymos are delivering half a million trips every week across its 11 cities, and those 500,000 trips represent 10x growth over the last two years, when it was about 50,000. Going forward, Waymo aims to integrate with public transit systems as last-mile solutions and continue to expand based on user feedback and city needs. \u00a0Besides for getting from point A to point B, Waymos offer privacy\u00a0 for date nights or taking business calls. So where does one sit in a Waymo, front or back?\u00a0 Some like the full view of the passenger seat, others prefer the back, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s your space. You can own it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Agentic AI is opening the door to a new kind of security risk<\/p>\n

In a panel discussion on agentic AI, InCountry\u2019s Peter Yared asserted that as AI systems become more autonomous, the risk will shift to places most companies don\u2019t fully see yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of AI relies on paid tools and open-source components underneath,\u201d Yared said, pointing to a growing issue around vendor and software supply chains. As teams layer models, APIs, and libraries together, vulnerabilities can slip in deep within the stack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now very easy to find and exploit weaknesses,\u201d he said, noting that attackers are targeting older libraries and even inserting malicious code after building trust in open-source projects. \u201cAnything you use can be compromised at a very low level.\u201d That dynamic is creating what he described as an \u201cAI war,\u201d with both attackers and defenders using AI to move faster. New tools are already emerging to scan for and fix vulnerabilities, but the pace is tight. \u201cHopefully this stabilizes in the next six to nine months,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Yared also touched on a more practical challenge: cost control. His approach is simple. \u201cWhen people are experimenting, you don\u2019t want to limit them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut once it\u2019s live across a company, you have to cap spend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Healthcare RX: Democratize the cost of drugs<\/p>\n

Dr. Alez Oshinowski, co-founder and CEO of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, described his transition from radiology to founding a pharmacy business built on transparency resulting in \u201ccost plus pricing\u201d to undercut inflated generic drug markups driven by intermediatries. In a conversation on-stage with Andrew Papa, founder of Miami-based Papa (coincidentally, they were in the same Y-Combinator cohort in 2018), Oshinowski recounted the company\u2019s early success reducing prices such as for albendazole from about $400 to $5 a tablet and how Mark Cuban\u2019s endorsement \u2013 which originated from Oshinowski\u2019s cold \u00a0email to Cuban that instantly led to a conversation and then a small investment to start \u2014 accelerated growth and product expansion.<\/p>\n

The next year, the then very small team was able to get three companies to do 100 products with us, and that\u2019s when \u201cCost Plus Drugs really blew up and became a thing,\u201d he said. Oshinowski has positions the business as a parallel supply chain for the pharma industry based on fundamental principals of transparency and honest dealing, instead of pharmacy benefit managers ( PBMs) and wholesalers that he says double or triples the costs through complex intermediary mechanisms.<\/p>\n

Today Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs is also a manufacturer for certain drugs that are in short supply. The plant, in Dallas, was designed to manufacture multiple small batches.<\/p>\n

While the company is strong in generics now, looking ahead, he envisions the company democratizing personalized medicine by dramatically lowering costs and scaling individual treatments. He also emphasized the company\u2019s broader goal of disintermediating monopolies rather than replacing all PBM\u2019s directly.<\/p>\n

\"\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

Cybersecurity risks at hospitals in the AI age<\/p>\n

For all its promise, AI also brings new risks, especially for cybersecurity at hospitals and large healthcare organizations, according to a panel on digital health risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bad guys are using AI to accelerate their attacks,\u201d said John Riggi, an FBI veteran who serves as a national advisor on cybersecurity and risk for the American Hospital Association. Defenders are using AI to counter and bolster security too. Still, said Riggi, \u201cit is yet to be seen who comes out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Countering attacks is not a problem just for IT departments but affects operations and patient care too. One recent ransomware attack on a US hospital prompted patients to be dispersed to other facilities. Increasingly, cybersecurity at hospitals needs to be elevated \u201cto the board level\u201d and requires \u201cpreparedness plans\u201d specifying when to turn off patient services or not, said Connie Barrera, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Jackson Health System in Miami.<\/p>\n

She sees challenges multiplying in the coming years, as quantum computing becomes available. With more powerful computers, bad actors have the potential to crack into hospital systems faster, possibly \u201cwithin a few hours,\u201d said Barrera.<\/p>\n

As AI is integrated into more tasks in healthcare, concerns arise too about the morals behind the AI programs. \u201cI ask questions about ethics: How is this model being trained?,\u201d said Mauricio Angee, CISO for the University of Miami, UHealth and the Miller School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

Higher education in the AI era<\/p>\n

Rapid AI deployment also is prompting schools to rethink how and what they teach. Educators recognize that AI may replace many entry- and mid-level jobs.<\/p>\n

The University of Miami now is streamlining its curriculum and using AI to develop more customized studies for students. Studies must increasingly focus on judgment and resilience, not just facts or past knowledge, said Dr. Yelena Yesha, chief innovation officer at the U\u2019s Institute for Data Science & Computing. \u201cAI can\u2019t teach you critical thinking and the ability to manage change,\u201d said Yesha.<\/p>\n

As knowledge becomes more of a commodity, even classes available on YouTube, business schools also need to adapt. That\u2019s why entrepreneur Alvaro Schocair in 2020 founded Brazil\u2019s Link School of Business, geared to entrepreneurs and innovators. Link now hosts some 1,100 students, and its alumni have created more than 200 startups that have raised more than $80 million for their ventures. \u201cOur intention is to come to the US and replicate what we did in Brazil in the US,\u201d Schocair said. His advice to educators: \u201cTake students out of the classroom. Show them the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eric Trump, Bitcoin, and a little Miami swagger close out Day 1<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be #MiamiTech or eMerge Americas without some crypto in the mix\u2026 and the closing keynote leaned all the way in. On stage, Eric Trump, American Bitcoin\u2019s Asher Genoot, and former Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez made the case that Miami is helping shape where Bitcoin, energy, and digital infrastructure go next.<\/p>\n

For Trump, the move into crypto was personal. \u201cI woke up one day in 2021 and I had been canceled by everybody,\u201d he said, describing how banks pulled accounts and forced a rethink of how money moves. \u201cWe literally didn\u2019t have rails to conduct business.\u201d That experience pushed him toward what he now sees as the future. \u201cThere\u2019s never been a time where a digital technology didn\u2019t overtake an analog one,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening in the monetary world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he was quick to frame Bitcoin not as purely digital, but deeply tied to the physical world. The pitch from both Trump and Genoot centered on infrastructure: power, data centers, and the machinery behind the network. \u201cWe didn\u2019t see Bitcoin as just a digital asset,\u201d Genoot said. \u201cWe saw it as the physical infrastructure that secures the network.\u201d<\/p>\n

That perspective has shaped American Bitcoin<\/a>, the company they launched together. In just over a year, Genoot said the business has raised more than half a billion dollars, built around energy capacity and mining operations.<\/p>\n

For his part, Suarez, who has long pushed crypto adoption at the city level, pointed to real-world use. \u201cI was the first public official to be paid in Bitcoin,\u201d he said, adding that Miami employees were also given the option to take their salaries in it. Suarez also leaned into Miami\u2019s role in all this, and the focus of his administration in trying to create the conditions for builders to show up. \u201cOur strategy was simple,\u201d he said. \u201cKeep taxes low, keep people safe, lean into American innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Energy, unsurprisingly, came up again and again. \u201cEvery single one of these technologies requires power,\u201d Genoot said. \u201cWe need to build more generation in the U.S. Trump took it a step further, tying energy directly to national competitiveness. \u201cYou can\u2019t win the financial revolution without energy,\u201d he said. \u201cNone of it works without cheap power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump pointed to how quickly institutions have shifted. \u201cA year ago we were probably at a one out of ten,\u201d he said of crypto adoption. \u201cNow we\u2019re at a seven.\u201d And while the conversation touched on policy, infrastructure, and global competition, it kept circling back to the idea this fundamental shift is already happening. \u201cThe cat\u2019s out of the bag,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt\u2019s not getting put back in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

eMerge Americas continues on Friday with more keynotes, including by Tim Tebow, the finale of the Startup competition in which one startup will take home $125K, and of course more time for networking.<\/p>\n

Doreen Hemlock and Riley Kaminer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n

\"Nancy<\/a> I am a writer and editor with extensive media experience and a passion for journalism and serving the community. Most of my career has been spent with the Miami Herald in business news, and my expertise is writing about tech and entrepreneurs. I love hosting this blog for Refresh Miami and we aim to be the go-to site for South Florida startup and tech news, features and views. Have news? Contact me at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. Thanks for reading! \"Nancy<\/a>Latest posts by Nancy Dahlberg (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a high energy light show featuring live music and dance, Melissa and Manny Medina kicked off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-244305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}