Empowering tech talent in Miami and beyond 🚀

INIT empowers underserved communities to launch careers in technology, closing the talent gap and helping individuals achieve economic mobility

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💻 About Us

INIT is a non-profit organization empowering underserved communities to launch careers in technology. We establish INIT chapters at schools, colleges, and municipalities, providing free experiential learning and career development programs for everyone. We also partner with employers to foster a diverse talent pipeline into the tech industry, closing the talent gap and helping low-income individuals achieve economic mobility.

INIT was founded by the student and alumni leaders behind the successful UPE student organization at FIU, who have helped thousands of students land jobs in tech since 2014. Seeing the need to help more students and the opportunity to scale, our team decided to start our very own non-profit to drive this work moving forward.

INIT is supported by the Knight Foundation, Lab22c, Venture Miami, and academic institutions in Miami-Dade County including FIU, MDC, FMU, and more.

❤️ Impact

Originally as UPE, INIT developed a successful pipeline of diverse talent in partnership with academia and industry. We helped prepare thousands of students through our very own experiential learning and career programs, helping them land interviews and placing them in job opportunities. Thousands of INIT members now work at top companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and many more.

As we evolve into a non-profit, we're now scaling this proven model and bringing it to other underserved communities, impacting even more individuals and growing our pipeline of diverse tech talent into industry.

4,000+
Students impacted
1,500+
Alumni in industry
50+
Corporate sponsors
10+
Awards & recognitions

🍎 Chapters

Check out our first wave of chapters! More coming soon...

Florida International University

Miami's public research university & leading HSI

Join FIU's Chapter

Miami Dade College

The most diverse institution in the nation

Join MDC's Chapter

Florida Memorial University

South Florida's HBCU & oldest academic center

Join FMU's Chapter

Alumni / Professional

Alumni and professionals in the tech industry

Join Alumni/Pro Chapter

City of Miami

Helping underserved individuals transition into tech

Chapter Coming Soon

🧠 Programs

INIT chapters carry out our signature experiential learning and career development programs within their communities. These programs attract thousands of individuals annually, helping them gain technical skills, work on projects, improve their resume, prepare for interviews, connect with industry, and much more. ShellHacks, hosted by our INIT FIU chapter, is the largest hackathon in Florida and brings together 1,500 students to innovate each year.

🤝 Partners

Arise Health logoArise Health logoArise Health logoThe Paak logo
More partners to be announced soon!

✨ Our Team

Julieta Vallejos
Executive Director, INIT
LinkedIn
Cesar Villa-Garcia
Board Member
Product Manager, Microsoft
LinkedIn
Yasmine Abdrabo
Board Member
Site Reliability Engineer, Citi
LinkedIn
Jose Maldonado
Board Member
Software Engineer, Xbox
LinkedIn
Sabina Cartacio
Board Member
Product Manager, Fiddler
LinkedIn
Christopher Rodriguez
Board Member
Software Engineer, Microsoft
LinkedIn
Andy Garcia
Board Member
INIT FIU Chapter President
LinkedIn