ShellHacks draws ~2K student builders in Miami — but 9K-student FIU still can't keep CS grads local

KyeGomezB · x · 2026-09-27

Swarms founder Kye Gomez marvels at this year's ShellHacks: the South's biggest university hackathon, hosted at FIU in Miami, drew nearly 2K builders from across the country working on autonomous embodied robots, stock-trading agents, AI TVs and more. Swarms sponsored.

Quoted context adds key numbers: FIU's dean says the school has 9K+ CS students and 2,100 grads per year — yet most leave for companies in SF, Seattle and NYC. The author argues the "Miami needs more tech talent" narrative misses the point: the talent and education pipeline exist; the real issue is retaining them instead of investing in other states' pipelines.

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