Miami Lakes subcommittee narrows 2026 Small Business Boot Camp around AI, confirms two speakers

The Town of Miami Lakes' Economic Development Committee subcommittee finalized a plan to center its fourth annual Small Business Boot Camp on artificial intelligence and growth, confirming two unpaid presenters and a schedule meant to prioritize short, hands-on sessions.

Chair Romy Po Remure called the meeting to order and outlined the event timeline, saying the boot camp is set for Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, and that "we're going to let registrations remain open until...500 free registrations; at that point we'll cut it off due to space limitation." The committee's goal is to exceed 100 in-person attendees, organizers said.

Thiago Ferreira, who introduced himself as "Thiago Ferreira" of Elevate AI Consulting, recommended splitting the AI topic into two compact sessions: one on practical marketing and AI search optimization (which he called "AEO," or AI search/answer-engine optimization) and one on hands-on operational uses. "For my business, it's made a huge difference," Ferreira said of AEO, adding he now secures several leads weekly from AI-driven referrals.

Andreas "Drew" Vita Ros, who identified himself as representing Vita Custom Designs, described the operational session he proposes: demonstrating how small businesses can use AI to review documents, clean and format data, draft outreach messages, and correct or vectorize images for production. Drew said the sessions should be demonstrative and brief, recommending live examples and QR codes linking to expanded materials.

Organizers set internal deadlines to keep production on track: speakers should be confirmed by May 1, marketing collateral completed by June 1, and a coordination meeting with the town communications office no later than June 15 so social ads can begin July 15. Vanessa of Vanity PR was confirmed as the event's marketing consultant and will handle collateral and short video capture for promotion.

On budget, the chair reported motions had already been approved to fund the marketing consultant, a networking happy hour and social ads; the subcommittee has roughly $250 earmarked for day‑of incidentals. The group asked Matthew to verify remaining swag-bag inventory and placed a note to add 'swag bags' to the next official EDC agenda for any motion to top up supplies.

Logistics discussed included recording and streaming. AV staff advised that sessions can be recorded locally and streamed (Vimeo into YouTube) and that continuous recording has a roughly four-hour limit; the committee favored recording individual 15–20 minute presentations to make clips easier to share and to improve online viewership.

The committee also discussed tying the 'Best of Miami Lakes' nominations timeline into promotion: members proposed opening nominations Aug. 1–31, with coordinated advertising in the Miami Laker beginning no later than July 15 to promote both the awards and boot camp. Committee members volunteered to research ad pricing and report to the next EDC meeting so a funding motion can be made if needed.

The subcommittee scheduled a follow-up meeting in mid-May to finalize agenda order and remaining speaker slots and adjourned at about 6:45 p.m.

What comes next: organizers will collect speaker bios, social handles and logos for marketing packages, confirm final agenda order and publish registration and nomination launch dates to begin outreach in July.