Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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Preservation board to decide on Herald building

The city of Miami’s historic preservation office has compiled a lengthy, detailed report that substantially bolsters the case for designation of The Miami Herald’s “monumental’’ bayfront building as a protected landmark based on both its architectural merits and its historic significance.

Somewhat unusually, the 40-page report by city preservation officer Megan McLaughlin, which is supplemented by 30 pages of bibliography, plans and photographs, carries no explicit recommendation to the city’s preservation board, which is scheduled to decide the matter on Monday.

But her analysis gathers extensive evidence that the building’s history, the influential executives and editors associated with it, and its fusion of Mid-Century Modern and tropical Miami Modern (MiMo) design meet several of the legal criteria for designation set out in the city’s preservation ordinance and federal guidelines. A building has to meet just one of eight criteria to merit designation.

A spokeswoman for the city’s historic preservation office said there is no obligation to make a recommendation and the city’s preservation board didn’t ask for one.

Supporters of designation, including officials at Dade Heritage Trust, the preservation group that has received sometimes withering criticism from business and civic leaders for requesting designation, said they felt vindicated by the report, even as they concede that persuading a board majority to support it remains an uphill battle.

“It’s important that an objective expert is saying basically the same thing we’ve been saying, particularly in an environment where there is so much pressure,’’ said DHT chief executive Becky Roper Matkov. “It’s very hard to refute. When you look at the building’s architecture and history, it’s so blatantly historic, what else can you say?’’

The report also rebuts key pieces of criticism of the designation effort leveled by opponents of designation, including architects and a prominent local preservation historian hired by Genting, the Malaysian casino operator that purchased the Herald property last year for $236 million with plans to build a massive destination resort on its 10 acres. The newspaper remains in the building rent-free until April, when it will move to suburban Doral.

Citing federal rules, McLaughlin concluded that the building dates to its construction in 1960 and 1961, and not to its formal dedication in 1963. That’s significant because it makes the building legally older than 50 years. Buildings newer than that must be “exceptionally significant’’ to merit designation under city regulations. Opponents of designation have claimed the building does not qualify because it’s several months short of 50 years if dated from its ’63 opening.

The property also has a “minimal’’ baywalk at the rear but there is room to expand it, the report indicates. The building is considerably set back from the edge of Biscayne Bay, between 68 feet at the widest point and 23 feet at its narrowest, the report says. That’s comparable to what many new buildings provide, thanks in part to variances granted by the city, and could blunt criticism that the Herald building “blocks’’ public access to the bay.

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There’s only one way to save Medicare

Fresh off his election victory, President Obama is pushing back against GOP efforts to reform Medicare — promising that only he can save the program.

Indeed, the president’s surrogates regularly brag that the Obama health-care law “extends the program’s life by eight years.” In other words, the president will save Medicare by making sure it doesn’t go bankrupt . . . until a few years after he leaves office.

That’s not good enough.

To truly fortify Medicare and preserve it for the next generation, we need the entire program modeled on the only part that is working for both seniors and taxpayers — Part D, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit.

That means an honest assessment of Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan, which would convert Medicare to a premium-support program that relies on private competition. But Obama has expressed little interest in such an effort — even though it’s the only thing that’ll work.

The Department of Health and Human Services just announced that monthly premiums in Part D will again average $30 next year. That number’s basically held steady for four years; premiums are only up 2.5 percent since 2006.

Contrast that with the typical premium of an employer-sponsored family health insurance plan, which rose 4 percent from 2011 to 2012 and 9 percent the year before, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In other words, Part D’s costs are holding steady even as health costs are growing just about everywhere else.

Critics of Part D are right to point out that it’s an unfunded liability: When Congress created the program, it included no dedicated financing or offsetting spending cuts; the entire cost was simply added to the budget deficit. That’s lamentable. Part D should’ve been paid for at its creation.

But the fact remains that, unlike so many other government programs, Part D’s price tag has proved far lower than expected. As in every other market, competition in Part D has resulted in lower prices and better service.

Since the program began, the Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly lowered its cost estimates for the program. Earlier this year, the agency issued a report projecting that Part D would cost about 43 percent less next year than it had estimated back in 2004. At the same time, the CBO increased its cost projections for the other major parts of Medicare.

But these savings haven’t come at the expense of coverage or the satisfaction of beneficiaries. The existence of Part D has helped ensure that almost 90 percent of Medicare beneficiaries have stable drug coverage. And the vast majority are happy: Multiple surveys have shown satisfaction levels for Part D at near or above 90 percent.

Facts like these are proving inconvenient for many Democrats, who have long disliked Part D.

Back in 2003, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi predicted that “most seniors will be worse off,” under Part D. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) scoffed at the program’s design. “We hear the claim that private-sector competition will drive down costs and save Medicare. Nonsense!”

Fast-forward to 2012. That “nonsense” is now reality.

Indeed, contrary to Sen. Harkin’s claims, market competition is the reason Part D has cost taxpayers less than originally estimated. Beneficiaries have the power to choose drug plans that work for them — and providers have to compete for seniors’ business. There’s no one-size-fits-all drug plan — unlike the rest of Medicare.

Despite the program’s success, some Democrats are still trying to undermine its competitive design. They’ve repeatedly proposed giving federal bureaucrats the power to implement price controls within the system — and thereby undermine the private-sector competition at the heart of the program.

Some have also called for added rebates from drug makers for “dual eligible” seniors — those who are enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid — to try to further reduce Medicare spending. But such a policy would simply saddle seniors with additional costs. Former CBO chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin has estimated that these so-called rebates would drive Part D premiums up by 20 percent to 40 percent.

What Congress needs is a plan to preserve Medicare, not destroy it. President Obama’s agenda, by his own admission, leaves the program on the road to fiscal collapse.

Dee Stewart is president of Americans for a Balanced Budget, a national grassroots advocacy group.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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Driver of fatal MIA bus crash that killed two offers his “deepest sympathy.”

The driver behind the wheel of a bus that rammed into an overpass at Miami International Airport — killing two passengers and leaving many more injured — expressed his sympathies Thursday to those affected, while a group of survivors began speaking with a lawyer.

On Thursday, a relative sent out a short statement in Spanish from driver Ramon Ferreiro. In it, Ferreiro extended his “deepest sympathy” to the families of those killed in “the terrible accident.”

“I know there are no words of comfort for what happened, but my family and I are praying for all those affected and their loved ones,” he wrote in Spanish. “I’m emotionally and physically very shocked by what happened, and for this reason I ask you to respect my family’s privacy during this difficult time.”

The crash happened a few minutes before 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The bus carried members of a Jehovah’s Witness congregation on their way to the annual general assembly meeting in West Palm Beach.

Ferreiro, 47, took a wrong turn on Le Jeune Road. He sped past multiple signs warning of the low clearance at the airport’s arrival concourse, smashing the 11-foot-tall bus into an overpass.

Two people sitting in the front were killed; the remaining 30 passengers went to hospitals for examinations and treatment.

As of Thursday, four people from the crash remained at Jackson Memorial Hospital, spokeswoman Lidia Amoretti said. Of the group, three were in good condition and one was in critical.

Another eight people admitted after the crash already had been discharged.

And some of the survivors have begun speaking with West Palm Beach lawyer Patrick Cousins.

Cousins, who also is Jehovah’s Witness, said that members of his religion tend to shy away from legal battles, and that’s why he hopes to settle the matter with the bus service’s insurance company out of court.

The goal, he said, would be to get compensation for costs such as their hospital bills.

“We are not the type of people to create problems or issues,” Cousins said. “But this is not something we really created. We just want to make sure everybody gets their compensation.”

Saturday’s accident appears to be the first blemish on the record of both the driver and the bus company, Miami Bus Service Corp., which is owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez.

Ferreiro has a valid commercial driver’s license with the proper endorsement to carry passengers, according to records from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

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MS tightens broker incentives

Morgan Stanley boss James Gorman taketh and giveth as he rejiggers incentive pay packages for its more than 17,000 brokerage force.

The changes, announced during an internal call to brokers yesterday by head of brokerage operations, Doug Ketterer, better align the so-called financial advisers’ performance with Gorman’s goal of developing Morgan Stanley Wealth Management [formerly Smith Barney] into a big profit center capable of helping the investment bank sidestep choppy markets.

The new plan, which goes into effect at the start of the next year, encourages brokers to beef up their assets under management and loans to high-net-worth clientele.

The moves comes as incentive pay based on revenues for brokers is set to shrink by as much as 2 percent — a change that might irk some employees.

But top broker performers and managers will also be able to purchase shares of Morgan Stanley stock at a 20 percent-to-25 percent discount — the first time the pay package has included the ability to purchase discounted shares, one official noted.

Brokers who have served for at least five years and generate gross revenues of at least $400,000 will be able to participate in the discount-stock program but won’t be able to sell the stock for three years.

During a conference call with brokers, Ketterer described the package as one of the “richest growth incentives offered on the Street,” said one insider who had listened to the 20-minute call.

Sources say that Gorman is focused on building out the overall wealth-management platform, which is run by Greg Fleming, and is interested in retaining only the most stellar producers.

The brokerage operations, of which Morgan Stanley owns a 65 percent stake, are the result of a joint venture with Citigroup.

Fleming is tasked with helping the platform generate a return on equity in the mid-teens — a goal the firm has struggled to accomplish.

mark.decambre@nypost.com

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New equity options exchange owned by Miami company starts trading on Friday

MIAX Options Exchange, a new fully electronic, equity options trading exchange, said it will begin trading on Friday.

MIAX Options Exchange is based in Princeton, N.J., but its parent company is Miami International Holdings. While MIAX’s executive offices, technology development center and national operations center are based in Princeton, additional executive offices, and a multi-purpose training, meeting and conference center will be located in Miami, the company said.

MIAX Options Exchange’s trading platform has been developed in-house and designed for the functional and performance demands of derivatives trading, the company said.

INA PAIVA CORDLE

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To win in 2014, Florida Democrats must build on momentum

Democrats just concluded their most successful Florida election cycle in more than three decades, not just delivering the state to President Barack Obama and re-electing Sen. Bill Nelson, but also picking up state House, state Senate, and Congressional seats.

But don’t get cocky, Florida Democrats. In many respects, 2014 is more important for the vitality of the party than 2012.

As you prepare to elect a new state party chairman there’s every reason to worry heading into the new election cycle, even against vulnerable Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

You won’t have the massive Obama grassroots machine registering and turning out tens of thousands of new voters. Or a lavishly funded TV campaign like Obama’s. And if past is prologue, Florida Republicans will have far stronger turnout than Democrats.

“Democrats have a long history of not coming out to vote in the non-presidential election years. We’ve seen that four times in a row,” Alex Sink, the 2010 Democratic nominee for governor and potential 2014 candidate, said in a Political Connections interview on Bay News 9.

“The big question I believe for Democrats in the next election is how much of that energy and enthusiasm that we had during this presidential election can carry on to the 2014 races,” Sink said. “I think it’s probably going to be unfortunately very difficult.”

On Jan. 26 in Orlando, Democratic Party leaders will elect a new leader to succeed former state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua, who took the helm of the state party after a GOP wave left Democrats holding just one of Florida’s six statewide offices, Nelson’s Senate seat.

Against that change of leadership, there is no more important question facing the party than whether it can take advantage of demographic changes in Florida and come even close to following the model set by the Obama campaign.

“We’re at the threshold of a new Florida, and we’ve got to seize that opportunity,” said Alan Clendenin, an air-traffic controller and union organizer in Tampa running for party chairman against Annette Taddeo-Goldstein, a Miami-Dade County businesswoman and former candidate for Congress and County Commission.

“Demographics are on our side, the issues are on our side, the wind is at our back, and we just can’t screw it up,” said Clendenin, 53, whose extensive “Rebrand, Rebuild, Recruit” plan for the state party includes decentralizing to create at least five “regional hubs,” more emphasis on low-dollar fundraising, and a “bottom-up” structure for grassroots organizing.

A key to Obama winning Florida’s 29 electoral votes was his strong performance among African-Americans, Hispanics, and voters under 30 — overwhelmingly Democratic groups that tend to show up in much lower numbers during off-year elections.

“The question is how do we take what is the Obama coalition and translate that to a Democratic coalition that outlasts Obama,” said outgoing party chairman Smith.

Consider that in 2008 the Florida electorate was 42 percent Democratic and 39 percent Republican. Two years later, when Scott narrowly beat Sink, it was 45 percent Republican and 39 percent Democratic.

In non-presidential years, the Florida electorate is invariably older, whiter, and much more Republican.

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Dancing with the Stars Partners Reunite on Big Screen

Dancing with the Stars pro Karina Smirnoff is joining her Season 12 partner Ralph Macchio in a new movie, Us Weekly reports.

RELATED: Ralph Macchio Gets 'Happily Divorced'

According to the news source, the 34-year-old dancer plays a woman who becomes the object of a 10-year-old boy's fascination when he sees her dancing in a neighboring house.

"It is a dream come true to have this opportunity in working with Ralph again," she says of her former dance partner who writes and directs the film. "He wrote such an inspiring script, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. The story is sweet but profound, and my character is very compelling. I'm loving the process!"

This is Smirnoff's first movie role but she gave her acting qualifications, saying, "I feel like I've always acted within a dance ... Now I get to just act, and I'm extremely excited for the opportunity."

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Benghazi blunder: CIA opts for CYA

Michael A. Walsh

The United States has the world’s largest and (at $80 billion a year) best-funded intelligence services in the world — some 17 of them, in fact, including such lesser-known outfits as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which helped lead Seal Team Six to Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

How much bang we’re getting for our buck from the big dogs of the intelligence community, though, is another matter — as the recent Libyan fiasco so vividly demonstrates.

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were a moral and military disgrace, bespeaking a failure of nerve and judgment at the highest levels. With significant military assets just a couple of hours away, the men were left to die.

Their deaths were a tragedy, but now the ensuing blame game threatens to devolve into farce.

Ever since UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s ludicrous assertion that the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi (which now appears to have been a CIA station operating under flimsy diplomatic cover) was provoked by an amateur video that lampooned Islam, various elements of the IC have been scrambling to assign blame — and protect the White House.

At various points, the CIA, the FBI and the useless Office of the Director of National Intelligence have either shouldered the responsibility or had fingers pointed at them for editing out references to al Qaeda’s role in the deadly assault from the unclassified talking points provided to Rice and others in the aftermath of the disaster.

Most recently, the hot potato has landed back where it began — at CIA, which remains in organizational turmoil after the sudden resignation of its director, David Petraeus.

According to a detailed report in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, all references to terrorism were edited out by dozens of busy beavers in Langley:

“A detailed examination of how US assessments were turned into the talking points reveals a highly cautious, bureaucratic process that had the effect of watering down the US’s own intelligence. The same process was slow to change conclusions when evidence shifted, in particular about links to al Qaeda and whether the attack grew out of a protest.”

According to the Journal, the report was deliberately watered down to protect the agency’s sources and investigative methods — as if it were top secret that CIA or the National Security Agency is constantly monitoring al Qaeda’s internal communications, or has agents embedded within terror cells.

Yet the talking points also included this fateful line: “The demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo.” Which we now know was a flat-out lie.

We expect our intel agencies to lie to our enemies — that’s part of their brief. But we don’t expect them to lie to Congress and the White House — which in any case had its own domestic political reasons for not wanting to ascribe the attack to al Qaeda.

But even “watering down” our own intelligence for bureaucratic CYA reasons is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, it’s all too typical of the CIA — which has consistently bungled just about every major geopolitical development since it helped overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and engineered a coup against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz the next year.

Among other things, the agency failed to adequately assess the global threat posed by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and was caught by surprise when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later. And how about those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?

The Benghazi blunder illustrates why: While the Agency remains very good at collecting intelligence and providing payback against our foreign enemies, its in-house analysts are often too busy playing footsie with the Washington political and journalistic establishment to soberly and apolitically deliver the news.

So it’s no accident that another member of the IC, the Defense Intelligence Agency — which reports to the Pentagon — is beefing up its core of overseas “collection” agents as part of its new Defense Clandestine Service (announced back in April, but informally in existence for more than a decade). Essentially, the Pentagon now has a way to go around CIA if and when it feels the need for threat assessment unfiltered by a dysfunctional Langley bureaucracy.

It’s a sad commentary on a once-proud agency that it’s no longer trusted by the folks who have to put the military’s muscle behind the analysts’ mouths.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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