Miami HEAT taps FIU students to harness the best of AI and tech

When Franklin Filho walked into the Miami HEAT’s offices at Kaseya Center for what he thought would be a three week internship, he felt the pressure immediately.

“It was my first internship,” he recalls. “I kept thinking, What can I do to prove myself?”

Three weeks turned into a second internship. That led to a full-time offer. Today, Filho ’25 is a junior software engineer at the Miami HEAT and 601 Analytics — the HEAT’s data and analytics arm — working across front-end and back-end systems and mentoring two interns on a new internal tool to be deployed soon.

Filho’s rapid rise is not an outlier, but a reflection of how a growing collaboration between FIU and one of professional sports’ most forward-thinking teams is reshaping how talent is developed and deployed.

Building talent as fast as technology moves 

Slow and steady no longer cuts it in the age of artificial intelligence. Organizations looking to scale products need talent that can contribute immediately, adapt quickly, and think beyond traditional playbooks.

For the Miami HEAT, that need has become important as its data analytics team expands its reach. In 2025 alone, the group served five leagues, 16 teams, and 23 venues—far beyond its origins as an internal HEAT operation.

The HEAT found a solution close to home: FIU and its partnership with the Break Through Tech Sprinternship™ program, a no-interview, paid, micro-internship model where students are placed in teams and matched with employers to complete challenging projects.

“Given the short duration of the internship, students need to hit the ground running on Day 1 of Sprinternship. At FIU, we prepare them by providing seven weeks of intensive technical and professional training so they’re ready to make an immediate impact,” says Nimmi Arunachalam, Director of FIU’s Sprinternship Program.

For the HEAT, the model aligned perfectly with how the team already works.

“We have an ambitious product roadmap,” says Edson Crevecoeur, Senior Vice President for Strategy and Data Analytics at the Miami HEAT and Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of 601 Analytics.

“When you pair strong students with real business needs, the results speak for themselves.”

A business within a business 

601 Analytics began in 2019 as an internal effort to make sense of the growing volumes of data flowing through HEAT operations, from ticket scans to merchandise purchases.

A few years in, the HEAT realized they had built something other organizations needed, too. Today, their analytics team serves roughly 20% of the NBA, along with the league’s central offices. The team is focused not on “Moneyball”-style player analytics, but on business operations: ticketing, sales, sponsorships, guest experience, marketing and finance.

“The industry runs on data-driven insights now, and AI has exponentially accelerated what's possible,” Crevecoeur says. “To keep pace, we need a pipeline of talent that's ready to leverage these tools.”

Tech talent rising in Miami 

Just a few miles west, FIU’s College of Engineering and Computing was strengthening its programs in computer science, data science and artificial intelligence — preparing students for exactly this kind of work.

The connection between FIU and 601 Analytics didn’t start with a formal pitch. It began in 2023 when Enio Maiale, Senior Director of Software Engineering for the HEAT, attended FIU’s Knight Foundation School of Computing & Information Sciences for a master’s degree.

“At this point in the AI era, I needed an update,” he says. “I wanted to make better decisions with these technologies.”

A chance conversation with Arunachalam about FIU’s commitment to an innovative experiential learning model was the spark that impressed Maiale.

Having seen firsthand the skills FIU students brought to the table, he began advocating internally for the university as a talent source. The Sprinternship model, fast-paced and production-oriented, mirrored the team’s own development lifecycle.

That pipeline has delivered talent from unexpected places.

From classroom to production

Just a few years ago, Gabriela Rodriguez ’25 would never have imagined where she’d be today.

She was neither a computer science major nor a basketball fan; she was a math major working in healthcare. But one summer program with Break Through Tech at FIU got her hooked on computing and changed her career permanently. She switched her major to computer science and seized a chance to participate in a Miami HEAT Sprinternship cohort.

Working alongside teammates, Rodriguez helped build predictive models using transaction data from the HEAT’s online store, analyzing which targeted promotions were most likely to resonate with specific customers.

"Using the data, we had to figure out what would be the best coupon to give to a specific customer based on their previous purchases. It was a big challenge for three weeks,” Rodriguez says.

She was brought back to finish the work in a nine-week internship. Rodriguez’s cohort developed two models, and through rigorous testing, they identified a superior performer.

Meanwhile, the HEAT discovered something too: an emerging talent on their team. When Rodriguez graduated from FIU, she was offered a full-time job.

A shared standard 

The Miami HEAT are famously defined by a culture that elevates hard work, professionalism and a team-first mentality.

FIU is guided by a similar spirit, notes Matthew Jafarian, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy for the Miami HEAT and Co-founder of 601 Analytics.

"The culture between FIU and 601 Analytics is incredibly aligned," Jafarian says. "Curiosity, hunger, growth: those qualities show up in every FIU student we've worked with."

For the university, it's all about giving students maximum return-on-investment on their FIU experiences, says Mark Weiss, vice dean of the College of Engineering & Computing.

"Our focus on opportunities and outcomes is a significant reason why FIU consistently ranks No. 1 for social mobility," Weiss says.

"We focus on pairing strong academics with real-world programming and mentorship through collaborators like Break Through Tech, the Miami HEAT and 601 Analytics."

Ultimately, the effort has translated into tangible results: eight FIU students brought on as interns since last summer; two hired full-time; and a growing pipeline of AI-ready talent ready to help the organization scale.

Among the new employees: Rodriguez, the former math major who accepted the HEAT’s employment offer and is now working at the cutting edge of business, technology and sports.

“Sometimes, all you need is a foot in the door,” Rodriguez says.