For many people, scholarships are vital to obtain higher education and well-paid jobs. But some $100 million in scholarships in the United States go unused yearly, studies show, because potential applicants don’t know they exist or don’t know how to apply.
Maria Trochimezuk wants to change that. The Argentine-born entrepreneur has created a free, online platform, IOScholarships, that helps match potential applicants with available scholarships. More than 10,000 people are now signed up.
With some 40 percent of users from Florida, she organized a summit in Miami Beach on Saturday to spread the word about the platform and growing opportunities in tech-related fields.
One announcement at the meeting: Her group is teaming with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring a free, 12-week training program to Miami that provides graduates with an AWS cloud-practitioner certificate. The online re/Start program is geared for non-techies, led by an instructor, and open to an initial 25 learners in Florida from Sept. 15 to Dec. 15. Re/Start has opened doors for tens of thousands of graduates to find tech jobs worldwide, said Juan Carlos Gutierrrez, AWS’ managing director of tech and innovation.
“We started our platform to help students with scholarships,” Trochimezuk told RefreshMiami.com at the Convention Center event. “Now, we also want to help students find jobs.”
Helping under-represented minorities get tech jobs
Trochimezuk knows first-hand the value of financial aid and tech. She came to the US from Buenos Aires on scholarship, and today, helms a communications firm in Silicon Valley serving many tech clients.
Yet she sees that Latinos and other minorities remain under-represented in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) fields. A 2025 report by the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley has found, for example, that while Latinos make up 26 percent of residents in that vibrant tech hub, they’re only 3 percent of the STEM workforce there.
Part of the gap clearly lies with education, she knows. Through her database, she aims to help 1 million students obtain $1 billion in scholarships over the next decade, especially diverse minorities and those first in their families to attend college or pursue graduate studies in the United States.
The need for financial help is clear. The cost of college in the US has more than doubled since 2000, according to the Education Data Initiative. For the 2026-27 academic year, 16 colleges and universities – including Duke, University of Chicago, Smith, Vassar and New York University – cost more than $100,000 per year, including tuition, fees, room and board, books, transport, and others, according to The Princeton Review.
How teachers, mentors play a key role for scholarships, jobs
Many speakers at the summit said they owe their educations to scholarships and only learned about funding available by chance from an instructor or mentor who guided them.
Consider Venezuela-born Veronica Rojas Mora, 21, a junior at Florida International University studying cybersecurity, a field where Latinas make up less than 4 percent of the US workforce. She’s earning her degree with an Amazon Future Engineer scholarship that she heard about through a teacher. She’s proud to bring a female, immigrant perspective to cybersecurity.
“You need diversity to have innovation,” said Rojas, referring to differences in nationality, gender, race, viewpoints and more. “When everyone has the same mindset, you stagnate.”
Tech companies can build on scholarships by offering internships and mentorships to students, said Pete Martinez, the longtime IBM leader who now helms Boca Raton tech venture, Sivotec, that meshes genetics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to diagnose rare diseases faster. His company offers both, with former University of Miami graduate-school intern Robert Cancio now Sivotec’s director of product development.
“It’s all about compounding knowledge,” Martinez told the summit. “There’s greater growth in the intellectual capital than there is in the financial capital.”
Trochimezuk said she’s added an AI agent on the IOScholarships platform to help students find opportunities faster. Her advice for those who gain from the database or from other assistance: “When one door opens for you, hold it open for someone else.”
Pictured above: Group picture of speakers at the IOScholarships event on Saturday. Maria Trochimezuk, who created IOScholarships, is in the colorful dress in the center.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- Humanoid robots to clean your house? Faireez now offers people for housekeeping, as it collects data to train robots
- Magic for restaurants? New AI-based MAJC helps hospitality workers get jobs, build careers
- Building tech unicorns: Lessons from OpenFX’s Harrison Mann, especially keep customer-focused.
- IOScholarships’ free platform matches applicants to funding, aims to help minorities enter colleges, tech-jobs – September 1, 2026
- Humanoid robots to clean your house? Faireez now offers people for housekeeping, as it collects data to train robots – August 26, 2026
- Medtech company from Chile, with Miami branch, receives U.S. patent for bone-implant with antibiotic drip inside – August 20, 2026
