HackMiami gatherings informally began in 2008 and the organization officially incorporated in 2009. The original concept was a now retired goal of opening a physical hackerspace located in Miami, Florida. HackMiami began as a group of computer science and engineering students having biweekly meetings held at Florida International University. The group initially focused on hardware research and development, as well as renewable energy projects. The group eventually stopped meeting at the university in order to maintain the quality and control of their research. In early 2009, the group began to focus on web application security and malware analysis. In 2010 one of Hackmiami technical meetings, the first Penetration Testing Commercial tools P0wn OFF was featured in Dark Reading. In 2011, the organization pivoted to the a different business model of security consultation services and niche event planning in lieu of managing a membership based hackerspace. In 2011 Hackmiami team (Alex Heid, Rod Soto, Jason Malley) win South Florida Hack The Flag CTF. In 2012 Hackmiami's Rod Soto won Black Hat U.S.A Panoply CTF. Hackmiami organization organized their own security conference in Miami Beach, FL in 2013. The 2013 HackMiami Conference took place over May 17–19, 2013 in Miami Beach, Florida. The event was the subject of the Rolling Stone article "The Geeks on the Front Lines." written by journalist David Kushner, which discussed the topic of government recruitment of hackers for digital warfare. The Winter Hacker Festival presented by HackMiami took place December 7, 2013 in Miami Beach, FL. The event featured an all day edition of the K&&K CTF hacking tournament and featured performances from YTCracker, Lil Wyte, Project Pat, Dual Core, and DJ Percent 27. In the year 2013 Hackmiami's Rod Soto was featured in CNN's pulitzer's program Andress Openheimmer defending privacy and internet freedom. Hackmiami Conference 2013 Web Application P0wn OFF 2013, Spearheaded by James Ball was featured in the The Hacker Playbook: Practical Guide To Penetration Testing by Peter Kim, a book considered a solid reference in the industry. During the 2015 HackMiami Conference, ethical hacker Seth Wahle demonstrated an Android malware deployment method whereby he was able to infect mobile devices through a near field communication microchip implant that had been injected into his hand. The 2016 HackMiami Conference took place May 13–15, 2016 in Miami Beach, FL and featured presentations from Iftach Ian Amit and John McAfee and HackMiami Board Alexander Heid, James Ball, Rod Soto and Christopher Snyder. The Hackmiami Conference has been selected in multiple online publications as one of the top 50 cibersecurity conference to attend. Hackmiami meetups continue every two weeks at the Broward County Main library and other meetup groups and conferences have emerged from the %27 flag such as Pacific Hackers in Silicon Valley & Hackmadrid in Madrid Spain.