Highlights from Chicago Tech Week 2023
July 10th through the 14th Chicago hosted the Chicago Tech Week, which were a series of events across the city with a trade show at Navy Pier on the 13th.
I was able to get to a few of the events like the one hosted by friend of the podcast Landon Campbell host of In Their 20's. He is now General Manager of the Chicago office of Drive Capital, one of the biggest VCs in the midwest.
The Trade show was hosted in the Grand Ballroom of Navy Pier, which is always a great venue. They had a DJ spinning and various guests speaking, The person most came to see was probably Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan's right hand man from the champion Chicago Bulls. P33, an organization that advocates for tech in Chicago was hosting the event and One of the founders, Chris Gladwin was there to speak. You would know Chris from starting Object Storage Company Cleversafe and his new company Ocient.
There were packed breakout sessions upstairs as well that focused on things like diversity and emerging tech.
I made a new friend, Chriag here who in his free time from studying to be a doctor at Northwestern, is trying to reinvent the electrical outlet, which I got to see a prototype of and it was pretty cool. More to come on that when it makes it out of the prototype stage.
The show brought in a lot of sponsors, which is great to see.
This was also a big recruitment event for many Chicago Companies like Discover, Motorola and Blue Cross Blue Shield
PCs for People is refurbishing PCs for low income folks, solving the e-waste problem while getting people connected.
Per Scholas is offering free tech training for low income folks
I got a chance to talk with The Desire Company which operates out of the 2112 Incubator, which was a sponsor of the event. The Desire company helps to connects experts with brands.
Lofty Ventures is helping to develop Chicago's Agnel Investment network.
A.Team was there talking about fractional tech talent.
The local research universities were represented along with all of their various incubators. Stemloop is a company just down the road from me that makes biosensors to test for things like lead. I have always wanted to bring them on the show. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss our interview with them.
It was a fun week, and it was great to see everyone come out for tech in Chicago. I had a lot of great conversations and I am going to be doing some interviews with folks that were there, so stay tuned.
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