It's been an interesting last few weeks for me. I've been swimming in Chicago tech news and cross referencing the links between how the 'old' Chicago tech guard is teaming up with a new crop of entrepreneurs, bringing the spotlight back to Chicago's tech and start-up scenes. I've also been creating my own mini family tree of executives and entrepreneurs that I've worked with over the years. Seeing the new companies folding out of this city is fantastic. Without further ado, the update:
Socialdevcamp just took place at IIT. Partnering with the Knapp Center for Entrepreneurship, the weekend long conference featured discussions from Groupon's Andrew Mason, along with I Can Has Cheezeburger's Ben Huh. Former Obama for President CTO, Michael Slaby also spoke. All of this knowledge sharing happened while a hackathon was hosted over at the Illinois Tech Association's Tech Nexus. By the way, IIT is the first school in the country to have an iPad app making class.
Next up, I learned of a new, well funded startup, whose founders hail from some of the best known dot coms in Chicago. BrightTag is led by Mike Sands, who used to be the CMO of Orbitz (my old stomping grounds). Working with Mike we have Eric Lunt as CTO. Eric is one of the original founders of Feedburner, which was sold to Google. Marc Kirven serves as BrightTag's COO and hails from local online advertising success story, Centro.
Today, Excelerate Labs held Demo Day for the 10 startups that were chosen to be involved in Excelerate's Year One alumni of startups. Within the inaugural 10 includes TransFS, which recently received $510,000 in funding. The co-founders of Excelerate include serial entrepreneurs Sam Yagan and Troy Henikoff. Troy founded SurePayroll and recently launched OneWed.
While Demo Day was place, Mayor Daley announced his mini tech council. The Mayor is seeking advice from with the likes of GroupOn, Google, Navteq, OpenTable and others, all for the goal getting up and coming startups to consider Chicago and stay here.
Lastly, Divine Interventures founder, Flip Filipowski is back in Chicago and claiming office space over in Google's building.
I don't know what's next, but I'm enjoying reading about the old and new faces that are sweeping Chicago's start-up scene.
Thanks for the snapshot, Blagica. This is the most exciting and promising time for Chicago tech in a decade.
SocialDevCamp and Excelerate Labs are awesome examples of how a new generation of organizers and entrepreneurs are putting Chicago back on the tech startup map.
So it worries me greatly to see Daley and Filipowski creeping back into the picture just as we emerge from the devastation of their tech Chernobyl.
The mayor needs to trumpet the city and those creating all this goodness, of course, but otherwise stay out of the way. As for Filipowski, I'd be worried that people now know where his office is.
Posted by: Chigoodrich | August 31, 2010 at 11:01 PM