We had a great first cohort at Startup Institute Chicago in 2013, and much of that has to do with a great sense of camaraderie within the Chicago tech community. We’re proud, grateful, and humbled to work with so many incredible people and companies that rally around the idea of fostering tomorrow’s upcoming startup talent - thank you!
As we near our Spring session, we wanted to give a quick recap on what happened inside the Startup Institute campus during our inaugural Chicago class. Here are our top ten highlights:
10. Learning about Chicago tech from one of it’s biggest catalysts! Builtin’s very own Maria Katris taught a class overviewing the Startup Ecosystem.
9. Our Technical Marketing students were schooled in the art of Community Management by a startup we all know and love, Uber.
8. We learned about startup life, culture, and Sharknados from GiveForward CoFounder, Ethan Austin. We also adopted a shark family.
7. Our students had the chance to visit four Chicago tech powerhouses in one day during our first-ever Startup Walkabout. Lightbank, Groupon, 1871, and Catapult were all on the visitor's list as we took to the streets of River North.
6. “Design for Hackers” author, David Kadavy, gave our Product track the inside scoop on his design philosophy, which begs the question, do you know what fonts to use?
5. Two of Chicago’s pioneering engineers, Django co-creator, Adrian Holovaty, and Google’s first developer in Chicago and "Team Geek" author, Brian “Fitz” Fitzpatrick came to visit our campus and talk about their prolific careers.
4. “Who will be the next tech firm to strike it rich?” Crain’s thinks it might be three of our partner companies: Check out BayRu, Sittercity, and SingleHop.
3. #1 New York Times, USA Today & Barnes and Noble best-selling author, Paul Stoltz, brought his ground-breaking research on “The Adversity Quotient” to life in a half-day session highlighting adversity in the workplace and how it relates to entrepreneurship.
2. $62.3M. That’s how much capital our Fall partners have raised within the last 6 months. Included in that list are Belly, Bonfyre, Doggyloot, Snapsheet, Narrative Science, and UrbanBound, to name a few!
1. After eight intense weeks, our students joined the startup community at their graduation event in December. Most importantly, they learned the value of having a job and loving it too!
Applications are still open for our Spring cohort, beginning March 3rd. To learn more, check out our website or email [email protected]
