MD Anderson Cancer Center has lived up to its reputation as the world leading cancer research and treatment centers. After nearly a month at the facility, I’m still amazed each day by the professionalism, organization, skill and compassion shown by nearly every team member at this place.
I’m an entrepreneur at the intersection of technology, community development and social impact. I’ve spent my entire career building companies, communities and projects that help other people. I’ve enjoyed great success, spectacular failure and the real sense of progress and growth from both experiences.
I’m the founding chairman of a technology association in Chicago, a booster of inner-city education reform, and a partner at a venture collaborative incubating new ideas. I’m an advocate for the tech industry and some companies, occassionally in Washington DC and online.
I operate or advise several startups, businesses and growing organizations, including the following that are important to me at the moment:
Chicago Tech Academy
I helped create and now chair the board of a new, open-enrollment high school for Chicago students. This is an exciting experiment to build a new learning experience for kids based on apprenticeship and mentorship. The Chicago Tech Academy curriculum is based on tech skills and entrepreneurship, and we’re already outperforming most public schools on many important success metrics.
The student body (600 kids when full) come from across Chicago from mostly low-income, minority families. Hundreds of tech industry leaders volunteer as mentors, and partner with a carefully selected group of inspiring teachers.
FastRoot Agility
FastRoot Agility is a team of engineers and a Chicago colocation data center that design, implement and manage complex hosting environments.
Illinois Technology Association
I’m the founding chairman of the Illinois Technology Association. Created in 2006, the ITA champions the interests of nearly 700 tech companies based in Chicago and the region, building a more connected, collaborative economy for entrepreneurs, investors and executives.
Some other orgs and businesses that have my attention at the moment…
I’m on the board and provide the training facilities for Genesys Works Chicago, a non-profit that identifies hundreds of public school students after their junior year, spends the summer preparing them, and then places them in paid internships at companies like JPMorgan Chase and Accenture throughout their senior year of high school.
Builds patient education media platforms that educate and inform patients as they make decisions about their clinical treatment. A broadcast network in 600+ patient waiting rooms.
TechNexus
I cofounded TechNexus, a venture collaborative and clubhouse for the tech community in downtown Chicago. Today, more than 2,500 people a month flow through TechNexus for meetings, coworking, training sessions and to collaborate with a great network of entrepreneurs and execs that hang out here.
TechNexus has also been home to more than 100 new and growing companies that have incubated here; those companies have raised more than $50m in capital and created hundreds of new jobs in Chicago.
The concept for Phase III expansion of TechNexus into a 300,000 sq ft new construction facility in downtown Chicago:
Zealous Capital LLC
A partnership for investments and paid consulting focused on emerging growth software and technology companies.
FastRoot Software Labs
A private software lab with offices in Chicago and eastern Europe, our team of close to 30 software developers have worked together for more than a decade, building new products for entrepreneurs and corporate clients throughout the world. The team specializes in a rapid development .NET framework that’s been the basis for dozens of on-demand web applications and products.
They’re one week into the third year for Chicago Tech Academy, the new public high school we created to teach and inspire the next generation of Chicago’s techies and entrepreneurs. One of many unique facets of ChiTech is the extensive involvement of Chicago’s tech community… as mentors, donors, and boosters; as hosts for interns and field trips; and as role models and connections for young people reaching out for great careers and bright futures.
I spent time today in the classrooms, and to meet and work with many of the new teachers (a dozen were hired this year out of more than 1,200 applicants). It’s fun to see so many new faces from the freshmen class, and to see how far the familiar students have come since I first met them.
When the idea for this school was first presented, I didn’t want much to do with it. The original plan was a sort of vo-tech school that aspired (at best!) to get kids certified with basic technology skills and ready to enter the workforce. I argued for higher expectations, and a program that developed aptitude and inspiration and connected the kids with a network of people that could shape their futures. Our objective should be at minimum students ready to get jobs after high school, but our aim should be to inspire many to reach higher.
There will soon be 600 students enrolled at Chicago Tech Academy. They are a diverse group drawn from across the city. Some kids commute more than three hours a day to and from school. Many of the students are ready now to go to college, and some are already working on business ideas. Others have entered the school far behind their classmates; nearly one in five require some sort of special education. Most of the students come from disadvantaged homes and neighborhoods. But there is an overwhelming sense of pride in the hallways – these kids sense they’re part of something different, and recognize their unique opportunities.
Chicago’s tech community should be proud of the progress of this school, and the hundreds of community leaders that have volunteered their support. We have a very long way to go, and enormously high expectations for what can be achieved. But it’s clear to me today that we’re on the right track.
This morning in the “Entrepreneurs in the Making” class, I watched sophomores brainstorm a list of common traits for founders and entrepreneurs. They filled a white board with ideas, but the first three on the list were Creativity,Courage and Confidence.
Later, I spent the afternoon with the entire teaching team (now 43 members strong). I spoke about ChiTech as a start-up, what it will take for us to succeed and the collaborative spirit in which we’re building the school. My message to teachers drew from those three entrepreneurial traits the students had identified in class:
Creativity – we encourage the creative approach of this school and its teachers; as a charter school, they can experiment in ways most public schools cannot, and we reward teachers that bring new ideas to relevant curriculum, differentiated instruction and positive behavioral support. We’re asking teachers to involve industry projects into their classrooms, and nurture skills specific to techies and entrepreneurial thinkers.
Courage – we celebrate the bold teachers and the audacity of this school to set very high expectations for students, many of whom are experiencing high expectations for the first time in their lives; there are plenty of less courageous options: we could have only chosen gifted students, or kids that had been favored by good education; we could have embraced a routine curriculum, or placed less emphasis on the personal development of each student.
Confidence – we embrace the mission of this school, to extend opportunity to students, families and neighborhoods that aren’t well connected to our tech community; we want teachers who are confident because they’re part of a team of real pros, and backed by community of industry leaders that want to be involved and help.
It’s been my privilege to represent Chicago’s tech community and provide some leadership and support in launching this school. There’s plenty of need and room for more help… I encourage you to become a donor or signup as a mentor (email the mentor coordinator Amanda). Or, if you want to talk about the school and even bigger ways to get involved, feel free to contact me directly… I’d love to chat.
On the set of Good Day Chicago this morning talking about the game industry, and showing some love for two of Chicago’s favorites Tap.me Games and Tribeca Flashpoint Academy.
The universe of gamers has exploded in the past couple of years from a market of 60 million people largely playing console games, to more than 300 million people playing mobile and social games. A console game like Madden NFL, which has sold more than $3b and is one of the tentpole games that props up the entire industry is evolving to include more social and real-time interactivity to keep pace, but it’s clear that waiting on a console game release will soon be a thing of the past.
Tap.me is a start-up that helps advertisers and brands integrate within this new gaming world, and target broader demographics that previously possible. Tribeca Flashpoint Academy is one of the cutting edge schools where students are learning hands on how to design and deliver the future of the gaming industry.
We created the Chicago Tech Academy three years ago as an urban charter school to inspire and connect kids with futures as techies and entreprenerus. It’s been an incredible experience helping to build this new school, and seeing real outcomes from efforts with the students.
As ChiTech prepares to welcome the third freshman class, I’m thrilled with the teachers and team that’s been assembled. More than 1,200 applied for only 12 new teaching positions; we recruited educators from across the country — former Intel engineers & people from Chicago’s tech community, and the most motivated teachers we could find.
This is a big year for the school, as we begin to see measurable outcomes from the strong industry involvement and mentorship, differentiated instruction and emphasis on hands-on, practical skills that keep the students attention. If you haven’t signed up to show support — either as a mentor or donor, please consider doing so now.
Google’s acquisition of Motorola for $12.5b could be a huge event for innovation in Chicago and is as much about the history of the mobile industry as it is about the future. The company that invented the mobile phone lost considerable luster over the past decade. What was once one of the greatest engineering firms in the world – an engine of innovation and patents few corporations in history could match – had become just another hardware manufacturer, competing with the likes of HTC and Samsung but losing badly to Apple in a market where hardware and software integration is becoming an obvious advantage.
Google’s acquisition announcement may come as a surprise, but it’s actually not very shocking. It’s the most obvious move for both Google and Moto, a marriage preordained when Moto Mobility split away as an independent business, adopted Android as its exclusive software platform, and dangled those 17,000 patents (and another 7,000 patents pending) as a lure. Motorola needs Google’s leadership if it has any chance of rising above the other hardware manufacturers, and Google needs Moto’s patents to protect the future of Android.
Motorola knew it needed more software integration and expertise and they’ve been cultivating stronger relationships with Chicago’s innovation community. Several members of the advanced research team from Motorola are regulars inside TechNexus, meeting and greeting and interacting with dozens of startups that flow through those walls each week. We’ve had many behind the scenes conversations with Motorola to identify the app developers, entrepreneurs and engineers that might help them better understand and integrate location-based-commerce, social and other services into their unique flavor of Android and stand out in the market.
One of the great missed opportunities for the Chicago tech community over the past 20+ years has been the relative lack of a cluster of related tech companies that just never really grew around Motorola. But under Google’s leadership, Chicago may become a major battleground in the mobile industry wars, and the opportunity for a cluster of innovative startups and ideas could result. Think about the possibilities for a more tightly integrated Groupon or Grubhub into Android/Moto devices, and then imagine hundreds of similar business opportunities. Motorola doesn’t just make mobile phones, and Android isn’t just software for your smartphone. The possibilities for a boom to Chicago’s entrepreneurial and engineering community is very real, and this acquisition could provide significant fuel.
Navteq – the Chicago company that pioneered navigation and the location based services platform – still sits here in our backyard. They’re becoming fully integrated into Nokia as a business unit, where a partnership with Microsoft already exists. It’s not hard to imagine a mega acquisition for Microsoft resulting in another integrated hardware and software play.
Apple lost the early days of the PC war by betting on an integrated OS and hardware, but they’ve made a strong case that mobile is different, and clearly have out innovated everyone else with the iPhone. Now Google moves to acquire a hardware leader in Motorola. It’s possible Microsoft isn’t far behind with Nokia. WebOS from Palm ended up in the hands of HP (though I’m skeptical they can leverage it, and probably should acquire RIM/Blackberry to complete their expertise). Samsung and HTC are the big losers right now in the Google/Motorola deal… their decision to standardize on the “open source” and independent Android OS finds them now in direct competition with Google.
More people on planet earth carry a mobile device than have indoor plumbing – more than 65% of the world’s population is tethered to a mobile subscription. At the rate of adoption, within four years that number will rise to more than 85%… there will be more mobile devices than people who have shoes. It’s an astounding market, and the battle for corporate dominance is just beginning.
Battle lines are clear and the big guys are at war. Patents – in particular a treasure trove as rich as Motorola’s intellectual property, are a necessary weapon to allow further innovation. Google was too young of a company to have a strong patent portfolio, but their competitors were threatened enough to team up to fight Android on this front (the unholy alliance of Apple and Microsoft in acquiring Nortel patents was a major shot across the bow of Google’s ship).
But the mobile market is not just about the history of innovation, and these patent plays are just about opening the door for future ideas and competition. With Google’s acquisition of Motorola, much of that future innovation could come from Chicago.
Last Thursday night’s ITA CityLIGHTS event was special, particularly for the students of Chicago Tech Academy in attendance.
From the stage, I told guests about this new urban high school that we created to inspire and teach technology and entrepreneurship. It’s a close, innovative partnership between Chicago’s tech industry leaders and teachers.
The new school is open to all students, and more than 1,000 kids entered the lottery to be a part of the next freshman class. Many of these students are experiencing high expectations for the first time. With your help, they’ll learn to expect great things from themselves, and our community will be better for it. It doesn’t matter where these students come from, we can impact where they’re heading.
This school is a startup. Raising the donations to fund the school, developing a strong mentoring team and curriculum, and keeping a visible connection to the entrepreneurial and tech industry is critically important.
You might enjoy the video from our student lottery… and please feel free to pass along to others:
I’ve been mostly silent for the past three weeks, and absent from community events. I’ve disconnected as much as possible from the routine, and shifted focus to my family. Here’s why…
Four years ago, my 30-year-old sister Hilliary died after a courageous battle with a rare and insidious cancer. It was the f...
Today Timelines Inc., a growing young company based inside of Chicago's TechNexus, filed a trademark infringement suit against Facebook. Timelines has operated timelines.com, a site that allows people to post pictures and notes to tell the story of their lives and the story of events around them. They have a registered trademark, and even face...
I just returned from a visit to Chicago Tech Academy and my first visit with an assembly of the 150 new freshmen... and I am inspired! This third class of students seems to be the most inquisitive, the most engaged and the most eager bunch of students I’ve met at the new high school.
The reputation of ChiTech after the fi...
