Chicago Tech is No Longer the “Fly Over City”, midVentures LAUNCH Proved That!
by Antonio Wells
Sep 29, 2010 1:00 PM –
Chicago Tech is no longer the fly over city when it comes to tech, startups and investment dollars available to eager entrepreneurs that need that bump to scale their company to the next level. We learned this all too well at midVenturesLAUNCH in Chicago over the past few days. The conference attracted entrepreneurs, VCs, press and tech enthusists from all over the world; mind you at the same time as TechCrunch’s DISRUPT in San Francisco.
About the Conference
The conference gave opportunity to 25 startup companies to compete and win over $150K in cash and service prizes. Services such as executive “head hunter” search & staffing, enterprise hosting and data center services, web & mobile development services, accounting and billing software, incubation guidance and office space, legal and intellectual property counsel, pro IT services and much more.
Prior to the show there was a hackathon in which devs could build anything in the 36 hour window with incentive to win a chance to demo on the live stage (the winner Pek Pongpaet created ShelfLuv which is like Google Instant and Amazon books having a baby). NerdGirl summarizes day one, which consisted of workshops educating about Social Media, Mobile, Legal, Customer Development, Greentech, and more. Day two was the actual LAUNCH main event where the 25 startups were judged; ultimately Wearable crowned this years’ top prize… so big congrats! Wearable creates AirStash, which is a USB drive device that accepts SD Cards and you can access it wireless from not only computers but mobile devices.
On a competing mobile note, we had the liberty to get exclusive video of RTM version Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 demoed for the first time with X Box Live and other apps we weren’t supposed to see.
Why is Chicago No Longer the Fly Over City
By fly over, many of you are familiar with San Francisco, New York and even Austin typically considered when you think tech and startups. The tech paradigm is shaking up, if you had a chance to attend or at least see DISRUPT 2010, you’ll notice Silicon Valley is also seeing many acquisitions and IPOs happening outside of SF, describes investors Bill Gurley (Benchmark Capital) & Michael Grimes (Morgan Stanley).
At the conference we learned of so many VCs, Incubators and Funds here in Chicago that will equip startups with virtually everything they need to grow their business to the next step. The paramount take-away is the success of Chicago-based Groupon. Brad Keywell Director and Co-Founder, gave an inspiring speech at the event. Also to note, Groupon is investing tens of millions of dollars back into companies and technologies here in my fine city.
Introducing As Seen On Phone’s “Midwest-Silicon Valley Mobile Tech Seminar”
midVentures LAUNCH was one of our largest tech and startup conferences in a while, and only the tip of the iceberg of grand tech and startup conferences in the Midwest region. The next will occur in June 2011 at an event we chair, MobileAppEx Mobile App & Business Solutions Expo.
With that stated I’ll take this opportunity to announce our parent company precursor networking events we call Midwest-Silicon Valley Mobile Tech Seminar with Special Guest Speaker Patrick Houston presented by AsSeenOnPhone.com. Our first mobile cocktail will be held at Illinois Institute of Technology on October 21st at 7pm. We’re inviting special guest speaker Patrick Houston, former GM at Yahoo! Tech, Editor in Chief/VP at CNET, Executive Producer at ZDNet. Currently Mr. Houston is Editorial Director/Chief Publisher at NetShelter Technology Media and VP, Content & Programming for Lifestyles at Yahoo! Inc.
We’ll debut our company As Seen On Phone and what we do as a whole (NerdGirl will be there too, so come out and meet her), we will educate business owners on how they can monetize the “Mobile Boom”. We entourage our fans, students and colleagues to attend this event. Get full details here.
Tags:
AirStash,
As Seen On Phone,
midVentures LAUNCH,
Mobile Cocktail,
MobileAppEx,
Patrick Houston,
Tech Conferences,
Wearable
Categorised in: Featured, News
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