The State of Innovation (SOI) is our annual meetup series focused on the industries, people, businesses, trends, and topics that are shaping the city's tech community and economy. Up next is Food Inno on 2/21, Presented by Foodworks Venture Funds
On Tuesday February, 21st, Chicago Inno is hosting the second annual Food Inno, a meetup that will explore the local companies, people, trends, and topics that are impacting and innovating the food industry.
This meetup will feature a fireside chat with Brian Fitzpatrick, CTO and cofounder of Tock, one of the fastest-growing startups in the city and a platform that's disrupting the restaurant reservation space. The night will wrap with a panel on the state of VC funding in the food industry and will include panelists such as Kurt Estes, Director of the Investment Banking unit with Sikich Accounting, and Lee Strom, Chairman of FARM Illinois. Bridging these two conversations, we'll be briefly hearing from Tovala's David Rabie, a Chicago founder that has recently raised capital to scale his food device company.
Space is limited for this meetup and we're nearing our cap, so be sure to secure your spot and grab tickets at the bottom of this post. Below is everything you need to know about Food Inno and we hope to see you there. (Thanks to Foodworks Venture Funds for partnering with us on this event).
Date: 2/21, 5.30PM - 8.30PM
Venue: General Assembly Chicago, 444 North Wabash Avenue, Level B
Meetup Lineup and Speakers:
- Fireside Chat: Tock CTO and Co-Founder Brian Fitzpatrick:Brian Fitzpatrick is Founder and CTO of Tock, a company that is working to fundamentally change the way restaurants create and manage bookings.Brian started Google's Chicago engineering office in 2005, and founded and led Google's Transparency Engineering team, which uses data to help protect free expression and free speech on the web. He also founded and led Google's Data Liberation Front, a team that systematically works to make it easy for users to move their data both to and from Google (e.g. via Google Takeout). He served as both thought leader and internal advisor for Google's open data efforts and has previously led the Google Code and The Google Affiliate Network teams.Prior to joining Google, Brian was a senior software engineer on the version control team at CollabNet, working on Subversion, cvs2svn, and CVS. He has also worked at Apple Computer as a senior engineer in their professional services division, developing both client and web applications for Apple's largest corporate customers.
- Tovala Talk with CEO and Founder David Rabie
- Food VC Panel: Kurt Estes, Director of the Investment Banking unit with Sikich Accounting, Lee Strom, Chairman of FARM Illinois, Tony Caccomo with Foodworks Venture Funds, and Christine Welch, owner Simply Baked Gluten Free.
Meetup Schedule:
5.30 - 5.35: Check-in and Registration 5.35 - 6.00: Networking 6.00 - 6.05: Welcome 6.05 - 6:45: Fireside Chat with Tock's Brian Fitzpatrick 6:45 - 6:50: Tovala Talk 6.50 - 7.30: Food VC Panel 7.30 - 8.30: Networking
Meetup Details: There will be food, drink, and cupcakes from Intoxicakes.
Thank you to our event Sponsor, Foodworks Venture Funds!
General Assembly (GA) is a global educational company on a mission to empower a global community to pursue work they love. Focusing on the most relevant and in-demand skills across data, design, business and technology, GA is confronting a skills gap through best-in-class instruction and providing access to opportunities. GA works with students online and in person across 25 campuses in 6 countries. GA also works with employers to help companies source talent, assess talent and transform talent. Additionally, GA's focus on affordable and accessible education combined with our education-to-employment approach is helping to create a diverse talent pipeline.
Questions about GA Chicago? Contact Partnerships Lead Taylor Golden @ taylor.manus@ga.co.
(Image via Streetwise Media)
