Monday
Access Silicon Valley invites you for a livestreamed chat with Symphony Founder & CEO, David Gurle – the man who is revolutionizing the way financial service teams interact each day. Symphony provides secure messaging for teams, workgroups and organizations of all sizes. Since 2014, Symphony has raised over $160 million from Google as well as a conglomerate of banks and blue-chip financial institutions. Roger Rappoport, founder of Access Silicon Valley, will moderate this Fireside Chat “Unleashed” with David, discussing his journey, from his early days at Microsoft in 1999 (and again 2011 when they acquired Skype), to joining the senior leadership team at Thomson Reuters in 2003, his role in creating Skype for Business, founding DMG Flight Ventures in 2012 and then going on to raise millions from Wall Street in 2014 for Perzo/Symphony. Join them for this interactive, audience-driven evening of insights from the perspective of one of the most awe-inspiring startup entrepreneurs to make it big in Silicon Valley. Livestream link will be shared via this Meetup organizer, more information here.
Tuesday
Anita Borg Institute's Chicago chapter presents "Adding Image and Voice Intelligence to Your Apps": Cognitive Services is a set of APIs that use the power of Machine Learning to enhance your application. Using these APIs, you can quickly add image recognition and analysis; facial recognition, speech recognition, text-to-speech capabilities, and many other features to your application. In this workshop, attendees will get hands-on experience calling these APIs from JavaScript or .NET applications, working through a set of exercises to write code. Event is free to attend and will be held at TechNexus from 6pm - 9pm, more information and registration here.
Women in Bio's Chicago chapter presents "Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Navigating to and through the Boardroom": How do executive women achieve their goal of corporate board service? Distinguished panelists will discuss the skills and experiences sought by boards, career path considerations for positioning yourself for board service, potential challenges preventing advancement, and resources available for women interested in corporate boards, including WIB’s Boardroom Ready Program. Celebrate Women's History Month with WIB-Chicago at this great event, which will also include a raffle for a prize from ULLO and Neiman Marcus. Event will be held at MATTER, cost is $15 member/$45 non-member (members can bring in two guests at member rate as well). More information and registration here.
Chi Hack Night/Smart Chicago's Women in Tech showcase resumes with their third event of the month featuring Melissa Pierce, Director of “Born with Curiosity: The Story of Grace Murray Hopper”, an independent documentary about Grace Hopper, who in 1944, was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. Her presentation will be followed by open hacking with several concurrent projects. Event free to attend and held at Braintree's office in the Merchandise Mart. More information here.
Startup Grind presents a conversation with Bill Burnett, former Founder and CEO of PointDrive, a Chicago-based technology firm improving the way sales professionals engage with prospects and customers through the sharing of rich content. After the company's recent acquisition by LinkedIn, Bill now leads the cross function effort of integrating PointDrive into LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator offering and serves on the leadership team overseeing the company’s sales solutions business. Event held at WeWork National, and costs $20 online/$25 at the door. More information and registration here.
Wednesday
Once a month, entrepreneurs and experts gather around the lakeside conference table at Coalition: Energy with bagels and coffee and talk about challenges that startups face. In March, Andrea Sreshta from Luminaid will be joining us to talk about how to effectively build and manage a startup team. She has firsthand experience of what it takes to strategically build and manage a small team of talented employees - on a budget. She'll be sharing her tips and strategies for recognizing when to hire and how to pick the best teammates. Free to attend, register here.
Join ARA in partnership with presenting sponsor/host Chicago Trading Company (CTC) and Women@Groupon on Wednesday, March 22nd for the kick-off event of 2017—A Journey in Progress: Diversity AND Inclusion. The evening will feature lighting talks from industry leaders who will be sharing insights on the importance both of diversity AND inclusion. $20 registration fee includes beverages and light appetizers. ARA aspires to Attract, Retain and Advance women in technology by cultivating relationships via events and programs. More information on speakers and agenda here.
Illinois Alumni in Entrepreneurship present: "What is your company worth? Understanding startup valuations". Valuation is always a struggle, and that is why the best banks and M&A firms exist. If a company gets undersold, that could impact all further valuations and break the bottom line. It’s too costly to get wrong. Speaking will be Ryan Franklin (Illini ’08), who launched his company after graduating and has progressed fast in the world of financial analysis. Event hosted at Xavier in Old Town, more information here.
Join JCC Chicago's social entrepreneurship group, Seed613, for a Social Innovation Night featuring local environmental start-ups. You'll hear from a terrific panel and find out what it takes to create a socially conscious and sustainable business. $5 advance, $10 at the door. Event hosted at ReBuilding Exchange in Bucktown, more information here.
Thursday
Chicago Innov8 Showcase Series put on by Rwilo at mHUB, Chicago's newest product development and manufacturing incubator. Join Rwilo to break the walls down of local maker spaces, business incubators, and fab labs to create an open source community of like minded individuals. Connect with makers, engineers, designers, artists, entrepreneurs, and manufactures. There will be networking, speakers, and showcases put on my mHUB's members. Event free to attend, more information here.
2017 Midwest Women in Tech Conference features presentations from an elite group of successful female founders, investors and leaders. These role models will present their views and ideas in presentations that advance women in technology and leadership. The MWiT Conference is powered by Women Tech Founders (WTF), a grassroots organization advancing women in tech leadership, who is proud to host the first MWiT Conference. Event hosted at Google's Chicago office, more information on agenda, speakers and requesting an invite here.
A panel of tech team leads and managers (kCura, SitterCity, Capital One, ThoughtWorks, Center for Neighborhood Technology) will discuss how they cultivated a working environment that's friendly and inclusive to all genders. "Women in Tech: Inclusive Workplaces" will be hosted by Tech in Motion - Chicago at kCura. Free to attend, more information here.
Queer Tech Club is teaming up with StartOut, the LGBT Chamber of Commerce of Illinois and Out & Equal Chicagoland to hold informal networking at Braintree in the Merchandise Mart. Mix, mingle and network with Chicagoland's LGBTQ entrepreneurs, business owners, service providers, investors, professionals from various companies and supporters. Free to attend, register here.
Friday
Fermilab continues its Arts and Lecture Series with a presentation on cancer treatments and particle accelerators. For many cancer patients the standard treatment for solid tumors is the use of high-energy x-rays. To create these x-rays, medical centers use particle accelerators that propel electrons to tens of millions of electronvolts and then collide them into a metallic target to produce the x-ray spectrum used for cancer treatments. The speaker, Dr. Mark Pankuch has been the Director of Medical Physics and Dosimetry at the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center since the day it opened. $7 advance registration, register here. (h/t Chicago Science Field Trips).
