Colleges need to be significantly more involved with Chicago

My dream is to develop an appealing program which provides great value to the savvy CS students at the top Midwestern CS departments, bringing them to Chicago roughly 4 times a year. As of now the students who possess brilliant ideas are usually packing their bags, Silicon Valley bound, by the time it goes viral. We need to bring them to Chicago before it's to late and get them involved with not only the city and its tech community, but other entrepreneurs from all over the Midwest.


The CS students apply one month in advance and are matched up with other cs students from different schools to work in innovation/mastermind type groups. We match prior so they don't have to network with too many people, for it would be to scattered for shy developers in a room of 800 to find like minded counter-parts. The first session will allow them get acquainted and modify their groups aside from our initial matching. From there, they will begin working together for the remainder of the visits and by the fourth trip each group will have developed their own product/service/application.


We will also involve the Chicago business/MBA students allowing the “CEO's to be” an opportunity to work with genius developers. Putting them together will provide more flexibility and balance. Teaching them to innovate and turn ideas into reality is great, but by connecting them with like minded entrepreneurs LOCALLY we set them up to hit the ground running post graduation (the ground being Chicago).


Down the road I would like to work in conjunction with CS departments by incorporating the curriculum into each conference, at the same time allowing students to make money by utilizing what they learn -as they learn it. Now it's either “stay in school to get a good job” or “strike big and dropout”. It needs to be a smooth transition, students shouldn't have to stress so much about internships, their resume, and where they are going to find a job. Students will receive money and/or college credit so there's no need to worry about time spent participating in this conference. Our society and the American dream is solely based around money no matter how you look at it. Why are we forcing brilliant young kids to spend the most creative, innovative, ALIVE, and dreaming phases of their lives in a institution in which they can't even make money? You don't graduate, get a job and continue to work for grades, so why are we training are “professionals to be” to work for a grade when in reality they will be working for money? The current education structure forces students who begin making money to run away. Colleges and Universities need to educate them further, and embrace the fact they can make money. It's too black and white, “College & Learn” or “Work & Money”. If a student can make 100k in a semester through selling ads on his website which he draws traffic to by using social networks, then I think he most definitely deserves an A in his “online marketing” course. Colleges need to incorporate this but its crazy to think you could just put this together and have everyone agree- instead we start with a local conference and act as an example.


For my company, I write tons of creative literature, I do power points, give speeches, do so much research, endless hours.. stuff I really want to learn, and I put so much passion and energy into all of it. I help people re-write their resumes, teach them to utilize social networks and provide personal value, spend endless hours on the phone and at networking events. Why isn't that worth anything? They want me to do similar things at school but for things that really offer no value to me.


I dream to put together not only an umbrella for all technology in Chicago but also for all students interested in pursuing a career there. We will be the start of what other industries can continue to move forward, a movement where students meet at local conferences and form into mastermind groups. By teaching students to innovate and collaborate with other students in their area, prior to graduation, we lay the foundation not only for our youth to easily chase their dreams and reach their goals but also for a booming Chicago tech community.


I have no doubt the Midwestern CS departments are infested with Google's and Microsoft's of tomorrow and I can't stand watching another black swan spread his wings and fly to the west coast.