The team here at Tech Month Chicago has been working hard to provide an excellent, fun Awareness Month for Technology in Chicago. Please take a look at our events calendar for a listing of events you can attend and learn how you can earn a Techie Award Ribbon if you attend 3 or more tech events in the month of September.
Tech Month Chicago didn’t want to limit ourselves to just being a calendar for Technology Awareness Month. We wanted to do something more this year to help engage Chicago citizens to celebrate Technology Awareness Month in September.
Our partner, SPR Consulting, helped us design a selfie bubble. It’s a fun tool we came up with for you to use to let us know you’ve attended a tech event on our calendar. If you attend 3 or more events listed on our Awareness Month Calendar, and use the Selfie Bubble, you will earn a Techie Award Ribbon. Yes- you, your friends, classmates, parents, and anyone will get a Techie Award Ribbon this year for attending 3 or more events on our calendar and documenting your attendance.
Go to a tech event on our calendar, take a selfie with the selfie bubble, upload your selfie to Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #TMC2017. Go to three or more events and do this, and we will give you a Techie Award Ribbon.
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Our Public Awards Program is still in it’s beginning phases. We are open to other ideas and want to accommodate as many interested people as possible. If you have a classroom of students or other group and have a great idea for how to use these ribbons, please contact us. We’re interested in working with you! If you are disabled, do not have the means to upload photos, or have other mitigating circumstances that would prevent you from getting a ribbon via our process above, please contact us and we will do everything in our power to work with you.
As a tech related company, Tech Month Chicago cares very much about privacy issues, especially those of children and young adults under the age of 18. If you are too young to have a social media account, you can have your parent or guardian post photos on your behalf to participate in our awards program. If you do not want to post a photo, but still want to participate in our program, contact us, and we will make accommodations for you or your classroom. For more information about this topic, please refer to Tech Month Chicago’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service documents.
Tech Month Chicago is a month of technology awareness for the Chicagoland area showcasing the depth and diversity of our local tech culture featuring community events in technology, engineering, math, and science in Chicago and the surrounding area during the month of September.
This series of gatherings, educational activities, parties, and other events seeks to engage new audiences for technology in the Chicago area. Unlike many tech industry focused events, Tech Month Chicago is geared toward all city residents from senior citizens, kids, parents, and all people of the city of Chicago to share how technology shapes our culture and encourage participation from those outside the industry.
Events range from coding for kids to educational forums and invention showcases, startup pitches, tech activities for families, companies opening their doors to the public, job training, meetups, and festive tech celebrations. Presenters include tech organizations, large scale technology related companies based in Chicago, non-profit organizations, schools, tech experts, education groups, and other organizations throughout the city.
Twitter: @techmonth
Facebook: @techmonth
Instagram: Tech Month Chicago
Snapchat: techmonthchi
Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/TechMonthChicago
Tech Month Chicago is a month of technology awareness for the Chicagoland area showcasing the depth and diversity of our local tech culture featuring community events in technology, engineering, math, and science in Chicago and the surrounding area during the month of September.
In order to gain citywide attention for their events calendar Tech Month Chicago has engaged an extensive list of local Chicago media outlets to help get the word out. Print and digital ads as well as audio underwriting can be found for Tech Month Chicago in The Chicago Reader, DNAinfo, Lumpen Radio, The Lumpen Times, New City, South Side Weekly, Streetwise, andTime Out Chicago!
Tech Month Chicago decided to focus on the non-techie focused outlets to help spread the word to the Chicago area citizens at large regarding the vibrant local tech culture. President of Tech Month Chicago, Melanie Adcock, stated:
“The tech industry itself is a very small audience compared to all of Chicago’s citizens. We wanted to reach that larger audience and share with them what is happening in the technology industry in their own back yard. You don’t have to go to Silicon Valley to see great tech experts in action and become part of the scene.”
In their second year, Tech Month Chicago will promote a series of gatherings, educational activities, parties, and other events seeking to engage new audiences for technology in the Chicago area. Unlike many tech industry focused events, Tech Month Chicago is geared toward all city residents from senior citizens, kids, parents, and all people of the city of Chicago to share how technology shapes our culture and encourage participation from those outside the industry.
Events range from coding for kids to educational forums and invention showcases, startup pitches, tech activities for families, companies opening their doors to the public, job training, meetups, and festive tech celebrations. Presenters include tech organizations, large scale technology related companies based in Chicago, non-profit organizations, schools, tech experts, education groups, and other organizations throughout the city.
Their main partners this year are SPR Consulting and Lumpen Radio.
To date, twelve venues have donated their spaces for Tech Month Chicago events:
Tech Month Chicago will have a fun program in place featuring selfie bubbles and participation ribbons for all Chicago citizens who participate and attend events during Technology Awareness Month in the month of September.
If you have questions about how to participate in Tech Month Chicago please contact Melanie Adcock via email at melanie@techmonthchicago.com or by phone at 312-259-0610.
Tech Month Chicago declares the month of September 2017 as Technology Awareness Month, a month for Chicagoland to celebrate technology, and our city’s diverse genius in technology innovation, business, and education.
Here is some more context around what we’re doing this year:
Submissions will be accepted for the following event categories:
Anyone can submit an event for Tech Month Chicago. We want to be as inclusive as possible as we believe that technology should belong to everyone. Tech Month Chicago seeks to engage all city residents to participate and attend events through promotion of our calendar. We imagine events like coding for kids, celebrations, maker tutorials, technology related music and art events, professional networking, job training, and more.
We also suggest that you adopt a “code of ethics” at your event, to make all people feel welcome and safe. Here’s an excellent template to get started: geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
Please make sure to tell us your name, number, email, and social media accounts.
All events submitted prior to September 1, 2017 will be promoted in a robust marketing campaign and public outreach effort including online and social media. Event coordinators will be invited to meet for an information session whereupon they will be given additional materials to distribute and help promote their events.
For those needing a space to host tech events this September, the following sponsors have generously donated their space (subject to availability for dates and times) to help celebrate Technology Awareness Month this September. Please contact them directly for booking info and space availability in September 2017:
567 W. Lake Street, Suite 1150
Chicago, Illinois 60661
Contact Person: Wok Barry
Contact Info: jbarry@nationalable.org • 312.858.0830
Website: nationalable.org
Additional Details: They would love to host a hackathon and any other events they can.
410 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 801
Chicago, IL 60605
Contact Person: Brent Williams
Contact Info: bwilliams@cliquestudios.com • 312-279-9329
Website: cliquestudios.com
405 West Superior Street
Chicago, IL 60654
Contact Person: Andrew Ettenhofer
Contact Info: andrew@coalitionspace.com • 312-757-5905
Website: coalitionspace.com
333 S. Wabash Ave.
Chicago, IL 60604
Contact Person: George Vukotich
Contact Info: george@fintank.org • 708-259-3686
Website: http://fintank.org
1908 S. Halsted Street #1F
Chicago, IL 60608
Contact Person: Melanie Adcock
Contact Info: melanie@techmonthchicago.com • 312-259-0610
Additional Details: Small space holds 30-50 people
1033 West Van Buren, 3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60607
Contact person: Nathan Vermeiren
Contact Info: nathan@thisismetis.com • 646-780-0191
Website: thisismetis.com
770 N Halsted St #420
Chicago, IL 60642
Contact Person: Meghan Hausman
Contact Info: c-hausman@neiu.edu • 262-424-8136
Website: neiu.edu
Chicago Campus:
430 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605
Schaumburg Campus:
1400 N. Roosevelt Blvd, Schaumburg, IL 60173
Contact Person: Eric Wierzbicki
Contact Info: ewierzbicki@roosevelt.edu • (312) 341-2406
Website: https://www.roosevelt.edu/
You can hold your event for Tech Month Chicago anywhere. It is not limited to the above locations. It can be at another tech venue, business, coffee house, restaurant, night club, and more. The above locations are offering to host free of charge, so that’s a huge bonus, but again your Tech Month Chicago 2017 events can take place anywhere throughout Chicagoland.
It is free to post events to the Tech Month Chicago calendar.
Click here to post your event!
Questions? Need Help? Want to Donate your venue? Please contact Melanie Adcock at 312-259-0610 or melanie@techmonthchicago.com
Tech Month Chicago will be returning in September of 2017. The month long calendar of events will feature all co-working spaces, innovation spaces, think tanks, shared offices, libraries, companies, cultural spots, and any place where tech events are happening all over Chicago.
We are in the process of updating our website and will soon be announcing how to submit events to the calendar.
Last year we advertised in the CTA subway, and this year we plan to get the word out to the public via several well known publications and media outlets.
We look forward to sharing Chicago’s vibrant technology innovation culture with all of Chicago’s citizens. Events will include fun, educational events for kids and families, job training for adults, networking, lectures, parties, company open houses, scavenger hunts, industry meetups, parties, podcasts, radio broadcasts, and webinars.
Need tech? This September we’ve got you covered.
Questions? Please contact Melanie Adcock at 312-259-0610 or melanie@techmonthchicago.com
Tech Month Chicago started out as an idea, and in June 2016 we realized that idea in the first month ever in the city of Chicago to honor our diverse technology culture and ecosystem while sharing it with all Chicagoans.
To put in perspective how we feel about accomplishing our launch, in the beginning, when we first started, it felt like a small child throwing stones at a large tank, like in the picture shown here.
Why did it feel that way, you ask?
The tank in the photo, to us, represents all of the obstacles and challenges we faced and problems we wanted to solve. Those problems include lack of diversity in the tech industry and the tech industry’s lack of advocacy and outreach to the public. On a local level we also wanted to provide a solution for what we view as draining Chicago politics that consolidate prestige and power into a few select venues downtown resulting in exclusion of aspiring technology entrepreneurs and tech venues in other neighborhoods.
Despite these overwhelming problems, we had passion, courage, and conviction, like the little boy throwing stones at the tank. We felt we had to take action, and to us, trying was better than doing nothing. It was not always easy. People ignored us.People called us up to ask why we needed to exist, while still others arrogantly asked us what our “value prop” was. In case you had to ask, the status quo in tech is alive and well in Chicago. We had the courage to try to put a dent in it.
What gave us our courage? The community.
There was an outpouring of support from grassroots tech event coordinators around the city who all listed their events on our calendar. As well, ten tech and business venues donated their spaces for free to people who wanted to hold events for Tech Month Chicago in June. In a strong show of solidarity unseen before in the Chicago tech industry, over 100 event coordinators and venues, all of whom normally operate independently, came together for one month and supported our platform to help Chicago learn about technology. We all found courage to step up and make real change because suddenly we weren’t alone anymore.
We are proud of everyone who participated in Tech Month Chicago this year and look forward to doing even more next year.
Our proudest moments were the tech companies who presented seminars to segments of the public, members of the tech community who had the opportunity to step up and give a presentation for the first time, industry focused events that opened themselves up to curious non-techies, the events that helped children, and events that helped the economically challenged. We’ll write more about these in the months to come. We are so grateful to all of the organizations and venues who participated this year!
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Melanie Adcock, President of Tech Month Chicago
This is intended to be a community platform, so tell us how you feel about the state of Chicago’s tech industry? E-mail us at info@techmonthchicago.com. Let us know, and we might feature you in a future blog post!
The photos in this blog post were digitally altered to remove any reference to any particular nationality, belief system, or conflict. Our intention with using this image is to illustrate a more general metaphor of helplessness when one endeavors to solve an overwhelming problem. Also if anyone gets inspired to throw rocks at military vehicles from reading this blog post, please don’t because we’re sure it’s probably illegal. 🙂
The idea for Tech Month Chicago emerged from a combination of my own career progression and things going on locally in Chicago. Ever since, the concept has rapidly grown from an idea into a group of people meaningfully executing its potential.
At the start of my professional journey twenty years ago I had no clue I would end up a tech professional. I was studying to become an artist and museum curator. My whole life was about creating, displaying, selling, and teaching art. Back then I spent a great deal of my time calling people to coordinate art events and make things happen. Friends of mine at the college where I was teaching design saw what I was doing and told me I could call people for a living in the business world and I could, maybe, they said, make some good money. Soon after that, a leg injury left me without a teaching job, and I needed work. Too klutzy to be a waitress in college, I had done a lot of part time telemarketing jobs and considered myself an energetic chatterbox on the phone, but it never occurred to me that it could be of value to anyone. When I realized the business world had a need for what I could do, I quickly found myself working at a tech start up. I enthusiastically stayed in the office late every night mastering how to use intricate, captivating software and got good at selling it. Now I am a polished industry professional and my career direction is with technology. It’s a path I never expected, but one I’m grateful to be on.
I entered the tech world armed with creative problem solving skills honed in design school, but felt like an outsider. Too often, I was always the only woman, the oldest person, the only person who didn’t go to business school, etc. I saw a lot of structural and ethical problems in some places where I worked because they lacked diversity, but felt powerless to do anything about it. My mind was busy selling software, but my heart was a busy making taking notes on how people were treated. Ultimately, the saying that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience is true for me. For as machine like as the tech industry can seem, we are– after all– human. As a spiritual being having a human experience, I wanted to make a difference in unfair situations I saw in the tech industry where people were excluded or made to feel like outsiders.
In the years to follow the press blew up about the lack of women and minorities in technology and it was like they were all telling my story. It turns out there were many tech industry professionals who felt like outsiders who had stories, backgrounds, and experiences similar to and also different from mine. I read their stories, listened, and saw a problem that needed a solution. As the issue of diversity in the technology industry heated up as a national conversation, I saw additional issues on a local level. Chicago, my home and city that I love, seemed to have a chip on its shoulder when it came to technology. Chicago isn’t Silicon Valley or New York, and it’s easy to get demotivated here because of that. Further, many tech industry related conferences happening in Chicago were geared only toward those already in the industry and didn’t include the city residents at large. My heart was still taking notes and looking for ways to address these topics.
Still a fan of the arts, for years I had paid careful attention to the city of Chicago’s involvement with Chicago Artist Month, a month long celebration of independently produced art events throughout the city that were promoted together in one big collective calendar. Chicago Artist Month is a successful cultural and civic initiative that has been going on for more than 20 years put on by Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. I have always respected and admired how this organization considers, includes, and brings together diverse groups of people to celebrate and appreciate art. I thought to myself, what if there could be something similar for technology in Chicago? A month of events for technology where all groups and interests that comprise technology on a local level can be celebrated and the whole city can be included in appreciating technology, just like the Chicago Artist Month event appreciates the arts?
Initial conversations with friends and colleagues in both the tech industry and at the Department of Cultural Affairs were encouraging. The idea has gotten a ton of support from organizations like Blue 1647 and i.c. stars and Tech Month Chicago is now a 501C3 organization with its own identity and mission. We are a strong, growing group of concerned, passionate technology professionals who love Chicago and create cultural engagement to help elevate the local tech industry as a whole. We aim to facilitate and promote a month of independently produced technology events throughout Chicago in June 2016 and our goal is to do it every year thereafter. With love, compassion, and feeling we present this idea to the technology industry professionals of Chicago and to all Chicago residents.
Tech Month Chicago is going to make great things happen for our city, and in my next post I’ll spell out some specifics on what we’d like to do and how we’d like to do it. In future posts we will also have others share their personal stories as well. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy navigating our new site.
