At the end of March, 1871 CEO Howard Tullman and I had the great opportunity to join 100 other entrepreneurial ecosystem builders in Washington, DC for the Rise of the Rise Conference, powered by Revolution Ventures and Steve Case.  The goal of the conference was to share best practices from various entrepreneurial hubs from the "rest" of the country (not California, New York and Massachusetts, which receive 80% of the total venture capital dollars in this country). 

In this profile of WiSTEM C4 members, Tiffany Mikell, CEO/CTO and co-founder of Aerialspaces talks about her journey from working as a software engineer to founding her virtual events app.

In this profile of WiSTEM C4 members, Angie Rivera, co-founder and CEO of InReach talks about the communications platform she is building to connect prospective college students with current college students for a more authentic and informative experience when selecting schools. 

In this profile of WiSTEM C4 members, Kim Lewis, founder of CurlMix, talks about her subscription-based program that allows women with curly hair to easily and affordably mix their own hair products. 

In this profile of WiSTEM C4 members, Barbara Provost talks about the financial empowerment network and platform she is building for women. 

In this profile of members of the WiSTEM C4 cohort, Zenah Khawaja of Semiautomatic Semiotics talks about her virtual reality platform meant to benefit brick-and-mortar businesses. 

Students from seven Chicago-area University Partners are set to participate in a long weekend of immersive workshops, mentorshop, and pitch practice beginning March 31. A record number of students will participate this year in what has become a hugely-anticipated event by university students.

In this profile of WiSTEM C4 members, Andrea Newberry of Leche Libre talks about her fashionable apparel line that allows women to confidently breastfeed in public and her mission to empower women.

In this profile of WiSTEM C4 members, Veda Konduru of VectorScient talks about the AI marketing cloud platform for predictive consumer e-commerce. 

1871 and the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (IHCC) announced Thursday that their joint incubator program has opened applications for its second cohort, which is set to begin at 1871 in May 2017. The new cohort members will be following the 10 startups that successfully graduated on March 1 from the inaugural cohort. The incubator’s current title sponsor is PNC Illinois, whose sponsorship facilitates the resources to make the program a success.