It’s been an amazing two years since Anyone Can Learn To Code was founded, right here at 1871. Since then, we’ve graduated dozens of new developers over five cohorts in Chicago, and even expanded to San Francisco in late 2015. This year holds even more great things in store, which we can’t wait to announce over the coming weeks. At our two-year anniversary, we want to take a look back at what we and our developer graduates have accomplished.

An interesting report from Gallup raises the stakes for innovation in customer engagement—just as an interesting new event from the Chicago American Marketing Association is about to present new perspectives on how to truly engage (Feb. 23 at 1871).

As I take a moment to reflect on #GivingTuesday, I cannot help but put pen to paper and attempt to articulate a theme we saw represented in many Chicago events this Fall - the idea of “Chicagoness” or “Conscious Chicago,” as coined by the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center and YWCA Metropolitan Chicago respectively. Two months ago, my co-founder Rishi Shah and I were standing on stage at 1871’s Momentum Awards, receiving the generous inaugural recognition of representing “Chicagoness.” This challenged me to distill my thoughts and inspired me to share them here.

Inaugural GFE Vertical Summit At 1871 To Focus On Travel And Hospitality Industries; Convenes Startups And Leadership From Each GFE North American Tech Hub

InnovateHER 2016: Innovating for Women Business Challenge and Summit Seeks Innovative Products and Services That Impact and Empower Women’s Lives; Applications Available Through October 26, 2015

The Iconic Conference is here in Chicago this week. Inc. and CNBC have put together a solid line-up of successful entrepreneurs, academics, authors, and more to tell their stories, share a point of view, and inspire us to achieve greatness. The attendees will surely walk away from this event with some great ideas about what to do differently to secure their entrepreneurial success.