The Friday Exit: A new identity for Illinois Tech
The Illinois Institute of Technology has a new identity: IIT now prefers Illinois Tech.
Illinois Tech President Alan Cramb told Ally Marotti the change is intended to underline the school’s tech focus and eliminate confusion with the India Institute of Technology, a notion I somewhat pooh-poohed until I attempted to Google IIT and found myself instantly transported to Chennai.
"Illinois Tech" is a bold claim to stake. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also has an engineering school, you may have heard. “I certainly think of us as the state’s tech powerhouse,” said Bill Bell, spokesman for the College of Engineering at the U of I. Its alumni include the co-founders of YouTube, PayPal, Tesla and Netscape.
Chicago's TechNexus, which connects entrepreneurs and corporations, said it plans to open an office in Urbana-Champaign in time for the fall semester, plucking big ideas as they hatch.
At the University of Chicago, even the coffeeshop at the Chicago Innovation Exchange is trying to boost entrepreneurship, says Lori Janjigian. Greenline Coffee aims to give job training and jobs to people in underserved neighborhoods — and now employees at its latest shop receive memberships in the innovation center, giving them access to development programs, networking opportunities and workspace.
Beauty and spa services are increasingly a few taps away as new apps connect service providers directly to customers. Among them: Chicago-based The Lisa App has launched an online marketplace connecting customers with licensed and certified beauty, barber and spa professionals, reports Cheryl V. Jackson.
One of the next big things coming in 2016: Next-generation financial firms will get a boost from a plan out of World Business Chicago to create a fin-tech hub similar to 1871 and Matter. Big fin-tech players here include online lender Avant and payments company Braintree, which was acquired by PayPal. Financial firms aren't always the most open with their secrets, so industry experts told Meg Graham that sharing could have a big impact.
And it will be a big year for change with the development in Illinois of crowdfunding for startups, Amina Elahi reports, bringing a world of possibility and probably drama as smaller-money investors will be allowed to buy shares in new companies.
Too much money, after all, only spoils startups: They spend too much and focus on the wrong things. "Shark Tank" star Daymond John has a new book that is on point: In "The Power of Broke," he shares stories about the creativity that only emerges amid a lack of other options.
"If you look at the world's richest entrepreneurs, 60 percent of those came from nothing," said John, founder of apparel company Fubu. "That means they didn't inherit money. That means they didn't use money to get where they were. They used pure skills, marketing, thinking outside the box, thinking faster than anyone else, ingenuity."
Food delivery — it's a thing. Amazon and Uber both ramped up their plans for Chicago this week, and we didn't even get a big fancy blizzard to drive us indoors. Zero-degree temperatures will have to do.