CHICAGO (CBS) — A Chicago entrepreneur is hoping Chicago Ideas week will spark enough conversation, communication and ideas to spark new businesses and thus new jobs in Chicago.
Brad Keywell is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and professor at the University of Chicago.
He’s in his second year of running Chicago Ideas Week–which has Colin Powell, actor Ed Norton, Author Deepak Chopra and model turned entrepreneur Elle McPherson headlining a week of talks designed to get people thinking, and thinking up plans.
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Keywell, founder of Lightbank Venture Capital, says he thinks media bears some responsibility for Chicago lagging Silicon Valley and Cambridge in start-ups.
He says the media here label entrepreneurs who try and fail as bad.
He says failure is an inevitable part of risk-taking. Keywell says in Silicon Valley, the general attitude is, “So, they failed, so what’s next.”
Keywell says Chicago has the U. of C., Northwestern, IIT, U. of I., all turning out technological talent, too little of which remains in town.
Keywell says he and others in Chicago’s tech community are hoping that Chicago Ideas Week will help toward turning the culture around so that risky ventures are accorded the same respect they are in technological hotbeds elsewhere in the United States.
