1871 Hosts DeVry DVX New Cohort

Business

Higher-ed tech incubator DV X Labs opens at 1871

Posted: 01/13/2015, 06:42pm | Sandra Guy

Tim Harrington, senior product manager at DeVry Education Group's DV X (left), Karen Hurst, dean of general education, and Eric Dirst, president of DeVry Online Services, discuss plans for the ed-tech incubator's welcome reception in the Merchandise Mart.

A new incubator to support startups developing higher-education technology will open Wednesday in the 1871 tech hub in the Merchandise Mart.

The incubator’s lead sponsor is the research-and-development arm of DeVry Education Group, the Downers Grove-based parent of DeVry University and other for-profit specialty schools.

The R&D arm, known as DV X, will provide the startups with prototyping sessions, business-education workshops, DeVry academic leader meet-ups and other resources in 2,000 square feet of space that DV X shares with a career accelerator program called Startup Institute.

Jeff Dunn, senior director at DV X, said the five-person R&D unit has worked remotely with startups for the past few years in Austin, Boston, New York and San Francisco, but decided to set up a “gathering place” close to home.

The incubator has accepted its first four startups:

• Youtopia, based in Chicago, focuses on developing a gaming platform that lets learners earn points and badges as they meet greater challenges.
• SmartyPants, based in Los Angeles, developed a mobile app that helps students quickly set up study groups.
• YuJa, based in San Jose, California, combines lecture captioning, live broadcasting, social learning and video collaborating onto a single platform, allowing students to access the content from anywhere and anytime.
• Century Tech, based in London, developed a platform that uses data analytics and artificial intelligence to adjust to each student’s learning progress.

The incubator kickoff Wednesday will feature a “fireside chat” and roundtable discussion at 1871 with technology executives about the challenges facing startups in education technology and the value of their partnering with universities.

FORBES: An Unexpected Source of Innovation: Chicago Tech Center 1871 Expands

An Unexpected Source of Innovation: Chicago Tech Center 1871 Expands

By Vicki Gerson

Innovation can crop up where and how you least expect it. In our series “An Unexpected Source of Innovation,” we will visit some of America’s little-known hubs of technological creativity!

Chicago is well known for being the heartland of manufacturing … but a center for technological innovation? Not so much so, many people would assume. However, as with many assumptions, nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact, according to a study conducted by the Illinois Innovation Council, Illinois ranks second in the nation (after California) in the number of high-tech startups.

One of the catalysts for innovation in the city is Chicago’s leading tech startup center, named 1871 after the famous Chicago fire. 1871 is positioned to cater to the growing tech and entrepreneurial community in the Chicagoland area where members will be able to take advantage of mentorship programs, educational sessions and meeting rooms.

Originally funded by a $2.3 million grant from the State of Illinois and private sponsorships, it’s located in the Merchandise Mart with the purpose of increasing innovation and job growth in the region. Venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker provided early funding for 1871, while corporate sponsors such as CDW, Google and Comcast also supported it. The goal was to go beyond building the next Groupon or next Google, but to offer a place where people would be able to look back and say that Chicago’s 1871 was the place where great tech companies got started.

Chicago is a world famous city, but it is not necessarily known as an innovation hub. It may be time to change that perception.

Known as “Chicago’s Entrepreneurial Hub For Digital Startups,” the center opened its doors on May 2, 2012 with 50,000-square-feet of space on the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart. The center is being run by the non-profit Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, which received more than 300 applications for space. At first, the center housed up to 400 individuals and roughly 100 startups. One of the main objectives of the center is to help businesses build themselves up to the point of self-sufficiency.

The Big Picture

Technology affects all areas of the economy in every state, from real estate to education to finance to food. 1871′s companies are creating innovative tech products and services that are changing the way traditional industries operate.

New businesses are also critical creators of jobs and economic growth. 1871′s graduates have raised more than $40 million and created more than 1400 jobs. As the center of the entrepreneurial and tech communities in Chicago, 1871′s ultimate goal is to support the companies that are fostering economic growth throughout Chicago and Illinois.

Because most startups have very little cash or are unable to get bank loans, the center provides entrepreneurs with office space. Comcast’s investment in 1871 gives tenants free access to a high-speed Metro Ethernet Dedicated Internet Service, TV service in the common areas, and phone service.

With $2.5 million additional money from Governor Pat Quinn this year, 1871 was able to expand itself by 50 percent, adding 25,000 square-feet to accommodate additional entrepreneurs who wanted to become members. With the new space, 1871 is currently home to more than 300 companies where entrepreneurs can become a collaborative community.

A Glance at Some of the Innovative Businesses Here

1871 has incredible diversity among its startups:

·         Quick2LAUNCH can, in less than 48-hours, help corporations develop visually compelling presentations and templates for PowerPoint. It also has a graphic design service for presentations.

·         Youtopia is an education gamification platform (toolkit) that uses points, badges and leaderboards to make what students are already learning – from elementary through college – addictive and fun. Its platform unlocks new pathways to learning.

·         Georama helps travelers discover vacations based upon their interests. Travelers can plan, book and share trips.

·         WeDeliver is a same-day, on-demand delivery service using a web-based platform.

As Daniela Bolzmann, co-founder and CMO of WeDeliver says: “This is a place where every startup can call home. For me, 1871 is home. It’s where I met my cofounder, and it’s where we work for months at a time. Many times we spent more hours at 1871 than we did at our own homes. It’s a place where we’ve connected with our peers, met mentors, built our company and even trained our fleet of delivery specialists. The culture at 1871 is inspirational – the passion and fury that’s going on in the hallways is contagious.” Chicago is certainly hoping that this inspiration and passion continues to spread!

Vicki Gerson is an award-winning print and on-line writer for consumer, trade and custom publications who focuses on company profiles, business features and business blogs.

Launching a Startup That Outpaces Sharks

The first time I watched the hit television show  Shark Tank, Pat McCarthy was pitching his new product, a perfume called  Money that purported to smell like freshly minted greenbacks. "The smell of money, baby! Can I get an Amen?" McCarthy calls, as scantily clad models throw cash in the air like confetti. "Amen!" the Sharks testify in unison. "Love the pitch!" one of the potential investors beamed, admiring the bottle packed in shredded U.S. currency. "Genius!" One Shark bit to the tune of a hundred grand.

McCarthy's offer weighed heavily on my mind as my startup, Youtopia, headed into the finals of the 1776 Challenge Cup. We were competing against 64 of the globe's most promising ventures in education, energy, health and smart cities; if funded, any one of these startups had the potential to completely disrupt its field. If I were a betting woman, after voting for us (naturally), I'd have put my money on Reaction Housing to sweep the whole thing.

Unlike Liquid Money, Reaction Housing's EXO really is a genius idea. Back in 2005, while waiting in line at Starbucks, Michael McDaniel was staring at stacks of upside-down paper coffee cups, and fuming over America's breathtakingly tragic answer to hurricane Katrina. Then Eureka! He raced home and designed EXO, a stackable, lightweight, temporary housing unit that would efficiently fill a cargo plane or shipping container, an invention that could revolutionize how we respond to natural and manmade disasters.

As I watched EXO lose to, ostensibly, an even better idea, I fumed over the kind of bizarro universe that bestows seed funding on l'eau de dough over humanitarian relief. If Michael pitched his idea on Shark Tank, would he send out adolescent flood victims in daisy-dukes and bikini tops carrying miniature FEMA trailers or Superdome snow globes? In a country that increasingly evaluates entrepreneurs in game show format (along with singers, chefs, designers, dieters, lovers, fill-in-the-blank), how can socially responsible startups ever capture the public's attention?

Perhaps the brilliance of the Challenge Cup is that it combines the theatrical aspects of Shark Tank with the passion of entrepreneurs addressing seemingly intransigent societal and environmental problems. However, business savvy do-gooders are not created in a vacuum. If we want more viable mission-focused/for-profit startups in the pipeline, we need more accelerator programs like Chicago's Impact Engine. Lots more.

Impact Engine runs an intensive sixteen-week boot camp that gives startups one-on-one mentorships, $25,000 of upfront funding in exchange for 7 percent equity, and free workspace at Howard Tullman's much acclaimed tech hub, 1871. Chuck Templeton, founder of OpenTable and current chairman of Impact Engine, seeks to erase the distinction between doing good and doing well. "Caring solely about profits is simply not rational anymore," Templeton stated at last year's Demo Day. "Our entrepreneurs see weaknesses in the status quo and they see ways to use new business models, or new technologies, or new social norms as a force for positive change. We're disrupting the current mindset of mission OR money with mission AND money."

"Every 60 seconds another student drops out of high school--that's a million kids a year. Our engagement platform can help reduce that rate to zero," insists Simeon Schnapper, Youtopia's CEO and founder, and a graduate of Impact Engine's second cohort. "While education is estimated to be $1.3 trillion dollar industry, it remains a deeply conservative space. Trying to scale cutting-edge technology like gamification and digital badges required some serious advice."

Youtopia learned so much during its Impact Engine experience that the awards component of the Challenge Cup became tangential to the real work surrounding the DC trip. "Thanks to 1776, we met senior White House policymakers to talk about removing innovation hurdles," Schnapper says. "That kind of access can make or break a young company."

Moreover, companies that want to disrupt incumbents need support, because doing good means going against traditional thinking. Abby Ross, co-founder and COO of  ThinkCERCA, and a graduate of the first Impact Engine cohort, argues that the accepted high-growth technology mantra to 'build one thing and scale quickly' is tricky when it comes to education.

"To solve a massive problem like literacy, we needed to build a simple solution for a complex problem," Ross explains. "Some people wanted us to either be a content lesson publisher or a platform of tools. Impact Engine gave us the confidence to build both. And because we took that hard road, it's the only thing allowing us to scale, reach more students, and help schools achieve the only thing in this business that matters the most: student outcomes."

Even so, taking the "hard road" doesn't guarantee success if a company can't scale to reach its audience. Consider, for example, the growing population of autistic children: According to Katie Hench, cofounder of Infiniteach, an innovative, digital curriculum for children on the Autism Spectrum, "Autism affects one in every 68 children--a statistic that has increased more than 600 percent in the past two decades alone--and resources aren't keeping up with this growing need. Impact Engine helped us develop a plan for strategic scaling, and taught us how to tell our story with the same Shark Tank-esque glamour that would excite investors, impact or otherwise."

Of course, entrepreneurs who aim to do-good-and-do-well must master the art of the shill, just like everyone else. While it's unlikely that Impact Engine's Demo Day or 1776's Challenge Cup will take over ABC prime time anytime soon, I wish Shark Tank's producers would take Templeton up on his challenge: "Find an impact company. Make your first, or next investment in them. Help them grow. Help them find new customers or new business partnerships or new employees. Go to an uncomfortable place. Make an investment in something you believe in. Learn how to be an impact investor, one investment at a time."

1776 and 1871 are revolutionary dates to remember, for a reason. Amen to that.

Youtopia's founder and CEO Simeon Schnapper pitching at the 1776 Challenge Cup in Chicago.

1871 CEO HOWARD TULLMAN WELCOMES ILLINOIS 5TH DISTRICT CONGRESSMAN MIKE QUIGLEY FOR MEETINGS WITH 1871 STARTUPS

1871 CEO HOWARD TULLMAN DELIVERS KEYNOTE ON EDUCATION INNOVATION AT PEARSON NATIONAL SALES MEETING

IMPACT ENGINE DEMO DAY