Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/175878
F rom October 14 to 20, nearly 200 thought leaders from around the nation—including Dr. Buzz Aldrin, Cat Cora, and David Gregory—will be on hand to speak at Chicago Ideas Week, which entrepreneur Brad Keywell established in 2011 to foster ideas and collaboration to ignite change. Beyond the weeklong event, though, CIW boasts a co-op of members eager to help Chicago make moves globally. In a lively recent discussion at the Ideas Week offices, Michigan Avenue Editor-in-Chief J.P. Anderson joined Keywell, CIW Executive Director Jessica Malkin, and other key supporters of the event to discuss how Chicago Ideas Week is fulfilling its mission to help the city think forward. Michigan Avenue: Let's start from the beginning. What was the inspiration behind Chicago Ideas Week? Brad Keywell: I happen to love ideas. I'd gone to a number of different "ideas things" like the Renaissance Weekend in South Carolina and the Aspen Ideas Festival. When you're at these conferences, there's an energy that is created out of nothing and connects you, which results in activity after the conference that wouldn't happen otherwise. I was envious of that. Especially on the West Coast, they have a lot of stuff that connects people inorganically—engineers with poets, or scientists with technologists—so the idea was to do this here in Chicago. Motivator number one was that we didn't have it; number two was people saying it would never work. My response was, "Great, let's just do it." And off we went. I went around and told the story about what we were going to create, and every entity and organization that we spoke to about it responded by saying, "Amen. How can I help? How do I get involved?" That first year was so significant. Jessica Malkin and Carrie Kennedy and the team that came together—the level of performance was so high that we hit a grand slam out of the gates, and all of a sudden it was real. Jessica Malkin: Year one was like a Brad Keywell road show through Chicago trying to tell everybody in our networks what was going to happen, and we pulled it off. So we took the next challenge from Brad, which was to grow it. This year, it's become more about creating a yearround community [and becoming a] connection warehouse that people can utilize to start to "mind-mob" issues—which is Jimmy Odom's term—so we can help tackle some of the issues that the city's dealing with. MA: What drew the rest of you to become 128 CHICAGO'S BRIGHTEST Meet some of the movers, shakers, and thinkers of Chicago Ideas Week. BRAD KEYWELL: FOUNDER/COCHAIRMAN Brad Keywell is the founder and cochairman of Chicago Ideas Week. He is also a cofounder and managing partner of Lightbank (a venture fund investing in disruptive technology businesses) and cofounder and director of Groupon, among other ventures. JESSICA MALKIN: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Jessica Malkin oversees the creation and production of the annual Chicago Ideas Week, as well as year-round programming—from The Co-op to CIW YOU(th) to the Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship. PATRICIA COX: ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER Patricia Cox is an angel investor (Hyde Park Angels), supporter of social impact enterprises (partner, Social Venture Partners, Chicago), a philanthropist (President, KPW Foundation), and the Immediate Past Chair of the Goodman Theatre Board of Trustees. LESLIE BLUHM: ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER Leslie Bluhm is the founder of Chicago Cares, the largest volunteer service organization in the Midwest, and cofounder of the Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship, which helps identify and support the next generation of socially minded entrepreneurs in conjunction with Chicago Ideas Week. IMRAN KHAN: CO-OP NETWORK MEMBER Imran Khan is the executive director and founder of Embarc, which provides unique social and cultural experiences and interactions to high school students from Chicago's most socially and economically isolated neighborhoods. MIKE MCGEE: CO-OP NETWORK MEMBER Mike McGee is the cofounder of The Starter League, an in-person school in Chicago that teaches beginners how to code and design web apps in three months. His latest project is Starter School, an immersive full-time program that will take people from zero to entrepreneur in nine months. JIMMY ODOM: CO-OP NETWORK MEMBER Jimmy Odom is the founder of WeDeliver, an online platform that provides local merchants the ability to offer their customers an on-demand delivery experience through a sharing model similar to car, home, and bike sharing programs. HEBRU BRANTLEY: ARTIST IN RESIDENCE Hebru Brantley explores personal and cultural memory in his art using tropes from his 1980s upbringing and characters of his own creation. His work has been featured in Ebony, Jet, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, and more. This month, as part of Chicago Ideas Week, he will debut a large-scale public work in downtown. MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 126-131_MA_FEAT_Culture_October13.indd 128 9/17/13 4:59 PM