This article was originally sourced from the news piece “The Matchmakers” on Kellogg’s news and events page.
Innovators Connection, the Kellogg School of Management team that honors Chicago innovators, is supporting the Chicago startup community by connecting established business leaders’ problems to local startups that might have the solution.
“Startups have a hard time getting the ear of big companies. They may not have a lot of credibility, or know who to talk to,” Luke Tanen ’14 said. “It makes sense to bridge these two worlds. You can think of what we’ve created as a matching program.”
A collaboration was born in 2010 between Tanen and Tom Kuczmarski, one of the co-founders of the awards and a senior lecturer at Kellogg’s Center for Research on Technology & Innovation. Kuczmarski soon realized that Tanen was passionate about working in Chicago’s startup business community. Since moving up to executive director in 2012, Tanen has worked with Kuczmarski to expand the organization into new territories. Their latest is the Innovators Connection, which helps startups connect their services to big-name companies.
Innovators Connection uses the Innovation Awards’ network and nomination database to find large businesses that are looking for answers to specific problems and match them with Chicago startups that may have the answers.
According to Kuczmarski, Chicago startups are coming up with creative products and services beyond the next killer smartphone app.
“The real key is to not view innovation as digital technology, but rather understanding that innovation impacts manufacturing, service organizations, health care, education, performing arts — the whole gamut,” Kuczmarski says.
The idea behind the Connection is to keep these growing companies from leaving Chicago before they can become successful contributors to their hometown’s economy.
“Our hope is that these companies will want to stay here, grow here, hire people here. As opposed to startups here in Chicago thinking, ‘Maybe I should go out to Silicon Valley, or maybe I should go somewhere else.’ We don’t want them thinking that,” Tanen says.