On Friday, November 13, we toured the Chicago Innovation Exchange at 1452 E. 53rd Street in the beautifully renovated Harper/Herald building in Hyde Park. Miss the tour? Check out our photo album of the tour and read on to find out what we learned.
The exchange is the “University of Chicago’s new center to help scholars and entrepreneurs translate their ideas and new technologies into start-up businesses and products.” It can be used by members of the community through an individual membership, or by applying to CIE's Business Incubator program.
CIE opened in October and, as of this writing, has more than 1,500 members, 57 percent of whom are minorities. There are 18 companies in its incubator, half of which have a woman on the founding team.
Members have access to free community business workshops, a legal clinic for entrepreneurs supported by University of Chicago law students, and workshops on everything from coding to social media and product photography, to name a few. CIE plans its workshops, speakers and other offerings based on the needs and requests of its members.
On October 8, CIE opened its state-of-the-art Fab Lab, which offers members 3D printing, laser cutting, vinyl cutting and woodcutting for prototyping products, packaging and ideas. Members must be certified to use the equipment; training includes some basic design concepts to ensure members are thoughtfully prototyping.
CIE has notable partners and partnerships with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Engineering School, the Hyde Park Arts Center, Argonne National Laboratory and more.
Want to learn more? Schedule a tour, learn more about membership or attend an event.
The Maker Lab has sponsored tours to Pumping Station: One, South Side Hackerspace, MAKE! Chicago, Arturo Velasquez Institute, Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center, Edgewater Workbench and most recently, CIE.
View photo albums of past tours, and email us at makerspace@chipublib.org to let us know which maker facility you'd like to tour with us next!
