The Hilton Orrington Hotel in downtown Evanston, site of the showcase Photo: Nick Number / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Northwestern University’s student and graduate startups were scheduled to pitch to Evanston executives, mentors and investors on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013, at the first Northwestern University Startup Showcase. The event was to begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Hinman Auditorium at the Hilton Orrington Hotel in downtown Evanston, with a reception afterward.
Evanston Inventure organized it in partnership with the City of Evanston. Inventure is a business-backed group supported by the city’s largest institutions and employers, including Northwestern. It describes its role as a private-sector voice on public policy, and it works on long-term economic development strategies that improve the business climate and the quality of place.
The idea behind the event
Northwestern produces a steady stream of company ideas, but many founders leave town once they graduate. The showcase aimed to connect those founders with people who could keep them in Evanston: established chief executives, professional-services firms, investors and local entrepreneurs. The format was fast-paced, in the style of a business pitch competition. Invited guests included Linda Darragh, executive director of the Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice at the Kellogg School of Management.
SwipeSense in the spotlight
SwipeSense was the best-known name on the invitation. The company, led by Northwestern graduates, makes a hand hygiene system for hospital staff designed to reduce hospital-acquired infections. It started in Evanston about two years earlier and was a finalist for the Wall Street Journal‘s Startup of the Year. The Daily Northwestern reported it was being tested at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Rush University Medical Center.
Other Evanston-linked ventures were expected to be on the program too, including MyChild, the child care software company that was also seeking votes in a national small-business grant contest that week.
The showcase fit a pattern of efforts to give Evanston a reputation as a place to start a company, not just to study. Northwestern’s Startup Weekend, which produced new ventures just days earlier, and the Technology Innovation Center on Davis Street were part of the same push.
A reception after the pitches gave the founders time to talk one-on-one with the executives and service providers in the room, which is often where introductions to investors and mentors actually begin.
Sources: Evanston Inventure and the Daily Northwestern.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
