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iVentures10: Starting up in Illinois

Posted on May 1, 2008
Filed Under VC, Technology, Chicago, Business | 1 Comment

As programs like Y Combinator and TechStars gained popularity I started to wonder why something along the lines of those programs didn’t exist here in Illinois. After all the modern web was pretty much born at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (mosaic/netscape, apache, etc.) and other notable web superstars like PayPal and YouTube have come from the minds of U of I grads. Well, I didn’t have to think about this idea for long…

Enter the iVentures10 program. iVentures10 is a program created by Illinois VENTURES initially as a “new kind of internship” for U of I computer science students. However, they recently announced a partnership with Mozilla along with their intention to take applications from around the world.

I think this is a fantastic thing for tech entrepreneurs based here in Illinois and a great way to get others that aren’t based here to spend a summer here in Illinois building their companies. Hopefully we can all show them such a good time they won’t want to leave! Keeping our tech talent here in the state is crucial to Illinois becoming the tech center it deserves to be and this program will clearly help with that effort.

You can learn more about the iVentures10 program on their site and if you think you want to submit an application make sure to get it together soon. The final day to submit applications is May 15th.

Side note: You can also learn more about the iVentures10 program at the next TECH cocktail mixer on May 29th. The team will be at the event along with some of the folks who have been accepted into the program.