chicago-engineering-and-tech-communities
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A consolidated list of Chicago Engineering and Tech Communities and organizations
Chicago Engineering and Tech Communities and Organizations
Inspired by This Dot's Tech Community Slacks but Chicago-focused! (However the Awesome Tech Communities fork is far more active and up to date than Dot's) A consolidated list of Chicago Engineering Communities and organizations. Please add any that you think are missing! Please note that any added should be engineering/tech-focused and in Chicago, or at least have a substantial Chicago subcommunity. For Meetups, they should have in-person Chicago events, rather than just being only online events with a "Chicago" chapter which exists to get in search listings. There is a great calendar of Chicago-based events one can find at Chicago Tech Community Events.
Navigation
- Non-Tech Organizations/Groups/Communities
- Identity-Focused
- Tech Organizations/Groups/Communities
- Non-Profit/Volunteer
- Incubators/Accelerators
- Hackerspaces
- Universities
- Other
Non-Tech Organizations/Groups/Communities
By "non-tech" what is meant are non-computer science/software/data-focused organizations.
- AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers)
- American Nuclear Society - Chicago Section
- American Public Works Association (APWA) - Chicago Chapter
- American Society of Civil Engineers
- American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
- Chicago Association of Student Engineers
- Chicago Chapter of the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers
- Chicago Council on Science and Technology
- Chicago Quantum Exchange
- Discovery Partners Institute
- i.c.stars
- Illinois American Water Works Association (ISAWWA)
- Illinois Association of County Engineers (IACENG)
- Illinois Association of Highway Engineers (IAHE)
- Illinois Green Alliance
- Illinois Institute of Transportation Engineers (ILITE)
- Illinois Water Environment Association (IWEA)
- Illuminating Engineering Society
- Information Systems Audit and Control Association-Chicago Chapter
- Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Illinois
- Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago (IPLAC)
- National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) - Chicago
- Professional Women in Construction
- ~~Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Chicago~~ URL no longer works, will eventually remove if it doesn't get fixed
- Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Chicago
- Society of Casualty Safety Engineers
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) - Region 6
- Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - Chicago
- Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (SEAOI)
Identity-Focused
Generally organizations focused on promoting diversity of identities in various fields of engineering and allowing for connections between those groups.
- 2Flo Ventures - Black-led healthcare incubator
- Blacks in Technology - Chicago Chapter
- Chicago Tech Diversity Initiative
- Chicago Women in Tech
- Chicago Women UX Designers in Tech
- Fintech Women - Chicago chapter just launched (event link); no specific website yet.
- Gen Z VCs - Has Chicago chapter
- GENESIS
- Girls 4 Science
- i.c.stars
- Queer Tech Club
- National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) - Chicago
- Out In Tech - Has Chicago chapter
- P33 Chicago
- Professional Women in Construction
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) - Region 6
- Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - Chicago
- StartOut - Has Chicago chapter
- Women in Data Science
Tech Organizations/Groups/Communities
Data/ML/DS-Focused
- AI 2030 Responsible Artificial Intelligence
- AI at Work: Chicago
- AI at Northwestern
- AI Tinkerers - Chicago
- Chi Sub SQL User Group
- Chicago AI/ML/Data Developers Group
- Chicago Analytics and Data Science in the Cloud
- Chicago Data Community
- Chicago Data Professionals
- Chicago dbt Meetup
- Chicago ML
- Chicago Machine Learning Paper Reading Group
- Chicago Open Source Data Infrastructure Meetup
- Chicago PostgreSQL Meetup Group
- Chicago Power BI User Group
- Chicago Snowflake Meetup
- Couchbase Midwest
- Creative AI
- MLOps Chicago
- PyData Chicago
- Women in Data Science
Crypto/Blockchain
- Bitcoin & Open Blockchain Community - Chicago
- Bitcoin Chicago Meetup
- Chicago BITDEVS
- Chicago Crypto Art
- ETHChicago
Social
Startup
- Chicago Lean Startup Circle
- Chicago Startup Founder 101
- Chicago Startup and Tech Mixer
- Founders Institute - Has Chicago chapter
- Founders Network
- Founder's Therapy - Chicago
- Gen Z VCs - Has Chicago chapter
- GENESIS
- OraView Fire for Solopreneurs
- [R]elaunch
- StartOut - Has Chicago chapter
- Startup Hypeman
General/Others
-
Chicago Tech Slack
- This is a tech community focused in Chicago, good resource to network and visit the job boards
- AWE Nite Chicago
- AWS Chicago
- Blacks United In Leading Technology - Chicago
- BurbSec: Chicagoland’s Largest Information Security Meetups!
- Chi Hack Night
- Chicago BITDEVS
- Chicago C/C++ Users Group
- Chicago Chapter of ACM
- Chicago Cyber Circle
- Chicago Design Systems
- Chicago Food Tech
- Chicago Haskell
- Chicago HTML5
- Chicago Indie Hackers
- Chicago Innovate Tech
- Chicago Java Users Group
- Chicago JavaScript Meetup Group
- Chicago Kotlin
- Chicago Product Management Association
- Chicago Python User Group
- Chicago R User Group
- Chicago R-Ladies Group
- Chicago Red Hat User Group
- Chicago Search Community
- Chicago Seleniumistas
- Chicago Tech Diversity Initiative
- Chicago Unreal Engine
- Chicago Women in Tech
- Chicago Women UX Designers in Tech
- ChicagoRuby
- ChiTechBio
- CHI-NOG (Chicago Network Operators Group)
- Cloud Security Alliance, Chicago Chapter
- Codecademy + 100Devs Chicago Meetup
- Deep Dish Rust
- DevOps Chicago
- Discover Technology
- Drupal Chicago
- Elastic Chicago User Group
- Grafana & Friends Chicago
- IEEE Chicago
- Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Chicago Chapter
- IxDA Chicago
- NERP - Not Exclusively Raspberry Pi
- OpenHack Chicago
- OpenSearch Project - Chicago
- P33 Chicago
- React Chicago
- TechChicago
- Tech In Motion - Has Chicago chapter
- Tech Salon Chicago
- UniForum Chicago
- UX Book Club Chicago
- Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR/AR) Chicago
- Windy City Linux Users Group
Non-Profit/Volunteer
Organizations focused on providing opportunities for engineers to volunteer their skillsets to help others and/or helping in schools.
- Chicago Engineers' Foundation
- ACE (Architecture, Construction, Engineering) Mentor Program Chicago
- Calculated Genius
- Chi Hack Night
- Chicago Pre-College Science and Engineering Program (ChiS&E)
- Code for Chicago
- Code Your Dreams
- Engineers Without Borders - Chicago
- Everyone Can Code Chicago
- Girls 4 Science
- Project SYNCERE
Incubators/Accelerators
Perhaps surprising to many, Chicago has a vibrant startup community with incubators and accelerators to assist those get off the ground.
- 1871
- 2112 - Music, film/video, and creative technology
- 2Flo Ventures - Black-led healthcare
- BLUE1647
- Bunker Labs - Veteran-led businesses
- Cleveland Avenue - Food, beverage, and tech businesses
- Elmspring Accelerator - Real estate and housing tech
- Financial Solutions Lab - fintech
- Healthbox - Health tech
- Insight Accelerator Labs - Healthcare
- MATTER - Healthcare
- mHUB - Hardware, medtech
- Moderne Ventures - Real estate, insurance, finance, hospitality, and home services
- NAR Reach - Real estate tech
- Nemera Insight Accelerator Labs - Medtech
- POLSKY - Student-led businesses
- Propel - Life sciences
- Roniin
- Sunshine Enterprises
- TechNexus Venture Collaborative - AI/ML, AR, VR, IoT, analytics
- TechStars Chicago
- Treehouse Adventures
- VentureSHOT
- WiSTEM - Focus on women-led startups
Hackerspaces
Hackerspaces (also hacklabs, hackspaces) are community-operated physical places, where people share their interest in tinkering with technology, meet and work on their projects, and learn from each other.
Universities
Universities are the core of many engineering studies around the world that are central to any community. However, generally they are not directly open to the public at large to engage with.
- DePaul University
- Illinois Institute of Technology - Armour College of Engineering
- Northwestern University - McCormick School of Engineering
- UIC (University of Illinois Chicago)
- UIUC (University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign) - MCS Chicago Campus
- University of Chicago
Other
For other groups that are not directly engineering related, but I feel are worth bringing to the attention of engineers in Chicago.
- Chicago Associate Boards - This is a great list of various associate boards in Chicago that young professionals can join to start getting board leadership experience, and volunteering in their community.
- Awesome Discord Communities - Not specifically Chicago, but I feel that there is a great benefit to the numerous engineering and tech Discord communities out there for anyone to be part of to learn from others.
- Awesome Tech Communities fork - A list of Slack communities around the world to join
- Chicago Tech Community Events - A calendar of various Chicago tech events