Emanuel makes "ThinkChicago" visit

2/1/2017 Chloe Belczak, Engineering Communications Office

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel came to the University of Illinois campus on Monday, January 30 to talk to students about job and entrepreneurship opportunities available in The Windy City. The visit is part of a campaign established in 2011 called “ThinkChicago.”

Written by Chloe Belczak, Engineering Communications Office


Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel came to the University of Illinois campus on Monday, January 30 to talk to students about job and entrepreneurship opportunities available in The Windy City. The visit is part of a campaign established in 2011 called “ThinkChicago.”

ECE Student Daniel Gardner speaks with Mayor Rahm Emanuel about his solar-powered mesh node project with Mesh++.
At the gathering, student teams demonstrated innovations that could have a positive impact in Chicago. ECE senior Daniel Gardner’s project to create free solar powered WiFi inspired the Mayor to offer a park space on the south or west side of the city, where the student team could demonstrate its system.

Gardner, and his team Mesh++, have created a solar-powered mesh node with 16GB of flash storage.

“It can broadcast a WiFi network 24 hours/day up to 1100 feet in any direction, which is more than most routers. You can throw these things all over the place, and they'll automatically form a mesh network with each other, meaning that you'll be able to access any data stored on any node in the network with any WiFi device. Networks can operate on their own or tether to satellites, but either way, can be set up quickly and effectively,” Gardner said.

The tour continued at the Electrical and Computer Engineering building where Emanuel experienced the virtual reality world and created different designs in 3-D space with computer science professor Steve LaValle. 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel experiences a virtual reality headset with the help of CS Professor Steve LaValle.
ThinkChicago’s goal is for students to meet with technology leaders and explore companies in the area. Illinois was the first stop on the ThinkChicago roadshow, which visits universities all over the country, from Stanford, MIT, to the University of Michigan.

The conclusion to the Mayor’s campus visit was a panel discussion with cooperate representatives and entrepreneurs. The panel included Chris Gladwin, founder of Cleversafe and Ocient; Matt Maloney, CEO of GrubHub; Julie Novack, founder of PartySlate; and Rohit Pasam, CEO of Xaptum. The moderator for the discussion was Mark Tebbe, chair of ChicagoNEXT and computer science alumnus.

Each speaker emphasized the opportunity that Chicago has, and students took notice.

"I want to work in a city that is this open to adopting new technology," Gardner said.


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This story was published February 1, 2017.