I was tipped off by a tweet from the University of Illinois Research Park this afternoon about this situation — which U of I College of Engineering Dean Andreas C. Cangellaris put together a response to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune by Mark Caro. The article, “Chicago tech talent often grows away”, discusses several things — though a line cut a little deeper when talking about the Champaign-Urbana tech scene:
“The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign turns out more engineering graduates than any U.S. school except the Georgia Institute of Technology, yet no tech scene has grown around it.”
In response, Dean Cangellaris published the letter and posted it on the Engineering news website, which you can read here. Worth the read, for sure. Throughout, the Dean describes some of the recent accolates, and rationale to contest the claims Caro is making. Here’s an excerpt:
To say that no tech scene has grown around the University, however, is misguided. Come visit Urbana-Champaign, and you’ll see:
- A city that ranks in the Top 10 for venture capital per capita. In fact, The Atlantic called Urbana-Champaign a “boom town of the new economy” a couple of years ago.
- A university that ranks in the Top 10 for producing venture-backed entrepreneurs. Look no further than Chicago for evidence of that. Avant Credit was founded by Illinois alums, is based in Chicago, and broke a billion-dollar valuation with a $325 million funding round just last month.
- A research park that is home to more than 30 startups built on Illinois engineering faculty, students, and IP. Companies in the park have brought in more than $880 million in outside investment.
- A host of established companies that are here precisely because of the “tech scene” that you lament—Yahoo, Intel, Anheuser Busch InBev, John Deere, Dow, Wolfram, and Volition, just to start.
There’s plenty more where that came from, but you’ll have to check out the whole thing, links provided above.
Top photo from the U of I Engineering website.