UIC Urban Forum

UIC Urban Forum : Chicago Futures, Wednesday, Apr 10 · 12–5:30 PM

Your's Truly with the event brochure...

Big Week Out: Four Days, Four Different Events

• Event #1 (Wed., 12/4/2013): Tech Cocktail Chicago, Frank Gruber interviewing Jason Fried of 37signals.com. My favorite part: where Fried said that the best sites don't consist simply of some huge photo plus parallax. People want services, he said, and oftentimes to deliver those services the site needs to be a little messy. Totally agree. Anyway, as usual, a great representation of the entrepreneurial side of web and digital development in Chicago.
• Event #2 (Thurs. AM, 12/5/2013): UIC Urban Forum. Toni Preckwinkle giving opening talk.
• Event #3 (Thurs & Fri., 12/6/2013-12/7/2013): Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities & Computer Science, Thursday Afternoon presentations (there's way more tomorrow).
• Event #4 (Sat. AM, 12/7/2013): DrupalCamp Chicago 2013, Opening Session.

Mayor Daley Speaking at the UIC Forum

Mayor Daley speaking at UIC's Daley Urban Forum named after his father Richard J.

The Forum featured a number of Mayors from Arab countries. Many of them have troubles that are common to countries in the 3rd World (lack of funding, infrastructure, etc.)

Particularly moving however was the account by the Mayor of Mosul, Iraq.

He talked about the challenges the Municipal government faces there. These include setting up a "prostheses factory" to deal with all the people, including children, who've had limbs blown off due to bombs. The Mayor reported with pride that a number of Healthcare Centers had been set up despite the fact that many of Iraq's original medical workers had fled the country.

Even here, success was not complete however, since one or two of these Centers had subsequently been bombed.

Despite this hell, the Mayor was optimistic. He would have shown us pictures only they stopped him from bringing them at Baghdad Airport.

Mayor Daley Speaking at UIC Forum

Mayor Daley Speaking at the UIC Forum: Mayor Daley was the first speaker yesterday at a UIC Forum named after his father, "Richard J. Daley Urban Forum". This year's theme was "Visions of a Future City". For more info, see the Forum's Page...