AI Engineering Summit | Chicago | 2026

calling all chicago creators & founders! we're hosting v3 of our creator hackathon build your tech stack edition we're gathering the top 200 creators & founders in chicago to learn how to build their businesses using ai tools. breakout rooms + mini workshops all day. build your business in 3 hours. sun, sep 27 from 11am-4pm at drive capital. we'll be curating the room, so please request to join 🔥 ▶️ learn & play agenda: 11am: creator collab connect 11:30am: kickoff + how to pick your stack 12pm-2pm: Breakout roomsChoose 2-3 workshops to drop into w/ your cohort 2pm-4pm: rooftop party + show & tell with 300 people 💻 what you'll walk out with: Marketing: create videos w/ ElevenLabs Website/Portfolio: ready to launch w/ Near Agents 101: ai agent that does the work for you w/ Grok Finance for Founders: stupid simple banking Collabs: Connect w/ your matches w/ Banterr and more to be announced! 💅🏼 who this is for: you're an active chicago creator, founder or builder you're ai curious + ready to build you enjoy collabing with other creators + mentors ✌🏼 who this is not for: you haven't launched as a creator, founder, builder or business owner *this event is for people already in motion — our rooftop after party will be open to the community at 2pm! you not ai curious or collaborative you're bad vibes :( can't wait to learn & play with you!

Your next business bestie might be in the room. Let’s find her! Join Beyond Her Vision + Meet More Doers for a women founders & creatives happy hour - designed to make meeting your people feel a little more natural, intentional, and fun. Instead of the usual awkward networking and exchanging business cards... 🎲 We’re putting a twist on the traditional happy hour with a fun AI-powered founder matching game! You’ll get matched with women in the room based on shared interests, goals, and the kinds of connections you’re looking to make - whether that’s a future collaborator, accountability partner, business bestie, or simply someone you’d genuinely click with. Just show up and mingle! Your ticket includes: One drink An evening of good conversation Opportunity to make new connections Chance to meet someone who might become your support system Who's in the room? Women founders Entrepreneurs Creatives Community builders Doers who are building something of their own! Come solo or bring a friend. But, let's leave with a few new ones! ✨ About Beyond Her Vision Beyond Her Vision is a Chicago-based community for early-stage women founders, connecting 800+ women entrepreneurs through meaningful events, resources, and opportunities to build alongside one another. We create spaces where ambitious women can connect, collaborate, and grow IRL. About Meet More Doers Meet More Doers is a community of entrepreneurs, anyone who takes action, whose mission is to provide resources and connections to the Doers changing the world. We've hosted +2000 Doers in the first year through our expert sessions, online networking events, and monthly global in-person. Sponsored by Stripe Community

The Collaboratorium unites business students and scientists from leading Midwestern universities to form entrepreneurial teams and turn breakthrough ideas into real-world impact. Founded at the University of Chicago's Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the event now convenes UChicago, Northwestern University, Purdue University, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, showcasing cross-institutional strengths and supporting the regional innovation ecosystem. Join us to hear pitches from faculty, researchers, and technologists; explore cutting-edge technologies; and get involved with an entrepreneurial team from the very beginning. Agenda 4:30 p.m. — Check-in opens outside Room C25 5:00 p.m. — Welcoming remarks in Room C25 5:15 p.m. — Pitches begin. Two rooms run concurrently. Attendees are welcome to move between rooms. C25 - Life Sciences & Health Care // apoPrime // VeriVasc // SenStem Therapeutics // Genobee // Auxetic Robotics // Nuncia Therapeutics // CoFATE // Nephrotide Therapeutics // Adaptive Reverse Shoulder System C07- Quantum, Advanced Computing & Materials // QLuster Photonics // SEN Quantum // Coherix // Dimensional Optimizers // Voltralline // ProtecNTX // GridPore Technologies // DiMix Materials // FerroMX 6:15–7:30 p.m. — Networking in Room 104. Pizza and bar provided. University Partners:

Important: Register on the Event Website is required for admission. RSVP on meetup is turned off. Description: Join Neo4j and Microsoft for an hands-on workshop where you’ll learn how to build AI agents powered by knowledge graphs. Limited to 50 qualified builders. In this session, we will build a functional GraphRAG pipeline within a live Azure environment. Moving beyond high-level theory, you will deploy Neo4j Aura and integrate it with Microsoft Foundry to implement a complete, end-to-end architecture for reasoning over connected data. What You Will Learn: We’ll use SEC EDGAR filings—specifically the quarterly holdings of asset managers with $100M+ in assets under management (AUM)—as our primary dataset. This data is ideal for demonstrating how to map complex ownership structures and many-to-many relationships. ✅ Build AI agents that leverage knowledge graphs ✅ Automate Ingestion: Use AI to parse and load data from Azure Blob Storage into Neo4j. ✅ Model Relationships: Use Cypher and the Neo4j Browser to map connections between thousands of portfolios and their institutional holdings. ✅ Orchestrate Agents: Layer a Microsoft Foundry AI agent over the graph to enable natural language reasoning across the connected financial data. Who should attend: Developers, Builders, Data engineers, Data scientists, and Tech leaders. Speakers: Ben Lackey, Solution Architect, Neo4j Kevin Gates, Principal Partner Solution Architect, Microsoft Mike Shelton, Principal Partner Solution Architect, Microsoft Lauren Hartman, Partner Solution Architect, Microsoft Agenda 1:30PM Check-In 2:00PM: AI Hands-On Workshop with Neo4j and Google Gemini 3:00PM: Break 3:30PM: Presentation: Moving Data 4:30PM: Presentation: Gemini Enterprise, Neo4j, and AI 5:00PM: Networking & Refreshments

LongJump is a founder-led fund and the most active pre-seed institutional backer of Chicago-based startups, reviewing thousands of companies each year. In most cases, we've noticed that first-time founders are running their fundraise without the type of process that leads to a round actually closing. Join Tina Hrabak, Partner at LongJump, for a session on what it means to actually run a fundraise. Tina will be joined by Danny Goodman, Investor at Superior Studios, for an open Q&A with founders on best practices for running their investment processes. Many founders burn their best shot with a VC in the very first outreach or meeting. They go in with too small a list, an unclear ask, and no real plan for how the conversations are supposed to add up to a closed round. This session is about fixing that. We'll cover: Knowing if you are ready to raise How many investors you actually need on your target list to get a round done (it's more than most founders think) Getting meetings with the right investors How to run an intro meeting and what comes next The signals that tell you your raise is stalling How to keep investor conversations moving Special thanks to Superior Studios for their support of this event. Please note that this is an in-person session and there will not be a virtual option.