I’ll be honest about how I found this event. I Googled “tech events in Chicago,” Campus 1871 popped up, and I thought, why not. Zero regrets, because it turned out to be one of the better decisions I’ve made recently.
1871, a premier, non-profit technology incubator in Chicago, hosted Campus 1871 on February 19, 2026, which was built around one idea: connecting college students and new grads to the Chicago tech scene. The event opened at 11:00 a.m. with registration and a welcome lunch powered by Farmer’s Fridge. If you’ve never had Farmer’s Fridge, let this be your sign. Fresh, surprisingly filling, the kind of lunch that actually puts you in a good headspace for the sessions ahead. Snacks were available throughout the afternoon, too, which I appreciated more than I’d like to admit.
Once the opening remarks were given, before the sessions even started, I found myself in a conversation with Maryam Saleh, the Executive Director of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship at Illinois Institute of Technology. I didn’t expect to run into her, but there she was. Someone who has spent her career at the intersection of academic research and startups, from being a founding member of a brain implant technology company to advising healthcare startups across Chicago. Not a bad way to start the morning.
By noon, Landon Campbell, an investor from Drive Capital, kicked things off with Campus to Capital: Tapping into Chicago Tech. The message was direct and worth hearing; the next big startup doesn’t have to come out of the Bay Area. Chicago has a real, growing tech scene, and the students and new grads who were sitting in that room were closer to it than they probably realized. It’s easy to forget that when you’re buried in coursework, but Campbell made it feel urgent in the best way.
At 1:00 p.m., Jordan Brown (Talent Acquisition Manager, Farmer’s Fridge), Katherine Captain (Technical Recruiter, Microsoft), and Maria Luna Aguilar (Senior Tech Talent Partner, SpotHero) joined for the Confessions of a Tech Recruiter, and this session genuinely shifted something for me. In a job market this harsh, it’s easy to walk into any recruiter interaction feeling like the odds are stacked against you. Like they’re looking for reasons to say no. But the panel pushed back on that directly. Recruiters are rooting for you, not against you. They’re the bridge between you and the company, and they don’t want you to fail, because your failure is their failure too. It sounds simple, but hearing it said out loud by people who actually do the hiring lands differently than reading it in a LinkedIn post.
Then came the 2:00 p.m. breakout sessions. I chose Storytelling as Personal Brand Strategy with Sadie Hedge (Founder & CEO, Old Sport Social Club) and Emely Matus (Head of Marketing, 1871) over the Venture 101 track, and I have zero regrets. The session covered what personal branding actually means in practice, your online and offline presence, the way you show up in a room, even small things like color and typography that shape how people perceive you before you’ve said a word. The line that stayed with me was the distinction between performing and being performative. Show up, put yourself out there, make it real. And yes, sometimes you have to be a little cringe. Do it anyway.
The deeper message was something I’ve been turning over ever since. As someone studying tech, I’ve spent a lot of energy on hard skills: coding, systems, and problem-solving (Leetcode will be the death of me). All of that matters. But knowing how to communicate what you do, to different kinds of people in different kinds of settings, is just as important. Maybe more. Personal branding isn’t about crafting some polished version of yourself for the internet. It’s about making people relate to you. And in a community-based setting, whether you’re looking for a job, building a network, or just trying to make a genuine connection, that skill is everything.
I didn’t expect to see many Illinois Institute of Technology students there. Silly of me, really, given that the event sat in the heart of Chicago. But the room was full of students from Illinois Tech, the University of Illinois – Chicago (UIC), DePaul University, National Louis University, and beyond. There was even someone who had come in from Arizona, which genuinely caught me off guard. The afternoon wrapped up at 3:00 p.m. with open networking alongside companies including Deloitte, Kanary, Nimblemind.ai, Opulentia, Sellerchamp, Treevah, Tusk Logistics, and University of the Universe, a room full of people putting into practice exactly what the afternoon had been preaching.
Walking out, I felt something I wasn’t expecting; I felt like I had just stumbled into a room that had been waiting for me. It was my first Chicago tech event, outside of the university campus, and it won’t be my last. There’s an entire community out here beyond the classroom, and the only thing standing between you and it is deciding to show up. To everyone I met, yes, I’m sending the LinkedIn requests. Eventually.