Top 10 Highlights From My Professional Fellowship in Chicago
By: Ivana Spasova
Tags: Professional Development, Tech, Chicago, Profellows, Startup

1. Why I’m in Chicago?

I’m thrilled to be one of the 15th elected participants for a Professional Fellowship Program | Tech, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Fall 2019 from the Balkans.

The Professional Fellows Program (PFP) is a two-way, global exchange program designed to promote mutual understanding, enhance leadership and professional skills, as well as build lasting, sustainable partnerships between mid-level emerging leaders from foreign countries and the United States. As PFP participants, we are placed in intensive 5–6 week fellowships in tech companies, non-profit organizations, private sector businesses, and government offices across the United States for an individually tailored professional development experience. This way, we build a broad network with American and other program participant colleagues as we develop a deeper understanding of U.S. society. The PFP is a two-way exchange, with American participants who have hosted foreign fellows traveling overseas for participant-driven reciprocal programs.

Pro Fellows, Fall 2019, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina

The Tech, Innovation & Entrepreneurship program brings together a group of tech and innovation leaders from Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia for a five-week immersive fellowship experience in Chicago that is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. I’m happy to be part of this program because I stand for Citizen Diplomacy which is the main idea behind this program, where individuals have the right and responsibility to help shape U.S. foreign relations through person-to-person interactions with citizens of other countries.

It’s an excellent opportunity for a fellowship in the U.S. in technology and entrepreneurship! It’s indeed a really intensive fellowship program designed to broaden our professional expertise.

With my fellows from Macedonia and other Balkan countries, we are closely working with startups, incubators, and innovation hubs around the city.

2. Homestay host: Playing board-games is a big thing in the Ungaro family

So, basically, every fellow is staying in a different neighborhood with their homestay host. And I was really lucky to have Lauren and her husband Tom and son Patrick as my homestay hosts. They are so welcoming and nice to me. I feel like I am kinda part of the family. I’m so happy because I was staying in this rare American home that is having the same values as my family. Sitting down for dinner, all together, having wine (Lauren’s son Patrick is a sommelier, so we were tasting plenty of different American wines) and a lot of nice talks on million different topics is maybe one of the reasons why I never felt homesick. The interesting thing about me and Lauren is that we both like pretty much the same music, films, activities and we love traveling. So we just enjoyed spending time together. Walking the dogs, shopping, going to a haunted house for Halloween, Brookfield ZOO and having a proper American breakfast at Tony’s are just a few great things we did together.

I’ll miss them, indeed!

3. Fellowship placement: Chicago’s FinTech Hub

As a ProFellow, I had the pleasure to have my fellowship at FinTank in Chicago. In the previous 4 weeks I gained a lot of professional experience in the States thanks to my mentor George.

After helping build 1871, the #1 ranked incubator in the world, George founded FinTank which is an innovation hub that helps startups become more effective more quickly. He partnered with the larger enterprise organizations and universities to grow a Chicago and global FinTech community. Afterwards, recruited innovative startups in areas related to blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics, cybersecurity and areas related to AR/VR and gaming. At one point, he testified before the Illinois House of Representatives on topics related to blockchain and cryptocurrency.

He also led the startup efforts for 1000 Angels in Chicago and managed the ongoing operations.

*1000 Angels is the world’s largest digital-first investor network that allows members to build a venture portfolio free of management fees.

FinTank aims to foster collaboration and support the development of the financial technologies transforming our world. They facilitate multiple networking events and programs to encourage collaboration, host monthly seminars, and workshops covering FinTech sectors, provide hands-on support and resources for start-ups, and facilitate innovation in companies of all sizes.

For a period of one month, as part of the FinTank team I attended many differet events, meetups, conferences. I was regularly attending their board meetings and also had the chance to attended two great startup pitch sessions. I learned a lot about startups in the FinTech sector in USA, especially the Chicago area. I’m looking forward to implementing that into my work at Web Factory LLC, and the software solutions we do for innovative Fintech startups worldwide.

4. Networking in the Tech community

Living in an era od rising globalization, it’s all about networking. I really needed this motivational boost to re-ignite my networking flame and start building better relationships with tech people. It was amazing meeting MANY people with diverse backgrounds, from different companies, industries and so many different interests. Enjoyed the mutual openness and eagerness to learn new things.

One of the many things I appreciate are the engaging icebreakers! Every meetup aims to engage all of the people in the venue and it’s really focused on personalized networking.

Networking works best in Chicago, because there is a wide, robust and active community of contributors.

5. Events: All over!

In the past 4 weeks I went on more than 40 big events, workshops and meetups. Here, I will just mention some of the most interesting ones:

✅Chicago Innovation Awards

✅1871 Hub tour and meeting with Mike Zafirovski

✅Customer Engagement with Daniel X. O’Neil

✅Branding with Melissa Harris, about her work with Cards Against Humanity

✅Workshops with Ellen Rogin

✅Action Planning with Terra Winston

✅WorldChicago Fundraising Night

Pro Fellows, Fall 2019, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina

✅Chicago Inno 50 on Fire

✅Chicago Startup Week |TechStars

✅Built in Chicago | Tech Companies

✅Aurora | Smart City

✅FinTank — Cybersecurity with Israel’s Cyber Unit 8200

✅Demystifying Data in Marketing |Connectory

✅MATTER Pitch Session | $71M in MATTER startup raises | Advocate Aurora Health chooses the 2019 Health Tech Venture Challenge

✅Chi Hack Night | Action Plan presentations

✅Hidden No More: Empowering Women Leaders in STEM

✅IMC Company tour | Willis Tower

Pro Fellows, Fall 2019, Macedonia: Aleksandar, Celeski, me, Ljupka Naumovska and Dimitar Jovevski

✅Coleman Entrepreneurship Center | DePaul University with Bruce Leech

✅Knight Lab | Northwestern University

6. Google Office Tour & Lunch: Noogler for a day

We all know that Google is one of the coolest companies with the best offices ever. But a gut-rehabbed former cold storage facility?! Who would bring an old train car on the rooftop and turn the space into one of the coolest Chicago tech offices?! 🤩

Icy rooftop with amazing city view and old train car as a final touch

As a co-organizer of Google Developers Group Macedonia🚀, I had the privilege to experience an amazing tour & lunch at the Google offices here in Chicago, and I loved every inch of it 😍 Carlos Ortiz & Chloe Prince, both great Google Cloud Customer & Sales Engineers, organized this tour for me and we had a very nice talk about working at Google and my wonderful and positive experience about my work at Web Factory LLC and all of the work we do with Google Developers 🤗 This is definitely one of my top highlights during my fellowship 🙌🏻