Ideas Day empowers students to get creative and take risks

Learn more about how Ideas Day is empowering students throughout Chicago

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Chicago Ideas Week 2019

Top 10 Labs During Chicago Ideas Week (According to Our Members)

The 77 Project

Transforming Music: How the People’s Music School is Changing Lives

The Local Look

Shifting Terrain: Rio Tinto and the Art of Adaptation

The 77 Project: Connecting Chicago Through Storytelling

The 77 Project is a storytelling and media project presented by Xfinity with additional support from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help share the narrative of our neighborhoods from the inside out. Our hope is that this project will help inspire citizens to connect with solution-makers in the city of Chicago and beyond.

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Green Star Movement Transforms Chicago’s Public Spaces One Mural at a Time

Learn more about how Green Start Movement connects communities through public art.

Community Area #28: Near West Side - Cara

Hear from the Cara team about how they have been creating a pathway out of poverty for their participants since 1991.

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Center on Halsted is Creating a Safe Space for LGBTQIA Youth from the South and West Sides

Center on Halsted is a place for all, with programs designed for LGTBQIA youth to seniors and all ages and demographics in between.

Bringing Chicago's Youth to Chicago Ideas Week

Learn more about CI Youth, a program that brings 500 underrepresented CPS students to Chicago Ideas Week, and engages with students through custom programming all year long.

Explore CI Youth Learn more about us

The Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship

Bluhm / Helfand Social innovation has awarded game-changing entrepreneurs with a monetary award, invaluable connections and a spot on the Chicago Ideas Week stage to share their work and, hopefully, inspire others to take action.

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The Ideas Platform For You

From our Youth program to our social innovation fellowship, and member events to volunteer opportunities, Chicago Ideas is designed to foster connections that spark action. Learn more about what makes us tick, who informs our programming, and how we're impacting our community.

2018's 5 Social Innovators You Should Know

Meet the 2018 Fellows

The Brain Trust brings experts from different backgrounds together to focus on the gap: what other people aren't talking about. That's a powerful proposition.

Israel Idonije

Chicago Ideas Brain Trust Member, Former NFL player, entrepreneur, philanthropist

Meet the Brain Trust

More Ways to get involved

There are many ways you can make an impact on your community with Chicago Ideas, beyond attending our events. See what you can do to join our Community of Curiosity.