Matt and Isiah ThoughtPoet Veney get deep into room for improvement in Chicago's creative scene and the city as a whole.

ThoughtPoet is a writer, photographer, community organizer. ThoughtPoet has been featured in The Field Museum, The Chicago Tribune, Essence Mag, Southside weekly, and The Chicago Reader. He’s done work with G herbo, Taylor Bennett, Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper, and even grew up on the same block as Mick Jenkins!

ThoughtPoet captures so much history and humanity through his photography, he’s even considered a historian in some sense through the authenticity of his lens.

Follow the Thought Poet… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thoughtpoet77/

David Umeh is the founder of Clouty.io - Clouty turns real-time music data into tradeable indexes. Allowing you to track, buy, and sell interest in the songs that make up your favorite genres in real-time. The Clouty MUSIQ index is live on the Bloomberg Terminal and has been featured in the Financial Times.

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TroyFromChicago is a Emmy Award winning cinematic director and and photographer. His work has been featured in Billboard, TIME Magazine, the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Basel: Switzerland, and more. Troy has directed or been a part of the production of videos for Vic Mensa, Chance The Rapper, Joey Purp, Super Start Kami, Joey Badass, Lucki, Matt Ox, and more..

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Follow Troy:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troyfromchicago/ 

Website: https://www.troyfromchicago.com/ 

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt 

Enitan is a 3x best selling author on dating and relationships in the modern world. Enitan is the co-founder and creative director of FLOURYSH, the largest platform to shop and discover Black-owned businesses. He’s produced short films, been a keynote speaker at Stanford & Harvard, partnered on projects with Usher, even majored in computer science and interned at HP in Silicon Valley!

Sonia Nagar is a general partner venture capitalist at the Pritzker Group. With a background in mechanical engineering, self-taught programming skills, an MBA from Harvard, and experience launching an e-commerce startup herself, Sonia has an impressive track record in the business-building world.

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Follow Sonia: 

Sonia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonias3/

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt 

Gale Wilkinson is the founding partner at VITALIZE VC where she invests in early stage startups. Gale is well known as a venture capitalist in Chicago and on Twitter. democratizing access to angel investing through Vitalize Angels, the world’s first angel group for both accredited and non-accredited investors.

Wally Green is a professional ping pong legend. As US ambassador for ping pong, Wally has played in North Korea for world peace and diplomacy and represented the US all around the world in Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, Croatia,  and more.

He’s been featured in the New York Times and Olympics.com. He’s been on the Steve Harvey show. He was featured in an award winning documentary called “The Tables”. He’s a TEDx speaker. And Wally is famous for being able to beat anyone in ping pong with just his phone.

Ian Brock is the founder of Dream Hustle Code, making tech and being in the tech industry cool for kids that would have otherwise seen the space as lame or felt alienated by it. At only 18 years old Ian is an accomplished entrepreneur who has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Oprah, Steve Harvey, Ben Horowitz, G Herbo, Robert F. Smith, Eric Thomas and many more.

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Dream Hustle Code Website: https://www.dreamhustlecode.com/

Ian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ian__brock/

Ian's Twitter: https://twitter.com/dreamhustlecode

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Matt's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/

Matt's Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt

Scott Kitun is the founder of Tech Nori, one of the truly OG startup content and community brands that contributed a lot to the startup ecosystem in Chicago over the years. Scott is the founder of Song Finch, a company that makes it easier for independent music artists to make money without having to be super famous, letting you make money from selling custom songs for people. Songfinch was named the 166th fastest growing company in 2022 by Inc magazine. Scott is also a founding partner at Off Center VC, a venture fund that backs non-traditional founders with a history of “never giving up”. Scott has a big footprint in the Chicago Tech and startup ecosystem.

Kim Aponi is a fashion designer, event curator, painter, and all around artist. She is the founder of Chi Products, a clothing and design brand representing Chicago and the world. Her team is based out of New York. She’s worked with Adidas, Pyer Moss, and collaborated with Urban Outfitters. She’s on the Vic Mensa team and is tapped in with a lot of music talent in Chicago. From throwing several hundred person events in Chicago to moving her team to New York, she’s an all around creative super star!

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Instragam: https://www.instagram.com/kimaponi/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/exhalx Chi Products

website: https://chicagocreateslegends.com/

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Follow Matt:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt