The ScaleWell team is happy to be a small part of Chicago's growing community of startups and hackers.  Lots of "doing" from area entrepreneurs is resulting in opportunities, momentum, and general awesomeness traditionally not associated with Chicago. Below are several recent announcements we feel are worth sharing.  

NowSpots Receives $250K from Knight News  

Brad Flora, the Chicago-based entrepreneur and journalist behind the Windy Citizen, recently received a $250K grant from the Knight News Challenge to create NowSpots (splash page).  The project surrounds building software to facilitate real-time local ads - a concept Brad has already implemented with success on the Windy Citizen (see the "sponsored news" box on the right sidebar).  Best of luck to Brad and feel free to help him celebrate tomorrow night at Black Rock Bar.  

Startup Weekend Invades Chicago (Again)

Chicago entrepreneur Chris Campbell - responsible for Lakeshore Branding and GreenWerks - is hosting an installment of Startup Weekend June 25-27 in Chicago's River North neighborhood.  Aside from the challenge of building a company in 54 hours - attendees will also learn from speakers such as Troy Henikoff of Excelerate and Mike Trotzke of SproutBox.    

SocialDevCamp Chicago 2010 Open for Registration

SocialDevCamp is two-days of development and strategy sessions surrounding the social web scheduled for August 14-15 at IIT.  The event features a hackathon, unconference, and how-to sessions from industry leaders. Keynote speakers currently include Chris Messina of Google and Andrew Mason of Groupon with more coming soon!  Disclosure: I co-organize this event with Tim Courtney.  

The Launch of MidVentures Launch    

New-venture consultancy Midventures recently announced a conference providing a platform for Midwestern companies to pitch, network, and demo.  Mark your calendars for September 28, 2010!