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AI Tinkerers Chicago August Meetup
๐ฅ August 12, 2025 from 5:30PM to 8:00PM ๐ฅ
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Join us for the August 2025 AI Tinkerers - Chicago Meetup!
โ๏ธโ๏ธ Register above to join us for an evening of kick-ass demos and networking with other active builders. This is an event you do not want to miss!
What is AI Tinkerers?
AI Tinkerers is a meetup designed exclusively for practitioners who possess technical, machine learning, and entrepreneurial backgrounds and are actively building and working with foundation models, such as large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. If youโre deeply passionate about creating LLM-enabled applications, have hands-on experience in building such systems, and are eager to connect with like-minded individuals who share your level of commitment, then this group is the perfect fit for you. With AI Tinkerers meetups taking place in multiple cities, we cater to a dedicated community of practitioners.
Who is this for?
Weโre not โAI Enthusiastsโ, we are AI Tinkerers. And thereโs a difference. The core essence of AI Tinkerers lies in active collaboration surrounding early-stage discovery and innovation, which requires a high degree of experimentation, vulnerability, openness to sharing challenges and learnings, and collaboration among individuals with a shared level of expertise. This unique environment allows us to push the boundaries of whatโs possible with AI and LLMs while maintaining a strong sense of camaraderie and mutual support.
The goal here is to connect like-minded folks in the Chicago area who are actively building a more interesting future with LLMs. We canโt let the folks in Silicon Valley have all of the fun!
Tentative Schedule
- 5:30: Doors open
- 5:30 - 6: Networking
- 6 - 6:45 Demos!
- 6:45 - 7:15 Dinner
- 7:15 More demos!
Demo Submission
We are actively looking for more demos! A demo is about five minutes in length and demonstrates a work in progress. Pitch decks are forbidden - we want to see your messy work in progress! Please use the โDemo Submission Formโ link at the top of the page to apply! We are actively looking for more presenters donโt be shy!
Sponsors
This event is generously sponsored by Drive Capital.
Drive Capital is the largest venture capital firm between the coasts, with $2.2B in assets under management. They invest in world-class founders building the next generation of market-defining companies, and have backed companies like Duolingo and Root Insurance.
๐ AI Tinkerers Chicago Stats
- Attendees: This exclusive community of 2,198 AI professionals features a highly technical membership, with 80% specializing in Python-driven machine learning, 65% in generative AI and LLM orchestration, and 40% in cloud infrastructure. Notably, over 30% of members are active startup founders or CTOs, bridging academic excellence from UChicago and Northwestern with enterprise execution at firms like Google and Stripe.
- Companies Represented: Featuring tech giants like Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Apple, alongside prominent platforms like DoorDash, TikTok, Waymo, and Robinhood, and innovative startups such as ElevenLabs, Pinecone, Hume AI, and HumanLayer, and more
- Demos: 184 demos have been submitted and 107 have been presented, with especially engaging coverage of agentic and multi-agent architectures, reliable structured generation/tool calling, and multiple flavors of retrieval-augmented generation (including graph and dynamic filtering approaches). Attendees also explored workflow automation pipelines, evaluation/observability for agents, and performance/cost optimization for real-world deployments, plus multimodal generation and structured data extraction.
- Testimonials: