Great Lakes Book Tour

Silicon Heartland Buffalo

Buffalo's Tech Revolution: It's Underway!

3 Unicorns, Coastal VCs moving in,

Tech startups doubling, Seed funds multiplying, accelerators jumping,

Rebuilding from Rust to Tech

June 20 Live in Buffalo

Sign up here

Bill Maggio, Managing Partner,

Lorraine Capital

Pastor James Giles, Head of Human Resources, Battery Manufacturer

Viridi Parente

Sarah Tanbakuchi, President & CEO, TechBuffalo

Marnie LaVigne, President & CEO,

Launch NY

Chris Jacobs, President, Real Estate Development Company Avalon Development and former Congressman, (R-NY)

Silicon Heartland Chicago

The Midwest's Innovation Capital

Luncheon, Roundtable Discussion

June 22

Join us

Landon Campbell, Chicago General Manager, Drive Capital

Abin Kuriakose, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, World Business Chicago

Rebecca Fannin, Author, Silicon Heartland

& CNBC special contributor +

Introduced by Gary Levenstein, Partner, Nixon Peabody

19 new unicorns minted and $7.9B VC invested in 1 year.

But only 1/3 of tech workers educated in Illinois stay in state. And more funding is needed for minority and women-led startups.

+ 5 Reasons Why Landon is bullish about Chicago's startup ecosystem. Read on.

Upcoming Silicon Heartland Talks

Milwaukee Tech Festival

June 27

Keynote Speaker

Wisconsin Book Festival

Madison, Wisc.

Oct 20 Speaker

Leading Authorities Washington, DC

Rebecca A. Fannin profile

Media Interviews

Video Show: Ask A VC Anything!

Public Speaking

Worth Cities

Innovation & The Rising City

Charleston, S.C.

June 8

Worth and Techonomy

published an excerpt of my new book, Silicon Heartland. Editor Dan Costa and I chatted about impact of tech innovation in former Rust Belt places.

Notable News of the Week

I'm not at all surprised by the split of Sequoia Capital into three regions. It shows the impact of growing tech tensions between Washington, DC and Beijing -- a decoupling that is ongoing in several tech realms.

The Information additionally reports that U.S. capital has stopped flowing to Chinese VC and private equity funds.

Picture below of me interviewing Sequoia's VC leader Neil Shen in Beijing at my Silicon Dragon event, circa 2013.