It looks like they will build an 1871 co-work space dedicated to health care. There are several vertical silos revolving around health care in Chicago, and the broader midwest.
A dedicated space might bring some focus.
However, it should be adjacent to the current 1871. The reason being; smashing ideas together to create bigger ideas will happen. The digital community will connect with the medical community and something creative will happen.
Investing in medical is more than a chicken and egg problem. Sure, we need more dedicated money to invest in medical startups. The problem there is you need expertise that can get in at an early stage and actually help them. Investing in medical startups is more difficult, and at the same time easier than digital startups.
Another problem; nothing happens without entrepreneurs. We need people to start companies.
The twist: they have to posess some sort of science background or knowledge about the space to solve a real problem.
I have some insight that I think will prove true in the next five to ten years on healthcare. Because of that, I think Chicago can be an extremly fertile ground to seed a lot of activity in this business segment.
But, it's not going to happen overnight. At least the foundation is being laid. We will have a shot.
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