Obvious is an applied AI research lab. We spend our days closing the gap between what’s possible and what’s doable — and treating our own company as the experiment for what it means to operate at agent scale.
Frontier is what happens when we invite other teams into that work.
It’s not a conference. It’s not a sales event. It’s two days of hands-on building where your team uses Obvious to compress weeks of engineering into 48 hours — shipping real code against your real roadmap, alongside our engineers, in the same room.
What happens in the room
Day 1 — Design and Generate
Integration: get Obvious connected to your stack and your first spec ready to run
Spec Design Talk with David Boskovic, Founder & CEO
Work Session 1: Writing specs — the spec is the product
Work Session 2: Steering — managing agents in real time
Join us for a curated room of founders, investors and executive operators, matched before anyone walks in.
No booths, no badges, no pitching into a crowd. Just the right people in conversations that actually lead somewhere. Enjoy food and drink as we have an open reception for the first 45 minutes followed by 1:1 matches and conversations in a beautiful indoor/rooftop space.
This interactive workshop examines how community intelligence, data analytics, and cross-sector collaboration can transform communities and provide actionable solutions to improve quality of life across Chicago. Participants will discover how emerging technologies can amplify resident voices, identify community needs, strengthen partnerships, and drive equitable economic growth.
“Everyone’s talking about AI agents. Come build one.
This is a hands-on workshop where you leave with your own working agent. No code required, no prior experience needed. Bring a laptop and an idea, and we’ll bring the tools, the templates, and a room full of people who would rather build than talk about building.
Mucker was built on a simple thesis: great builders are everywhere, but most of the industry only looks in a few zip codes. So we don’t just back founders, we get in the trenches and build alongside them. This afternoon is that thesis thrown open to everyone: investors, founders, tinkerers, intrapreneurs, and anyone curious enough to try.
The people running this build agents for a living, not from a slide. Danny Pantuso is a founder and former product lead turned investor who now builds the AI agents behind Mucker’s own dealflow. Richie Singh is Mucker’s full-time, in-house AI engineer. They’ll take you from zero to a running agent, then stay on the floor while you build your own.
A few things you could build:
An agent that listens to your meeting transcripts, pulls out every action item, and drafts your follow-up emails and calendar invites automatically.
An agent that watches your portfolio or watchlist and pings you the moment something major moves.
You bring the idea, we’ll help you ship it before you walk out the door.
Tell us what you want to build. When you RSVP, drop a note on what you want to build, and we might use it for our demo example.”
This is a fully hands-on workshop, not a talk and not a slide deck. Attendees bring their laptops and actually build their own personal finance automations during the session, connecting Claude to tools they already use like Gmail, Google Drive, and Sheets. By the end, people walk out with something real already running, like a tracker that logs spending automatically, an alert for a subscription creeping up, or a simple system that pulls monthly numbers together without touching a spreadsheet by hand.
We’re doing this because money stress is one of the most common, least talked about grand challenges people are dealing with right now: inflation, a tighter job market, and the sheer mental load of tracking it all. AI tools can genuinely help here, but most people have never actually connected one to their real accounts and watched it work. This session walks through it live, step by step, with attendees staying in full control of what they connect and able to disconnect anytime.
Midwest Fintech is partnering with the Midwest Acquirers Association to bring Tech Chicago Week to their conference!
Join us for networking and breakfast from 8:30 – 9:15am
Panel from 9:15am -10:15am
More food and networking until 11:30am!
This conference brings thousands of payments profressionals together- and with our complimentary registration code, you not only get access to this panel- but the entire conference as well!
Beyond the great connections you’ll make attending this event, you’ll also takeaway:
– Positioning against competitors and winning when you’re smaller but smarter
– Building sales team, process and tech stack that work
– Merchant retention and growth: Strategies to reduce churn, cross-sell services, and expand wallet share
– Building relationships/partnerships that amplify growth: How strategic partnerships with acquirers and fintechs enable faster scaling
– Compliance as differentiation: Turning VAMP/MMP requirements into a moat competitors can’t replicate
We’ve pulled together a panel of experts from across the spectrum of fintech- you don’t want to miss this!”
A Chicago Tech Week event for founders building something that matters.
Most tech week events, you watch. This one, you’re in.
Join us for an intimate evening on community building, building for good, and navigating the messy middle of social impact, the parts no one posts about. We’ll start with a candid panel, open it up to your questions, and then get to the good stuff: small-group hot-seat coaching, where you bring your real challenge to the table and leave with an actual next step (and a few new people worth knowing).
✨ How the night flows
☕ Mingle + founder sampling — arrive, grab a coffee or bite, and discover what the builders in the room are making.
🎙️ The panel — Haley (Starting Line VC) moderates founders Mahika, Gwen, & Sophia on community, impact, and the hard parts of building for good.
🙋 Q&A — your turn to ask.
🔥 Hot-seat coaching roundtables — split into small groups, each led by one of us. Bring a real challenge; get coached by the table.
🤝 Takeaways & connections — leave with one next step and at least one new relationship.
👋 Your hosts
Mahika Hari — Founder, Centr. The app to help people be better villagers by showing up for the people who matter most. Community, built on purpose.
Sophia Huard — Co-Founder, Ghost Social. Building in the IRL economy by bringing people (and the rooms) together.
Gwen Wiscount — Co-Founder, Fabrik. Building social wellness spaces and experiences people remember.
Haley Kwait Zollo — Starting Line. VC backing early founders; your moderator and resident investor lens.
🙌 Who it’s for
Founders, operators, and community builders, anyone making something with impact and wrestling with the real challenges of getting it off the ground. Come solo or bring someone worth introducing.
This isn’t your average Tech Week panel. Join VisualFizz at one of Pilsen’s most stunning, hidden-gem warehouse bars for an evening of high-caliber networking, forward-thinking strategy, and some of the finest cocktails the city has to offer.
We’re bringing together top minds in tech and marketing to discuss The Next Horizon: what’s coming, what matters, and how leaders are adapting. If you only hit one event this Tech Week, make it this one. You won’t want to miss it.
Event Highlights
- The Venue: Hosted in a breathtaking, industrial-chic warehouse space in the heart of Pilsen.
- The Drinks: Sip on curated, world-class cocktails crafted by some of the city’s best bartenders.
- The Panel: A curated conversation with industry trailblazers on the collision of tech, marketing, and leadership.
- The Crowd: No awkward icebreakers. Just genuine connections with the city’s brightest tech and marketing minds.
Sponsors:
– Simplistic Views: Video & Content Partner
– Host Cocktails: Space Partner
Your Hosts:
VisualFizz: Born and bred in Chicago, VisualFizz is led by a veteran team with nearly all team members boasting 10-20 years of deep industry expertise. They specialize in driving growth for mid-market and enterprise B2B companies through highly sophisticated, scalable digital marketing strategies. By blending seasoned business acumen with cutting-edge execution, they act as a trusted growth partner for complex organizations looking to dominate their industries.
Also, VisualFizz is about to celebrate their 10-year Anniversary!
Join us for a half-day built for the C-suite. Benchmark where your business stands and what to do next. See how others in the room rate themselves and where they are stuck, compare notes with your peers, and choose two working breakouts. Get immediate feedback from our lead strategist and technologist.
“What if community and connection are the next grand challenge?
Chicago Connection Lab: Solving for Community
As part of TechChicago Week’s theme of solving grand challenges, join us for a collaborative innovation sprint focused on one of the most pressing challenges of our time: loneliness, belonging, and human connection.
Working in small teams, participants will explore real-world connection challenges and use AI tools, design thinking, research, and rapid prototyping to develop solutions. Whether you’re a founder, designer, technologist, community builder, or simply curious, you’ll leave with new ideas, new connections, and perhaps even the beginnings of something worth building.
No coding experience required. Bring your curiosity, creativity, and willingness to collaborate.
We’ll wrap up with team demos and a discussion about what it takes to build stronger communities in an increasingly digital world.”
