OEMC (Office of Emergency Management and Communications) is set to change Chicago’s 911 dispatch to a new CentralSquare computer-aided system this Tuesday.

The contract is about $75 million and replaces technology that has run our city’s emergency calls for more than 30 years.

On a normal Tuesday, dispatchers here can field nearly 10,000 police, fire, and ambulance calls by midnight. So seconds can make a difference.

The city says it has stress-tested past peak load, run thousands of classroom hours since October, and will keep the legacy system as a backstop through the transition.

What’s interesting is current dispatchers and their union are saying this new system is not ready. They’ve told City Hall and the Mayor’s office that the new screens are slower and more complex in testing, that calls can stack, and that they’re worried people will get hurt if the system is wrong. Some alderpersons have asked for a pause. The launch date has not moved.

City Council leaders recently brokered a deal that could make Stonepeak Partners buy the remaining decades of Chicago’s parking-meter lease for about $2.53B.

At close, the city would get a $75 million transfer fee put towards pensions, on top of 5% of net operating income for the rest of the deal, projected around $376 million through 2083.

It’s a long way from undoing 2008, when Mayor Daley leased about 36,000 meters for 75 years for $1.15B. Especially when all the private owners already made their money back. What’s new is the city finally opening the contract for everyone to see.

The Finance Committee could take it up as soon as Monday, with a full Council vote possibly this week or next week.

The real question isn’t whether this makes the 2008 deal fair. It doesn’t. It’s whether Chicago can keep getting better terms every time a long-term asset changes owners, instead of waiting another generation to pretend we can buy it back.

Pioneer, the summit where CX leaders redefine what’s possible, is on October 7th.

Join leaders from Fin, Anthropic, Clay, and Kalshi for an insightful conversation on the state of AI transformation.

You’ll discover how some of the most innovative minds in CX have transformed their organizations, learn how they think about CX, and hear how they're planning for what's next.

Join the conversation in San Francisco, or tune in virtually.

Reserve your spot

UChicago is launching its first degree dedicated to AI.

The Master of Science in Applied Artificial Intelligence runs 9 months full-time downtown through the Physical Sciences Division and the Data Science Institute. First cohort will start in Fall of 2027 and applications are open now. The first virtual info session is tomorrow Tue Sep 22 at 5pm CT.

Students start with four core courses covering the fundamentals of AI, advanced AI systems and applications, AI security and governance, and how to create value and lead with AI.

After that, they choose five electives across three areas: applied AI, frontier AI, and AI performance.

This is built for people who already have a technical base and want to go past the fundamentals into building, deploying, and leading with the tools shaping the field. Core work on systems, security, governance, and leadership, plus electives that can stretch into agentic AI, production systems, and industry applications.

We’re hosting v3 of the [vibecoded] creator hackathon at Drive Capital on Sun Sep 27, 11am to 4pm. Build-your-tech-stack edition. Roughly 200 Chicago creators and founders in the room for breakout workshops, then a rooftop show-and-tell that opens up wider after 2pm.

We’ll have creators pick a tech stack and ship something the same day. Marketing with ElevenLabs, a site with Near, agents with Grok, finance for founders, collabs.

Request to join on Luma if you’re already building. Curated room.

Building AI Agents That Teams Can Trust | 6th Chicago Meetup

Chicago Angel Investor Meetup

Chicago | Claude for Finance

Chicago: Building Apps with Lakebase

UX Social: September

Agents in Production: Models, Memory & Observability

Creator Hackathon

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