I-GO Car Sharing

Rod Shrader, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, blogged about I-GO in the Huffington Post yesterday. He cites the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s development of our car sharing service as a leading example of “social entrepreneurship,” a significant trend he’s seen gathering speed among the business school students of today. To wit:

“Here in Chicago one of the nation’s most successful ventures in social entrepreneurship was developed through the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which brought the idea of car sharing to the Chicago region. The center’s vision is that everyone deserves access to safe, affordable transportation. By setting up I-Go car sharing, a system of short term car rentals, with easily available cars located throughout the region, I-Go tapped into a lively market and has built a self-sustaining business, with profits plowed back into making the system more widely available. Last year, for example, I-Go innovated a way of combining car sharing and CTA ridership on one smart card, the nation’s first joint venture between a public transit agency and a car sharing service.”

We appreciate the coverage, Rod! And we heartily acknowledge the foresight our colleagues at CNT demonstrated in launching I-GO back in 2002.

Onward!