Cleversafe Founder Chris Gladwin to Speak at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Commencement Ceremony on May 14, 2016
Chicago, IL — April 19, 2016 —
Chris Gladwin, member of the Illinois Institute of Technology Board of Trustees and founder of Cleversafe, will be the commencement speaker for the 2015-2016 Commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 10 a.m. at the Mies Campus.
In 2004, Gladwin founded Cleversafe, a world leader in secure cloud data storage, using the resources of Illinois Tech computer science students and University Technology Park (UTP) at Illinois Tech with the mission to create and commercialize new technology to store the world’s data. The company continued to grow and eventually relocated to downtown Chicago.
Gladwin earned an engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduation, he was a manager of corporate computing standards at Lockheed Martin, where he was a professional evaluator of computer products. He then switched to the vendor side of the business at Zenith Data Systems, where he created the first workgroup storage server.
Gladwin next created and managed a number of successful new technology startups, including Cruise Technologies, the leading developer of thin-client tablet computers, and MusicNow, the first company to create digital-music subscription services.
When starting his next company, Gladwin and the Cleversafe team understood—years ahead of the market—the growing issues surrounding unstructured data and the inability of traditional technology solutions to accommodate the explosive growth of digital assets such as audio, video, and imaging. While located at UTP on the Illinois Tech campus and primarily using Illinois Tech graduates, Cleversafe developed advances in dispersed information technology and applied those to data storage to create the most reliable, cost-effective, secure solution with a limitless ability to scale. In late 2015, IBM acquired Cleversafe, which positions the company to fully realize its original vision of creating the technology to store the world’s data.
Gladwin is now developing new technologies and new companies to further the benefits of information technology in the global marketplace.
About Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, is a private, technology-focused, research university, located in Chicago, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, architecture, business, design, human sciences, applied technology, and law. One of 21 institutions that comprise the Association of Independent Technological Universities (AITU), Illinois Tech offers exceptional preparation for professions that require technological sophistication, an innovative mindset, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
