Kevin McQuown

President, CTO & Co-Founder, Windy City Lab

Chicago

Kevin received his BS in Computer Science from IIT back in 1984 with a digital electronics focus. He has worked in the embedded world for over 15 years both at General Dynamics on the F-16 and with Rational Software (now part of IBM). During his tenure at both companies he was involved in training and mentoring of Fortune 500 companies on good software development practices.

In 2009, Kevin took a quick detour into the wine business starting both Copain Wines and Punchdown Cellars. He built both companies from the ground up and both are still in business today. Unfortunately, while building those companies, Kevin realized his real passion has always been in software development so he sold his shares in 2009 and went back to writing software full time.

When the first SDK for iPhone was release in 2008 he jumped head first into iOS development and has been developing for the iPhone and iPad ever since. Kevin founded Deck5 software in 2010 to focus on mobile development and build apps for Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, Kevin has developed a curriculum at Mobile Makers Academy to teach iOS mobile development to high schoolers students. This curriculum is currently deployed in 9 high schools throughout the northern suburbs. He was also the Senior Lead Instructor and Director of Programs at Mobile Makers Academy in 2014.

Most recently Kevin has co-founded Windy City Lab with Dave Krawczyk, a friend and business associate that worked together for close to five years at Deck5 software. Windy City Lab is a company that focuses on building IoT devices and educating others to do this as well. Windy City Lab is located at 1871.