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Podio, a new productivity app, is coming to Chicago this week as part of The Podio World Tour, a journey that’s taking its founders across the globe in an effort to connect with new people, build apps with them, and expand an overall understanding of the way people work. Having just finished the kickoff of the tour with a few days in New York City, the tour is heading to Chicago this week—June 8 and 9.

“I’ve heard great things about Chicago, so I look forward to meet and discuss the Future of Work with the local thinkers and movers,” Kasper Hulthin, co-founder of Podio, told midVentures. “We build a platform for the companies of tomorrow, and I hope to find some of those in Chicago.”

“Thousands of U.S. companies have already changed the way they work,” he added. “We hope to meet some of them in Chicago, Boston, L.A. and San Francisco.”

During the company’s two days in the Windy City, it will host two different events: App Camp on Wednesday, June 8, and The Future of Work Panel on Thursday, June 9.

App Camp aims to show how anyone can build apps for projects, recruitment, CRM, or personal workflow through Podio. Experienced users are welcome to come out and connect with the founders, as well.

On Thursday, June 9, the Future of Work Panel will feature a panel of speakers addressing the theme of “The Changing Workplace”—what the future holds for companies as they move from using social media for external communication to using these tools for internal operations.

“The last few weeks, the Podio World Tour has taken this show on the road to visit and learn from local users,” Hulthin said. “In the U.S., we’re hosting a series of conversations on ‘the Future of Work’ with local thinkers to learn more about how we work, today.”

The panel will include host Stowe Boyd, writer and pioneer within social tools; David Armano, from Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman Digital as well as a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review; and Amber Naslund, VP of Social Strategy of Radian6 and author of The Now Revolution.

As far as what’s in store for Podio in the future, Hulthin pointed out the recognition the startup has received recently: “This week, Entrepreneur Magazine included Podio on the list of 100 Brilliant Companies,” he said. “In two weeks, we’re part of the LaunchPad finalists at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.”

To learn more about Podio World Tour: Chicago, visit company.podio.com/worldtour-chicago. To sign up for the Future of Work event, go to future-of-work-chicago-eventbrite.com.

Bio The Data 2.0 Conference connects over 50 speakers, 40 startups and 600 attendees interested in the new data economy. April 4, 2011, San Francisco, CA.

Here in the Midwest, there’s a new opportunity for entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas and earn the funding to put those ideas into action: through Funded by Night, a competition that will be held at the third annual FutureMidwest Conference in April. The startup with the best pitch will walk away with a hefty chunk of funding to pursue their dreams: a convertible note of $100,000.

Funded by Night comes from Jeff Epstein, founder and CEO of zferral; Jordan Wolfe of uwemp.com, and Raji Bedi of DoingTonight.com. Epstein originally announced it during a midVentures’ interview, stating it was a bit inspired by midVenturesLAUNCH.

According to the nonprofit startup showcase’s website, competition will be fierce: “There isn’t enough time for your 40-slide pitch decks,” it advises. “Have a working demo, and bring your A-game. Oh yeah, prepare to schedule a few meetings with the investors in attendance too.”

The $100,000 convertible note comes from two of the newest venture capital firms in Southeast Michigan: Ludlow Ventures LLC of Southfield and Detroit Venture Partners LLC, the new firm from Dan Gilbert, Josh Linker, and Brian Hermelin.

“A company will make its pitch and walk out three hours later with a check, which is cool,” said Jonathon Triest, managing partner of Ludlow Ventures. “We hope to make it an annual event.”

To apply to make a presentation, startups should head over to FundedbyNight.com. There is no fee, although applicants have to cover their own travel expenses to FutureMidwest, held April 28-29 at Detroit’s Eastern Market. Of all the applicants, the top 25 startups will get the chance to make their pitches Thursday afternoon in person at the conference, with a winner named the same night.

About 700 people attended FutureMidwest last year, and nearly 1,000 are expected next month. The terms of the convertible note from Funded by Night are posted on its website.

Winner of the Twin Cities Startup Weekend in September 2010, QONQR (pronounced pronounced “conquer”) is one of 40 startups (and the only startup from the Midwest) selected to present at the Third Annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Accelerator in Austin, Texas, which begins this Friday.

Designed by a group of Minnesota-based developers and friends over the course of one single startup weekend, QONQR is a unique, location-based app that the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal called a “cross between Foursquare and the classic board game Risk.” QONQR was one of the startups featured at midVenturesLAUNCH.

Emphasizing the real-life feel of this app, players capture the geographic areas that they are actually in by sending nanobots to defeat enemy armies there; users in remote locations can also participate by purchasing virtual missiles to attack other areas.

Essentially, what this means is QONQR is a massively multiplayer geosocial game that takes place on the boardgame of the world.

Justin Peck, who created the game along with partners Scott Davis, Andy Pickett, and Jessy Houle, said in a February news release, “The idea was something in my head for a while, but I started to think seriously about how it could work in the days leading up to Startup Weekend. The name came to me while I was standing in line, waiting to pitch the idea to the group, and we registered the domain name (www.Qonqr.com) five minutes later while we were watching the others present.”

On the potential of this game, the Android Community wrote, “Overall this has the opportunity to be a great game that involves lots of people. It could be a lot better than many of the current location based games currently in the Android Market.”

Partnering with Minnesota-based W3i in its marketing efforts, QONQR believes it may see one million installations of its app in the coming year.

For more information about QONQR, visit QONQR.com.